be down here again directly;" and Ziska | the carriage and horses well enough. But with his head nodded at the chair in which of a morning she was accustomed to go about his mother was wont to sit. Nina, whose mind was quite full of her business, was determined to go to work at once. "I'm glad to have you alone for a moment, Ziska," she said. "And so am I very glad; only I wish I hadn'ttaken physic, it make one so uncomfortable." At this moment Nina had in her heart no charity towards her cousin, and did not care for his discomfort. "Ziska," she said, "Anton Trendellsohn wants to have the papers about the houses in the Kleinseite. He says that they are his, and you have them. Ziska hated Anton Trendellsohn. hardly knowing why he hated him. "If Trendell sohn wants anything of us," said he, "why does he not come to the office? He knows where to find us." "Yes, Ziska, he knows where to find you; but, as he says, he has no business with you no business as to which he can make a demand. He thinks, therefore, you would merely bid him begone." 66 Very likely. One doesn't want to see more of a Jew than one can help." "That Jew, Ziska, owns the house in which father lives. That Jew, Ziska, is the best friend that that that father has." the house in a pale-tinted wrapper, which, at last? 66 66 so you've come Yes; I've come, aunt. And as I want to say something very particular to you yourself, perhaps Ziska won't mind going out of the room for a minute." Nina had not sat down since she had been in the room, and was now standing before her aunt with almost militant firmness. She was resolved to rush at once at the terrible subject which she had in hand, but she could not do so in the presence of her cousin Ziska. I'm sorry you think so, Nina." "How can I help thinking it? You can't deny, nor can uncle, that the houses belong to him. The papers got into uncle's hands when he and father were together, and I think they ought to be given up now. Father thinks that the Trendellsohns should" have them. Even though they are Jews they have a right to their own." "You know nothing about it, Nina. How should you know about such things as that?" "I am driven to know. Father is ill, and cannot come himself." "Oh, laws! I am so uncomfortable. I never will take stuff from Lotta Luxa again. She thinks a man is the same as a horse." This little episode put a stop to the conversation about the title-deeds, and then Madame Zamenoy entered the room. Madame Zamenoy was a woman of a portly demeanour, well fitted to do honour by her personal presence to that carriage and horses with which Providence and an indulgent husband had blessed her. And when she was dressed in her full panoply of French millinery the materials of which had come from England, and the manufacture of which had taken place in Prague - she looked Ziska groaned audibly. "Ziska isn't well this morning," said Madame Zamenoy, and I do not wish to have him disturbed.' "Then perhaps you'll come into the front parlour, aunt." "What can there be that you cannot say before Ziska?" "There is something, aunt," said Nina. If there were a secret, Madame Zamenoy decidedly wished to hear it, and therefore, after pausing to consider the matter for a moment or two, she led the way into the front parlour. "And now, Nina, what is it? I hope you have not disturbed me in this way for anything that is a trifle." "It is no trifle to me, aunt. I am going to be married to Anton Trendellsohn." She said the words slowly, standing bolt-upright, at her greatest height, as she spoke them, and looking her aunt full in the face with something of defiance both in her eyes and in the tone of her voice. She had almost said Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew; and when her speech was finished, and admitted of no addition, she reproached herself with pusillanimity in that she had omitted the word which had always been so odious, and would now be doubly odious-odious to her aunt in a tenfold degree. Madame Zamenoy stood for a while speechless-struck with horror. The tidings which she heard were so unexpected, so strange, and so abominable, that they seemed at first to crush her. Nina was her niece her sister's child; and though she might be repudiated, reviled, persecuted, and perhaps punished, still she must retain her relationship to her injured relatives. And it seemed to Madame Zamenoy as though the marriage of which Nina spoke was a thing to be done at once, out of hand as though the disgusting nuptials were to take place on that day or on the next, and could not now be avoided. It occurred to her that old Balatka himself was a consenting party, and that utter degradation was to fall upon the family instantly. There was that in Nina's air and manner, as she spoke of her own iniquity, which made the elder woman feel for the moment that she was helpless to prevent the evil with which she was threatened. "Anton Trendellsohn a Jew," she said, at last. แ "Yes, aunt; Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew. I am engaged to him as his wife." There was a something of doubtful futurity in the word engaged, which_gave a slight feeling of relief to Madame Zamenoy, and taught her to entertain a hope that there might be yet room for escape. "Marry a Jew, Nina," she said; "it cannot be possible!" "It is possible, aunt. Other Jews in Prague have married Christians." "Yes, I know it. There have been outcasts among us low enough so to degrade themselves low women who were called Christians. There has been no girl connected with decent people who has ever so degraded herself. Does your father know of this?" "Not yet." Your father knows nothing of