As ancient custom's funeral rites enjoin.
These sadly pleasing rites at length discharged,
Nor aught unfinished of their sire's cominand,
The Infernal Jove deep thundered from beneath.
The timid virgins trembled as they heard,

Then clasped their father's knees, dissolved in tears,
And smote their breasts with wailings long and loud.
He, when he heard that strange and sudden sound,
Pressed them in fond embrace; and "O my children,"
He said, "to-day ye have no more a father;
The grave hath closed o'er all that once was mine;
And your long painful task is now fulfilled-
Painful I know, my daughters, though one thought
Still soothes and sweetens these protracted toils;
For never, never in a father's breast
Glowed fonder love than I have felt for you;
Of this bereft, on what remains of life
Shall better fortune smile.' With frequent sobs,
Locked in each other's arms, they thus bewailed;
But when their piercing cries an instant ceased,
And the first thrill was hushed, silence ensued,-
A silence, oh how awful!-From beneath,
With deep mysterious voice, called one unseen,
While our damp hair in stiffening horror stood.
Again, and yet again, the God exclaimed,
'Come, Edipus, why pause we to depart?
Come, Edipus; for thou hast tarried long.'
Soon as he heard the summons of the God,
He called the royal Theseus to his side,
And thus addressed him, 'Dear and noble king!
Thy hand, th' unbroken pledge of spotless faith,
Give to my children; ye, my daughters, too,
Like pledge return; and promise me, O King,
That thou wilt ne'er betray them; but perform
Whate'er thy soul, benevolent, may deem
Congenial to their welfare.' Our good Lord,
Like a true King, the promise promptly
promptly gave,
And stamped it with an oath. Accomplished this,
Straight in his feeble arms did Œdipus
Embrace his daughters, and thus bade farewell ;-
• Ye, my loved children, yield with generous hearts
To stern necessity, and hence retire.

Seek not to see what mortal may not gaze on,
Or hear what never mortal sense may hear.
Away with speed; for to the King alone
To rest, and mark the dread event, is given.'
We heard in wonder, and departed all,
And with the sorrowing virgins from the spot
Receded; backward in short space we gazed,
To seek the stranger; but he was not there.
We marked the King alone, with close-pressed hands
Shading his brow, as if appalled by forms
More terrible than human sight could bear.
A few short moments;-and we saw him bowed
Prostrate-adoring in one prayer the Earth,
And high Olympus, dwelling of the Gods.
But what the vanished stranger's wondrous fate,
Save royal Theseus, man can never tell.
For neither red and angry bolts of Jove
Consumed him as he stood; nor maddening storm
Hath swept his relics to the rolling sea;

Some God conveyed him hence, or yawning earth
Oped a new passage through her pathless caves,
A painless passage to the realms of peace.
Such doom demands no wailing; for he fell
By slow disease unwithered, of mankind
Most wondrous in his doom."

The subject of our poet's "Antigone" is taken from the conclusion of the "Seven Chiefs against Thebes," where the heroic sister of Polynices vows, in defiance of the public edict, that she will confer the rites of sepulture on her hapless brother. In the drama of Sophocles she fulfils this duty, is dragged to trial before Creon, and, though she is affianced to his own son, is sentenced by the tyrant to be shut up in a cavern, and there left to perish. In vain her betrothed Hæmon appeals to his father to reverse her doom; he is repulsed, and rushes from his presence to perpetrate an act of desperation. Her fate, however, is avenged at least by the compunction of her oppressor. Tiresias the prophet appears before Creon, rebukes him for having drawn down fresh wrath from Heaven, and denounces that his own son is to expiate the sacrifice of Antigone. Daunted by this prediction, and exhorted even by the Chorus of his slaves to retract his barbarity, Creon hurries to open the cavern of his victim, but finds her already expired, and her lover franticly watching her corpse. At the sight of his father, Hæmon makes a pass at him with his sword, but, missing the blow, buries the weapon in his own side. The tyrant enters the stage with the dead body of his son; and to crown his contrition, learns that his Queen Eurydice, in despair for the loss of Hæmon, has perished by her own hand, execrating the cruelty of her husband with her latest breath.

Comparing Sophocles with himself, I conceive we cannot place this tragedy at the very head of his works, even enchanting as it is made by the peerless image of Antigone. Yet still, excepting the introduction of Creon's queen towards the close of the piece, who is manifestly brought in for no other purpose than to punish the guilty through the despair of the guiltless, I can perceive no other departure in the piece from Sophocles's usual concinnity of dramatic design; and if one notices that single defect, it is only because the slightest flaws are perceptible in the finest diamonds.

