on the sympathies of the public, and in the year after appeared "The Maid of Orleans," in which the author again availed himself of a personage of general interest and well suited to the chivalric demands of his generous nature. In "The Bride of Messina," which appeared in 1803, the author attempted a revival of the classic form and interest, with much success in the purely poetic and lyrical portions, with little in the requirements of the stage. His next and last play, produced in 1804, the year before his death, "William Tell," is one of his greatest dramatic triumphs, simple, energetic, truthful, inspired by the mountain air of liberty. It was a noble work with which to close a life devoted to the interests of freedom. The end was at hand. In the spring of 1805, the pulmonary disease, which had long hung

heavily about him, was pressing to its inevitable result. A feverish attack at the end of April confined him to his house at Weimar, where he had of late resided; it increased in force, and, on the 9th of May, terminated his life. His mind had wandered; but at the close he was in possession of his faculties. He took a calm farewell of his friends and family, and directed that his funeral should be conducted, according to the tenor of his life, in a simple, private manner. He passed away at evening, looking upon the setting sun. On being asked, shortly before his death, how he felt, he said, " Calmer and calmer," and his last recorded observation in view of his departure was, "Many things were growing plain and clear to him." He was buried at night, borne to the grave by young students and artists.

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ENRY GRATTAN, the eloquent Irish patriot and statesman, was born in the city of Dublin on the 3d of July, 1746. His father, James Grattan, was of an old and respectable family, several of whose members were highly appreciated for their virtues by Dean Swift. He was a barrister by profession, for many years Recorder of Dublin, and represented the city in the Irish parliament from 1761, until his death, five years later. He was married to a daughter of Chief Justice Marly an eminent name in the Irish annals, illustrated by many characteristic acts. One of these ancestors, Sir John Marly, was greatly distinguished in the seventeenth century on the royalist side in the tumults of the times, when he suffered heavy losses for his allegiance to King Charles. He was the great grandfather of the chief justice, of whom a curious professional anecdote is told. He prided himself on his expertness as a swordsman, and in a duel, ran his opponent through the body with a long sword, on which the Twelve Apostles were stamped. The wound, not being mortal, the chief justice remarked that his adversary had "got the benefit of the trial

by jury, and that the twelve had allow ed him to escape." One of his children was the accomplished Bishop of Waterford. "Few families in Ireland," says Grattan's biographer, Madden, who is disposed to trace much of his natural genius to his mother, "could boast of a greater union of talent, learning and virtue, than were to be found in the Marlys."

A characteristic incident is mentioned of Grattan's boyhood. His first school-master in Dublin subjected him to a degrading punishment for some neglect in translating a passage of Ovid, calling upon him to kneel in presence of the scholars, and summoning the footman to call him "an idle boy." The footman declined this impertinent request, and the youthful Grattan, resenting this act of tyranny, insisted on leaving the school-passing to another in the city, where his high personal qualities were even then valued by his companions. At the age of thirteen, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he made the acquaintance of several students afterwards distinguished in the political history of Ireland; of Foster, who became speaker of the Irish House of Commons; of

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Robert, afterwards Judge Day, and of Fitzgibbon, subsequently Earl of Clare and Lord Chancellor. But literature rather than politics seems to have engrossed young Grattan's attention. He formed an acquaintance at this time with a young man named Broome, with whom he corresponded in letters written after the manner of Pope, who was then in the ascendant, and whose style he imitated. At the close of his university life in 1767, he proceeded to London to go through the usual terms at the Middle Temple, to qualify himself for admission to the bar.

Lord Chatham was then in the ascendant in the political world, the most illustrious statesman and orator of his times. Grattan admired the heroic attitude of the man, his ardent love of country, his personal independence, the vigor of his thoughts and actions; and fascinated by his eloquence, so congenial to his own turn of mind, became a constant attendant on the debates in the House of Lords. His powers were kindled by the man, and we owe much that is peculiar in the development of the mental powers and style of Grattan to the impetus which he received from the speeches of Chatham. One of his earliest compositions, written while he was at the Temple, was a character of his illustrious idol, marked already by that vigorous expression, startling emphasis and rich efflorescence of language, which, chastened and strengthened, distinguished his subsequent parliamentary eloquence.

There was much that was romantic and visionary in the habits of Grattan at this period. "Sorrow," we are told by Madden, "for the death of a sister,

whom he passionately loved, drove him from London, and, in conjunction with his friend Robert Day, he took a house in Windsor Forest. Here he led a desultory life, more congenial with the unsettled reverie of a poetical mind, than with the hard ambition of a politician. His ways it must be admitted, were rather eccentric. The common part of mankind would have believed him out of his senses. He spent whole nights rambling about the forest, and delighted to lose himself in the thickest plantations. The scenery had all the charms of poetical association, besides its own natural beauties, to engage the cultivated mind and impassioned nature of Grattan. He seems to have intensely enjoyed the liberty of wandering by himself through the forest, on the moonlight nights; now startling a herd of deer from their bed of fern; or anon losing himself in some shadowy thicket. During these poetical rambles, his mind, we may be assured, was not idle, and the habit of indulging in poetical sensations, may be said to have colored his whole existence." He had also a habit of talking aloud to himself and practising public speaking in solitude. In one of his moonlight excursions through Windsor Forest, the story is told of his coming upon a gibbet, which he was addressing in his vigorous way, when he was tapped upon the shoulder by some person who happened to be near at the time, who interrupted him with the humorous inquiry, "How the devil did you get down?" Pope had celebrated Windsor Forest in verse, and Grattan would willingly have rhymed after him; but his genius was cramped