it, and you come and tell me that you are engaged -to a Jew!" Madame Zamenoy had so ar recovered herself, that she was now able to let her anger mount above her misery. "You wicked girl! Why have you come to me with such a story as this?" "Because it is well that you should know it. I did not like to deceive you, even by secrecy. You will not be hurt. You need not notice me any longer. I shall be lost to you, and that will be all." "If you were to do such a thing, you Do you "Yes, aunt. I shall do it. think I will be false to my troth?" "Your troth to a Jew is nothing. Father Jerome will tell you so.” "I shall not ask Father Jerome. Father Jerome, of course, will condemn me; but I shall not ask him whether or not I am to to keep my promise-my solemn promise." "And why not?" Then Nina paused a moment before she answered. But she did answer, and answered with that bold defiant air which at first had disconcerted her aunt. "I will ask no one, aunt Sophie, because I love Anton Trendellsohn, and have told him that I love him." "Pshaw!" "I have nothing more to say, aunt. I thought it right to tell you, and now I will go." She had turned to the door, and had her hand upon the lock when her aunt stopped her. 66 Wait a moment, Nina. You have had your say; now you must hear me." "I will hear you if you say nothing against him." 66 I shall say what I please." "Then I will not hear you." Nina again made for the door, but her aunt intercepted her retreat. "Of course you can stop me, aunt, in that way if you choose." You bold, bad girl! 66 "You may say what you please about myself." 66 You are a bold, bad girl!” "Perhaps I am. Father Jerome says we are all bad. And as for boldness, I have to be bold.". "You are bold and brazen. Marry a Jew! It is the worst thing a Christian girl could do." "No, it is not. There are things ten times worse than that." "How you could dare to come and tell me!" "I did dare, you see. If I had not told you, you would have called me sly." "You are sly." "I am not sly. You tell me I am bad and bold and brazen." see your father and Father Jerome, and your uncle will see the police. You will be locked up, and Anton Trendellsohn will be sent out of Bohemia. That is how it will end. Now you may go." And Nina went her way. just as they please among the men," said Lotta. "But a Jew!" said Madame Zamenoy. "If it had been any kind of a Christian, I could understand it." "Trendellsohn has such a hold upon her, and upon her father," said Lotta. "But a Jew! She has been to confession, has she not?" 66 Regularly," said Lotta Luxa. "Dear, dear! what a false hypocrite! And at mass?" "Four mornings a-week always." "And to tell me, after it all, that she means to marry a Jew. Of course, Lotta, we must prevent it." "But how? Her father will do whatever she bids him." "Father Jerome would do anything for Lotta. "She is as obstinate as a mule when she pleases. She is not like other girls. You cannot frighten her out of anything." Her aunt's threat of seeing her father and the priest was nothing to Nina. It was the natural course for her aunt to take, and a course in opposition to which Nina was prepared to stand her ground firmly. But the allusion to the police did frighten her. She had thought of the power which the law might have over her very often, and had spoken of it in awe to her lover. He had re-assured her, explaining to her that, as the law now stood in Austria, no one but her father could prevent her marriage with a Jew, and that he could only do so till she was of age. Now Nina would be twenty-me." one on the first of the coming month, and "Father Jerome can do little or nothing therefore would be free, as Anton told her, if she has the bit between her teeth," said to do with herself as she pleased. But still there came over her a cold feeling of fear when her aunt spoke to her of the police. The law might give the police no power over her; but was there not a power in the hands of those armed men whom she saw around her on every side, and who were seldom countrymen of her own, over and above the law? Were there not still dark dungeons and steel locks and hard hearts? Though the law might justify her, how would that serve her, if men- -if men and women, were determined to persecute her? As she walked home, however, she resolved that dark dungeons and steel locks and hard hearts might do their worst against her. She had set her will upon one thing in this world, and from that one thing no persecution should drive her. They might kill her, perhaps. Yes, they might kill her; and then there would be an end of it. But to that end she would force them to come before she would yield. So much she swore to herself as she walked home on that morning to the Kleinseite. Madame Zamenoy, when Nina left her, sat in solitary consideration for some twenty minutes, and then called for her chief confidant, Lotta Luxa. With many expressions of awe, and with much denunciation of her niece's iniquity, she told to Lotta what she had heard, speaking of Nina as one who was utterly lost and abandoned. Lotta, however, did not express so much indignant surprise as her mistress expected, though she was willing enough to join in abuse against Nina Balatka. "That comes of letting girls go about "I'll try, at least," said Madame Zamenoy. that is, "Yes, we can try," said Lotta. "Would not the mayor help us if we were driven to go to that? "I doubt if he could do anything. He would be afraid to use a high hand. He is Bohemian. The head of the police might do something, if we could get at him." "She might be taken away." "Where could they take her?" asked Lotta. "No; they could not take her anywhere." "Not