the foul murder of the bearer, the Greek Phryxus; the second, The Argonauts, in four acts, contains so much of their celebrated expedition for revenge and the recovery of the fleece as had its scene in Colchis; and the third, in five acts, is in name and subject, the usual tragedy of Medea. "The work is written," said an early writer in the North American Review," in irregular verse with great freedom of spirit; full of action, though the leading incidents which form its material are so few; and full of the deepest interest, though these incidents are so familiar to us. The story is of the wildest and most revolting kind; yet it is so managed as never to disgust us, and scarcely to seem improbable. The characters are so true to nature that everything else seems natural. The Medea particularly is conceived and sketched in the happiest manner."

THE PARTING OF JASON AND MEDEA.

[A wild, solitary country, enclosed with trees and rocks. A cottage in view.]

Peasant, entering.-How fair the morning rises! Gra

cious gods!

After the tempests of this dismal night

Your sun lifts up himself with a new beauty.

[Goes into the cottage.]

Jason, coming feebly in, leaning on his sword.-I can no farther. Woe !-my head's on fire,

My blood boils through its veins, my parched tongue

stiffens.

Is no one there? Must I die thus alone?

Here is the hut, which used to give me shelter,
When once, a wealthy man, a wealthy father

I hither came, full of new wakened hopes. [Knocks.]
Only one draught! only a place to die in!

VOL. XII.-5

Peasant, coming out.-Who knocks? Poor man, who art thou? Faint to death!

Jason. Only one cup of water! I am Jason, The hero of the fleece a chief, a king,

The Argonautic leader, Jason I !

Peasant. And art thou Jason? Then away with thee! Pollute my house not with thy hateful tread.

Hast thou not slain the daughter of my king?
Then ask not help before his subjects' doors.
[Returns into the hut.]

Jason. He goes, and leaves me in the open way,
In the dust, for travellers to tread upon.
Death, I invoke thee, bear me to my children.

[Sinks down.] [Medea advances from behind a rock, and stands before him, with the fleece thrown over her shoulders like a mantle.]

Medea.-Jason!

Jason, half raising himself.-Who calls? Ha! see I right? Thou there!

Monster! Must I still have thee in my sight?

My sword! my sword !-O wo is me! my limbs
Refuse their office now, spent, spent, and useless.
Medea. Forbear, thou harm'st me not! I am an
offering

To bleed before another hand than thine.

Jason. Where hast thou laid my children?
Medea.
They are mine!

Jason. Where hast thou laid them?

Medea.

They are in a place

Where it is better with them, than with us.
Jason. Dead are they, dead!

Medea. Thou think'st the worst thing death.
I know one that is worse far,-to be wretched,
Hadst thou not valued life at greater price
Than it deserves, it were not thus with us.

Ours is the suffering, which our boys are saved from. Jason. Thou speak'st thus, standing calmly?

Medea.

Calmly Calmly!

Were not my bosom still shut up to thee,

As it has always been, thou would'st see anguish,

Which rolling boundless, like a fiery sea,
Engulphs the single fragments of my sorrow,
That welter, lost in the horrible infinite.
I mourn not that the children are no more,
I mourn that they were ever—that we are.
Jason.-O wo! wo!

Medea.-Nay, bear what is laid upon thee,
For well thou know'st thyself hast brought it down.
As now thou liest on the bare earth before me,
So once lay I before thee, when in Colchis,
And prayed thee to forbear, and thou forbor'st not!
Blindly and madly thou would'st grasp the hazard,
Though I still cried to thee, thou graspest death.
Then take what thou so proudly didst demand--
Death. As for me, I now am parting from thee
Forever and forever. 'Tis the last time-
Through all eternity it is the last-

That I shall ever speak to thee, my husband.
Farewell!-After all the joys of earlier days,
In all the sorrows which now darken round us,
In front of all the grief that's yet to come,
I bid thee now farewell, my husband.
A life all full of trouble breaks upon thee,
But whatsoe'er betide, hold out,

And be in suffering greater than in action.
Would'st thou give way to anguish, think on me,
And comfort take from my far heavier sorrow,
Who've wrought the work you only left unfinished.
I go away, the unsupportable smart

Bearing forth with me through the lone, wide world.
A poniard's stroke were mercy-but not so!
Medea shall not by Medea perish.

My early years of life have made me worthy

A better judge, than lost Medea is.

I go to Delphos. At the fatal altar,

Whence Phryxus bore the golden fleece away,
Will I restore to the dark god his own,

Spared sacred even by the bloody flame,

That folded round the form of Corinth's princess.
There will I show me to the priests, and ask them
Whether my head shall fall in sacrifice,
Or they will drive me to the furthest deserts,

In longer life to find but longer torture.

Know'st thou the sign, for which thou hast so struggled, Which was thy glory, and which seemed thy good? What is the good of earth? A shadow !

What is the fame of earth? A dream!

Thou poor man! who hast fondly dreamt of shadows! The dream is broken, but the night endures.

Now I depart-Farewell, my husband!

We who for misery found each other

In misery separate.

Farewell!

Jason.-Alone! deserted! O my children!
Medea.-Bear it!

Jason. All lost!

Medea.-Be patient!

Jason.-O for death!

Medea.

Repent!

I go-and ne'er again your eye beholds me!

[As she turns to depart the curtain falls.]

-From the Golden Fleece, FROTHINGHAM'S translation.

GRIMM, JAKOB LUDWIG, and WILHELM KARL,

German philologists and juvenile writers, born at Hanau, the former January 4, 1785, the latter February 24, 1786; both died in Berlin, Jakob on September 20, 1863, and Wilhelm, December 16, 1859. Jakob, the elder brother, studied law at the University of Marburg, and in 1814-15 was Secretary of Legation at the Congress of Vienna. From 1816 to 1830 he was Librarian at Cassel. In 1830 he became Professor at Göttingen, where he lectured upon the antiquities of the German language, literature, and law; but in 1837 he was removed from his professorship on account of his political opinions. In 1841 he was called to Berlin as member of the Academy of Sciences and as Professor. He took an important part in the political movements of 1848 and 1849, acting with the Moderate Liberal party. He wrote several works, the most important being, Ueber den Altdeutschen Meistersänger (1811); Deutsche Grammatik (4 vols., 1819-37); Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer (1828); Deutsch Mythologie (1835); Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache (1848), and Weisthümer, a collection of German proverbs (4 vols., 1840-53).

Wilhelm, the younger brother, was first associated with Jakob at Cassel and at Göttingen, where he was made a Professor; and was also removed in 1837. He accompanied his brother to Berlin,