Dan. Ay, you mean in a paper of Thursday: it was completely ill-natured, to be sure.

Sir F. Oh, so much the better. Ha! ha ha! I would n't have it otherwise. Jona

Dan. Certainly, it is only to be laughed at, for

Sir F. You don't happen to recollect what the fellow said, do you?

-I

Sneer. Pray, Dangle, Sir Fretful seems a little anxious Sir F. Oh no! anxious, - not I, not the leastone may as well hear, you know. Dan. Sneer, do you recollect?

Sneer. I will. (To Dangle.)

fectly.

Sir F. Well, and pray now might the gentleman say?

Make out something.

but

(Aside.)

Yes, yes, I remember per

Sneer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest invention or original genius whatever; though you are the greatest traducer of all other authors living.

not one idea of your

have n

Sir F. Ha ha! ha!-very good! Sneer. That as to comedy, you own, he believes, even in your common-place book, where stray jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method as the leger of the lost and stolen office.

Sir F. Ha!
la! ha! ha! —very pleasant!

Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill even to steal with taste: but that you glean from the refuse of obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been before you; so that the body of your work is a composition o dregs and sediments, like a bad tavern's worst wine.

Sir F. Ha! ha!

of

Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable, if the thoughts were ever suited to the expression; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic encumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms!

Sir F. Ha ha!

Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey; while your imitations of Shakspeare resemble the mimicry of Falstaff's page, and are about as near the standard of the original.

Sneer. In short, that even the fine passages you steal are of no service to you; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating; so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize !

Sir F. (after great agitation.) Now another person would be vexed at this.

Sneer. Oh! but I would n't have told you, only to divert you.

Sir F. I know it I am diverted. - Ha ha ha! least invention!-Ha! ha! ha! very good!

Sneer. Yes

no genius! Ha! ha! ha!

not the very good!

Dan. A severe rogue! Ha! ha! ha! But you are quite right, Sir Fretful, never to read such nonsense.

Sir F. To be sure-for if there is anything to praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and if it is abuse, why one is always sure to hear of it from one rascally good-natured friend or another!

SHERIDAN.

SCENE 1. · A mountain with mist. (Gesler seen descending with a hunting pole.)

Ges. Alone-alone! and every step the mist
Thickens around me! On these mountain tracks
To lose one's way, they say, is sometimes death!
What, ho! Holloa! No tongue replies to me!
What thunder hath the horror of this silence!
Cursed slaves, to let me wander from them! Ho.
My voice sounds weaker to mine ear; I've not
The strength to call I had; and through my limbs
Cold tremor runs, and sickening faintness seizes
On my heart. O heaven, have mercy!
The color of the hands I lift to thee!
Look only on the strait wherein I stand,
And pity it! Let me not sink-Uphold!
Support me! Mercy!-mercy!

Do not see

Holloa!

(He falls with faintness.)

Albert enters, almost breathless from the fury of the storm.)

Alb. I'll breathe upon this level, if the wind

Will let me.

Ha! a rock to shelter me!

Thanks to it a man! and fainting. Courage, friend!
Courage. A stranger that has lost his

way

Take heart- take heart: you are safe. How feel you now? Ges. Better.

Alb. You have lost your way upon the hills?

Ges. I have.

Alb. I know the way; the track I've come

Is harder far to find.

Ges. The track you have come!

What mean you? Sure

You have not been still farther in the mountains?

Alb. I have traveled from Mount Faigel.

Ges. No one with thee?

Alb. No one but Him.

Ges. Do you not fear these storms?

Alb. He's in the storm.

Ges. And there are torrents, too,

That must be crossed!

Alb. He's by the torrent too.
Ges. You are but a child.

Alb. He will be with a child.

Ges. You are sure you know the way ?

Alb. 'Tis but to keep the side of yonder stream.
Ges. But guide me safe, I'll give thee gold.

Alb. I'll guide thee safe without.

Ges. Here's earnest for thee. Here

I'll double that,

Yea, triple it but let me see the gate of Altorf.

Why do you refuse the gold? Take it.

Alb. No.

Ges. You shall.

Alb. I will not.

Ges. Why?

Alb. Because

I do not covet it;

and though I did,

He should become a tenant of the city:
He would gain by it.

Alb. Not so much as he might lose by it.
Ges. What might he lose by it?

Alb. Liberty.

Ges. Indeed!

Alb. He did.

Ges. His name?

He also taught thee that?!

Alb. This is the way to Altorf, sir.

Ges. I would know thy father's name.

Alb. The day is wasting

we have far to go.

Ges. Thy father's name, I say!

Alb. I will not tell it thee.

Ges. Not tell it me! Why?

Alb. You may be an enemy of his.
Ges. May be a friend.

Alb. May be; but should you be
An enemy although I would not tell you

My father's name

-I would guide you safe to Altorf

Will you follow me ?

Ges. Never mind thy father's name;

What would it profit me to know it? Thy hand;
We are not enemies.

Alb. I never had an enemy.

Ges. Lead on.

Alb. Advance your staff

As you descend, and fix it well. Come on.

Ges. What! must we take that steep?

Alb. 'Tis nothing! Come,

I'll go before. Never fear

-

come on! come on!

(Exeunt.)

(1s, returning.)

SCENE 2.The Gate of Altorf. (Enter Gesler and Albert.)

Alb. You are at the gate of Altorf.

Ges. Tarry, boy!

Alb. I would be gone; I am waited for.

Ges. Come back;

Who waits for thee? Come, tell me; I am rich

And powerful, and can reward.

Alb. "T is close

Alb. Why do you desire to know it?

Ges. You have served me,

And I would thank him, if I chanced to pass
His dwelling.

All. 'T would not please him that a service
So trifling should be made so much of. cap
Ges. Trifling! You have saved my life.
Alb. Then do not question me,

But let me go.

Ges. When I have learned from thee

Thy father's name. What, ho!

Sol. (Within.) Who's there?

Ges. Gesler.

Alb. Ha, Gesler!)

(Knocks.)

(Soldiers enter.)

Ges. (To the soldiers.) Seize him. Wilt thou tell me

Thy father's name? un

Alb. No.

Ges. I can bid them cast thee

Into a dungeon! Wilt thou tell it now ?

Alb. No.

Ges. I can bid them strangle thee! Wilt tell it?
Alb. Never.

Ges. Away with him! Send Sarnem to me.

Behind that boy I see the shadow of

(Soldiers take Albert off.)

A hand must wear my fetters, or 't will try

To strip me of my power. How I loathed the free

And fearless air with which he trod the hills!

I wished some way

To find the parent nest of this fine eaglet,

And harrow it! I'd like to clip the broad

And full grown wing that taught his tender pinion

So bold a flight.

Ha, Sarnem! have the slaves

Attending me returned ?

Sar. They have.

Ges. You'll see

That every one of them be laid in fetters.

Sar. I will.

Sar. A mountaineer.

Ges. You'd say so, saw you him

Upon the hills; he walks them like their lord!

(Enter Sarnem.)