into a convent-out of the way somewhere in Italy?" "Oh, heaven, no! They are afraid of that sort of thing now. All Prague would know of it, and would talk; and the Jews would be stronger than the priests; and the English people would hear of it, and there would be the very mischief." "The times have come to be very bad, Lotta." "That's as may be," said Lotta, as though she had her doubts upon the subject. "That's as may be. But it isn't easy to put a young woman away now without her will. Things have changed-partly for the worse, perhaps, and partly for the better. Things are changing every day. My wonder is that he should wish to marry her.” "The men think her very pretty. Ziska is mad about her," said Madame Zamenoy. "But Ziska is a calf to Anton Trendell sohn. Anton Trendellsohn has cut his wise | pleasant to her eyes. That her niece teeth. Like them all, he loves his money; and she has not got a kreutzer." "But he has promised to marry her. You may be sure of that." "Very likely. A man always promises that when he wants a girl to be kind to him. But why should he stick to it? What can he get by marrying Nina, -a penniless girl, with a pauper for a father? The Trendellsohns have squeezed that sponge dry already." This was a new light to Madame Zamenoy, and one that was not altogether un should have promised herself to a Jew was dreadful, and that her niece should be afterwards jilted by the Jew was a poor remedy. But still it was a remedy, and therefore she listened. "If nothing else can be done, we could perhaps put him against it," said Lotta Luxa. Madame Zamenoy on that occasion said but little more, but she agreed with her servant that it would be better to resort to any means than to submit to the degradation of an alliance with the Jew. From the Saturday Review. THE Lives of Shakspeare will soon, to all appearance, rival the number of his plays; and their abundance is the more remarkable when it is contrasted with the scantiness of the materials for them. It is fortunate that there is no doubt as to his birthplace, or perhaps far more than seven market-towns with mayors and aldermen, "New Places" and mulberry trees, would be now contesting for his nativity within their liberties; and it is fortunate also that the site of his grave is beyond question, or there would be no less strife for it than there is said to have been for the sepulchre of Moses. Shakspeare's cradle and coffin are indisputably at Stratford-upon-Avon, and the only difficulty has been, and is, to discover how he employed the interim between his occupation of the first and of the last. And Mr. Hallam, in his introduction to the Literature of Europe (vol. ii. p., 176 ed. 1843), is nearly as concise in his comment on Shakspearean biographies as Steevens : — All that insatiable curiosity and unwearied diligence have hitherto detected about Shaks peare serves rather to disappoint and perplex us than to furnish the slightest illustration of his character. It is not the register of his baptism, or the draft of his will, or the orthography of his name that we seek. No letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, no character of him drawn with any fulness by a contemporary has been produced. A parallel arrangement of the bare facts of these numerous biographies after the manner of Origen's Hexapla, or after that of Bentley's proposed but never executed edition of the Greek lexicographers, would be a very useful and curious work. It would enable us to see at one glance the different proportions of fact, surmise, and fancy expended upon these records. With such an apparatus criticus we might divide the annals of the poet into mythical, historical, and fabulous sections; we might cling to the ore, get rid of the dross, and keep, on its good behaviour, the doubtful metal. It is not easy to refute these assertions, yet Of the various records of Shakspeare, Mr. we cannot but think them somewhat short We know more of ShaksDyce's and Mr. Grant White's are beyond of the truth. comparison the most satisfactory; and, possessing these, unless some unlooked-for and not very likely discovery should be made of fresh materials, we may be nearly sure that we possess all things known of Shakspeare. Other writers have endeavoured, by putting peare than the commentator or the historian will allow, but our information is not precisely of the kind afforded by many of the poet's biographers. The majority of those who have written Lives of Shakspeare have laboured to find evidence which, if found, would scarcely advance our knowl*The Works of William Shakspeare. The Text edge of him a step. They toil to saddle revised by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. 8 vols. See him with with one profession, or with sevond Edition. London: Chapman & Hall. 1864-5. The Works of William Shakspeare. Edited by eral. In this respect they follow the examWilliam George Clarke, M.A., &c., and William ple of certain idle inquirers among the Aldis Wright, M.A. Vols. VII. and VIII. Lon- ancients into Homer's life, who fancied that don and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. 1855-6. The Works of Shakspeare. Globe Edition. Macmillan & Co. 1865. in his poems were to be found the traces of almost universal knowledge. The description of the shield of Achilles is imagined by some of these Laputan dreamers to contain the germs of the laws, the arts, and the science of the Greeks; the speeches of the Homeric heroes to display acquaintance with the rhetorical precepts of Aristotle; the prescriptions of Machaon to anticipate Hippocrates; and his geographical pictures to anticipate Strabo and Ptolemy. "Ar |