ANNE BULLEN.

Le Lord Chambellan. Bonjour, mesdames. Peut-on vous demander le secret de votre entretien?

Anne. Cela ne mérite pas que vous nous le demandiez, mylord. Nous déplorions les chagrins de notre maîtresse.

Le Lord Chambellan. C'est une occupation des plus humaines, et qui sied bien à des femmes. Il y a lieu d'espérer que tout ira bien. Anne. Je prie Dieu que cela soit!

Le Lord Chambellan. Vous avez une âme compatissante; et les bénédictions du ciel sont le partage des cœurs qui vous resemblent. Pour vous prouver, belle dame, que je parle en toute sincérité, et que vos nombreuses vertus ont attiré l'attention en haut lieu, sa majesté vous envoie ses compliments respectueux, et se propose de vous honorer du titre éclatant de marquise de Pembroke, auquel il daigne ajouter une pension annuelle de mille livres sterling.

Anne. Je ne sais comment lui témoigner ma reconnaissance; tout ce que j'ai est sans valeur; mes prières n'ont point de vertu efficace; mes vœux ne sont que d'impuissantes paroles; et toutefois des prières et des vœux sont tout ce que je puis offrir en retour. Je supplie votre seigneurie de vouloir bien être auprès de sa majesté, l'interprète de mes sentiments de gratitude et de dévouement, tels que peut les offrir une fille timide. Je prie le ciel pour la prolongation de ses jours et de son règne.

Le Lord Chambellan. Madame, je ne manquerai pas d'appuyer par mon suffrage la haute opinion que le roi a conçue de vous. (A part.) Je l'ai suffisamment examinée; la beauté et la vertu sont tellement unies en elle, qu'elles ont captivé le cœur du roi. Et qui sait si de cette dame ne doit pas naître un glorieux joyau qui éclairera cette île de sa

splendeur?—(à Anne de Bullen.) Je vais trouver le roi et lui dire que

je vous ai parlé.

HENRI VIII.--Acte II. Scène III.

LAVINIA.

"Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,

The whilst their own birds famish in their nests:

O be to me, though thy hard heart say no,

Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!"

THE first scene of Titus Andronicus presents us with the chief actors of the play. SATURNINUS, son of the late Emperor of Rome; BASSANIUS, his brother; and TITUS ANDRONICUS, a general, who has obtained victories over the Goths, are all candidates for the imperial purple. LAVINIA, the daughter of TITUS, is beloved by BASSANIUS; and, out of respect to her relations, he affects to hold his chances of election as secondary to theirs.

LAVINIA enters at the obsequies of her brothers; and having offered a daughter's filial thanks for the safe return of her father, receives his blessing, kneeling at his feet. TITUS generously renounces his claim to the throne, in favour of SATURNINUS, who returns this favour by promising to make LAVINIA his wife, and Empress. BASSANIUS, however, will not so readily part with his beloved one: he claims her as his betrothed; and one of her brothers, in helping him, is slain by her father TITUs, as a traitor to the Emperor. SATURNINUS, however, being offended, rejects LAVINIA, and marries TAMORA, Queen of the Goths, whom TITUS had brought a prisoner to Rome.

Dissembling her object, TAMORA overrules SATURNINUS, when he would have punished BASSANIUS for claiming LAVINIA, hoping by this to revenge herself on TITUS and his family, at some future time, for the loss of her son, who had been sacrificed to appease the manes of TITUS' sons.

In a desert part of a forest, TAMORA meets with AARON, a Moor, beloved by her. He foretels

"This is the day of doom for Bassanius;
His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day."

BASSANIUS and LAVINIA enter, and salute TAMORA as Empress; but, discovering the Moor, threaten to acquaint the Emperor of her deceit. CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, her sons, enter, and the latter stabs BASSANIUS. LAVINIA is driven away from her dying husband, vainly entreating mercy at the hands of TAMORA. But her Roman spirit is at last roused, and she vents all her indignation on the Empress, who commits her to the cruelties of her two sons.

TAMORA, by stratagem, fixes the death of BASSANIUS on the sons of TITUS. Meanwhile, LAVINIA has been brutally treated by CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, who bring her in with her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out. MARCUS, her uncle, in vain asks the cause of her misfortunes, for she can neither speak nor write an account of them. The scene shifts, and introduces MARTIUS and QUINTIUS, who are about to be executed for the murder of BASSANIUS, of which they have been accused by TAMORA. TITUS pleads their cause; and LAVINIA, eloquent in the silence which the barbarity of the Empress has forced on her, is brought before the tribune. AARON, the Moor, contrives, by inducing TITUS to cut off his hand to save his sons, to fix all the murders on his head.

LAVINIA, by turning to a page in Ovid's Metamorphosis, is enabled to tell her family how, and by whom, she has been so fearfully treated. They unitedly determine on revenge, and effect it in a manner in which human nature is outraged to the lowest degree.