The wilful perversity of Creon-his dogmatic ferocity affecting maxims of policy-his sententious stupidity that counterfeits moralizing wisdom-all the traits that depress him to the vulgar among tyrants, are effective foils to the intelligence and elevation, the beauty and majesty of his victim's character. The contrast between him and Antigone exhibits a base nature degrading one human being beneath the perception of self-interest, and a great nature elevating another above its calculations.

It may be true, that we grudge the exquisite lyric poetry of this piece to be allotted to the lips of Creon's abject Bœotian slaves; but the submissiveness of the Chorus to his cruelty, as it leaves him without any other monitor, demands and gives propriety to the solemn and imposing entrance of Tiresias.

It has been alleged that the character of Antigone is overcharged with severity, in the scene where she rejects the appeal of her sister Ismene, who comes forward on her trial and implores to participate

her fate. But it should be recollected, that the deed for which Antigone is to suffer, had been already done; and that she stood in no further need of a helpmate that the frantic impulse which drove Ismene to accuse herself, might, from her weak though amiable character, be expected to subside, and fail to support her through martyrdom-and that such martyrdom, after all, would have been as useless as it was unmerited. I conceive Antigone, from the poet's page, secretly to pity her sister, and to wish to save her. An austere reception was the only means by which she could screen her from the tyrant's suspicions; and her words-" I grieve whilst I scorn thee"-betray that the heroine's repulse was not unmingled with tenderness.

To modern admiration of the tragedy it may, perhaps, be a still greater stumbling-block, that Antigone, though betrothed to Hæmon, utters not a sentence of amatory affection; and, in her bitterest lamentations at being cut off from the joys of life and the endearing hopes of maternity, gives no token of reciprocating the devoted passion of her lover. Are we to account for this circumstance by the reserve of Greek manners, or by the poet's judgment? In my opinion, to have represented the heroine at one and the same moment devoting herself to religious affection as a sister, and devoured by passion for her betrothed, would have been to challenge our belief to an unimaginable act of virtue. Love is a passion not to be spoken of by halves; and it was better to give us no conception of her attachment to Hæmon, than to have either faintly pourtrayed it, or, by pourtraying it strongly, to have made it incredible that under the influence of such a passion she could have made herself a martyr to sisterly duty.

When we look to the trial of Antigone I think we could hardly figure to ourselves her virgin dignity embellished by any confessions of love. I subjoin a few sentences from the spirited scene. She enters, led by a guard who had witnessed her bestowing the rites of burial on Polynices, before the judgement-seat of Creon.

"Creon. Speak thou, who bend'st to earth thy drooping head;

Antig.

Dost thou deny the fact?

'Twas I.

Deny it? No:

Creon (to the Guard). Retire, for thou art free, and now (turning to Antigone)

Be brief, and tell me, heard'st thou our decree?

Antig. I did; 'twas public; how could I avoid it?
Creon. And dar'st thou then to disobey the law ?
Antig. I had it not froin Jove, nor the just gods

Who rule below; nor could I ever think
A mortal's law of pow'r or strength sufficient
To abrogate th' unwritten law divine,
Immutable, eternal, not like these
Of yesterday, but made ere time began.
Shall man persuade me then to violate

Heaven's great commands, and make the gods my foes ?
Without thy mandate, death had one day come;
For who shall 'scape it? and if now I fall
A little sooner, 'tis the thing I wish.
To those who live in misery like me,
Believe me, king, 'tis happiness to die;
Without remorse I shall embrace my fate;
But to my brother had I left the rites
Of sepulture unpaid, I then indeed

. :

Had been most wretched: this to thee may seem
Madness and folly; if it be, 'tis fit

I should act thus, it but resembles thee.
Creon. Sprung from a sire perverse and obstinate,

Antig.

Creon.

Like him, she cannot bend beneath misfortune;
But know, the proudest hearts may be subdued;
Hast thou not mark'd the hardest steel by fire
Made soft and flexible? myself have seen
By a slight rein the fiery courser held.
'Tis not for slaves to be so haughty; yet
This proud offender, not content, it seems,
To violate my laws, adds crime to crime;
Smiles at my threats, and glories in her guilt.
I am thy captive; thou wouldst have my life;
Will that content thee?

Yes; 'tis all I wish.

Antig. Why this delay then, when thou know'st my words

To thee as hateful are, as thine to me?

Therefore dispatch; I cannot live to do

A deed more glorious; and so these would all (pointing to the Chorus)

Confess, were not their tongues restrain'd by fear;

It is the tyrant's privilege, we know,

To speak and act whate'er he please, uncensur'd.

Lives there another in the land of Thebes,

Creon.

Who thinks as thou dost?

Antig.

Yes, a thousand; these,

These think so too, but dare not utter it."

Francklin's Sophocles

GIFTS AND GIVERS.

It is always safe to begin with a definition: in the present instance it is absolutely necessary to do so. Without further circumlocution, therefore, the reader is requested to understand, that by "a gift" is intended a "quiddam honorarium," sometimes employed in the world as a refreshing fee to benevolence; but much more frequently applied to the furtherance of some especial design; and in all cases an indirect mode of obtaining something for the donor, of more value than itself. "Ce qui paroît générosité n'est souvent (says Rochefoucault modestly, for he might almost have said toujours) qu'une ambition déguisée, qui méprise de petits intérêts pour aller à de plus grands." This is the sort of generosity which will be treated of in the present paper.

There is nothing by which the true nature of a gift is more clearly illustrated, than by what is called giving a dinner; an act in which charity, or even benevolence, is the very last thing thought of. The calling in of beggars from the highway to a feast is recorded but once in the annals of mankind, and that only in a parable. When a man is about that very serious consideration, the giving a dinner, his first object is usually to captivate the good will of some individual, with whom he desires to carry a point. Candidates give dinners to their electors; the Speaker gives parliamentary dinners to the members; and, if scandalous chronicles do not always lie, times have been, when a five hundred pound bank-bill was given under the guests' plate on such an occasion. Mothers give dinners to eldest sons, when they want them to marry their daughters. Hugging barristers give dinners to attorneys, and rising physicians to apothecaries. The only apparent exception to this rule is found in the cabinet-dinners which ministers give to each other: but these being merely arrangements "for the better carrying on of the plot," are exceptions, and thus should be taken accordingly. Clients often give dinners to their lawyers, as patients do to their physicians, thereby feloniously designing to sponge an opinion. This is an ungenerous and insidious attack which cannot too strenuously be resisted. The late Dr. Willan always advised his young medical friends against lending themselves to such schemes; and the courage and ability cannot be sufficiently admired of that honest attorney who "greatly daring dined" indeed with his employer, but, having done so, made the invitation an item in his bill of costs, and set down "to partaking of a leg of mutton and capers, thirteen and fourpence.*

Another important precaution in giving a dinner is the exclusion of all such families as do not give dinners themselves; and such as are at the time in arrear in their repayments. Here the truth comes at once to day; for we openly say that the man who dined with us last, owes us a dinner, thus plainly betraying our sense of the obligation which a diner out contracts, in receiving our gift. The consequences of this notion are so fatal to good society, that if the prejudice were not inveterate, they would long since have led to a more liberal practice. The bringing together people of the most opposite qualities and qualifications, upon the ground of their agreement in the single particular of having discharged all hospitable claims, is the death of a good party; and the frequency of dull tiresome feasts is at once a convincing proof of the prevalence of such sordid ideas, and a faithful interpreter of the genuine signification of the verb " to give."

Dinners likewise are given to great persons, for the sake of that credit which their presence reflects upon the host; a transaction in which patronage is set off against patties, and consideration against curries; in which a star purchases the soup, and a title the turbot; while a place under Government gives its owner a legitimate claim to a place for his feet "under the mahogany." Thus it was said by a late noble peeress, of a poor member of her own caste, that his peerage was as good to him as board wages.

As to giving dinners to those who want them, to feasting poor dependants, bankrupt friends, and insolvent relations, the thing has become almost obsolete; or if, once a year or so, such an act of silliness occurs, it is done in so unostentatious a manner, as plainly shows that the man is ashamed of the transaction: even then, it is most frequently but a sop to Cerberus, a buying off of detraction, or a purchase from sycophancy of a right to indulge airs with impunity.

As it is with dinners, so is it with all other gifts: "you must think, if we give you any thing, we hope to gain by you." The entire world are of the opinion of the ostler of the Elephant and Castle, who demanded payment for a draught of water from his horse-pail, on the special plea, that "nobody gives nothing for nothing." When a tradesman gives credit, let not the debtor imagine that it is " pour l'amour de ses beaux yeux:" it is the hope of an usurious interest that buys the gift. When an old miser gives a penny to a beggar, it is in the desire

* The result of this transaction deserves recording. The client made a counter demand for meat and drink, which the attorney discharged; but repaid himself by convicting his host in a heavy penalty for selling wine without a licence.