mean to do wrong; good people are always envied, and every one in the household is against this poor man; how often she had told her son when he was a child, that virtue is always persecuted; the envious die, but envy, never! Orgon has listened to false reports. Vainly Orgon breaks in and tells her 'j'ai vu de mes yeux,' she will not listen.

'Je l'ai vu, dis-je, vu, de mes propres yeux vu!
Ce qu'on appelle vu!'

To which she replies loftily that one must not always judge by what one sees. What! Orgon exclaims in a passion, is he to suppose that Tartuffe wanted to kiss Elmire, Orgon's wife, from the highest motives?

'Il est besoin

Pour accuser les gens d'avoir de justes causes;

Et vous deviez attendre à vous voir sûr des choses,'

is all that he gets from Madame Pernelle.

Molière is strong meat, and we must not be understood as recommending his plays unreservedly for general reading; a more careful father than Miss Mitford's would certainly not have placed all those twelve volumes in a girl's hands; but it would be much to be regretted if students of French literature were content to know his delightful comedies only through the poor medium of a manual, or a single play with English notes, holding up their farthing candle to the sun, and studied for that deceptive thing, an examination. Let at least the Misanthrope, Les Précieuses ridicules, Les Femmes savantes, and for broad farce the Fourberies de Scapin, be read, and if read, surely enjoyed. Molière appeals much more to the English reader, than do Corneille or Racine, who require a special education, and that a French one, thoroughly to appreciate and enter into their merits.

Competition Questions.

19. What is Hallam's judgment of Molière ?

20. Analyse the character of Célimène in the Misanthrope.

21. Explain why Louis Quatorze supported Molière against the noblesse.

22. Give a short account of Les Femmes savantes.

21. In what comedy do we find the character of M. Jourdain? Analyse it.

24. Criticise the style of Molière.

[Will Mignonette kindly send her address?]

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.'

THE last mist, curling up the mountain side,

Had fled, and left in dewy grace revealed

Each moulded form which raised in modest pride
To heaven the joy which mantling night concealed.

The air was all aglint with rosy light,"
The lark's loud song was mounting to the sky,
The hare was running races for delight,
And life was in the fern she scampered by.

All things around were full of active life,
Nor less was that still lake which, sheltered, lay
A calm expanse, apart from noise or strife,
Where not a ripple stirred, or died away.

Life calm and true; for in that lake profound
The azure depth of heaven's unbounded love
In stillness gliding, a sure home had found;
The pure deep welcoming the deep above.

But while the hours of morning fleeted by,
Clouds gathered blackness; winds in strife allied
Roused stormy waves which ruffled angrily;
Heaven's love withdrew-it might not there abide.

Anon when all that boisterous force was spent,
And peace returning stilled each murmuring wave,
While sober eve her softening influence lent,
Then heaven once more his pure reflection gave.

Who could with heart unmoved those changes mark,
Nor learn the lesson Nature loved to give?
Nature whom God hath set to cheer the dark,
And bid the languid soul revive and live.

For thus in youth, when all around is joy,
And innocence the soul unruffled keeps;

No storms of worldly strife that peace annoy;
And dreams are pure, and sin, unroused, yet sleeps.

Then whatsoe'er of glory God hath given

To earth, reflections of eternal love,

Finds entrance to the soul, as the blue heaven
To that calm lake, whose surface nought did move.

'Beauty, a living presence of the earth,'*
Floats round us, and a glory in the air
Brings visions that to noble deeds give birth,
As that fair beauty of the earth as fair.

Then shadows that on sloping uplands lie,
The clouds that in heaven's compass onward sweep,
The silence of the stars, the deep on high,
Where in their stations they their watches keep;

All find a home, wherever a heart pure
A welcome gives to claim of sympathy.
The heavenly image ever rests secure
In waters that in perfect stillness lie.' †

But let earth's ruder storms disturb the soul,
Or brooding mists their exhalations spread,
Heaven's light is blotted out from pole to pole,
A vanished glory from the earth is filed.

Ah! happy he who shall, through mercy, gain
Peace after strife, though given in after days.
Angels for him with joy to weep are fain,
For him again upon the mountains plays.

A radiance divine, that shall not fail
Bright memories to wake, and hopes of joy,
Heaven's glory-gleamings lightening through the veil,
Telling of beauty that shall never cloy.

But happier he, when his the blissful part
For aye to dwell within the Light Divine ;
Blest the unclouded soul, the pure in heart,
Whose eyes shall see the Unveiled Beauty shine.
it Trench.

*Wordsworth.

DEBATABLE GROUND.

ELABORATE SERVICES.

So many papers have now been sent in, that only extracts can be given from most. The Ayes most decidedly have it. Lucciola, Bathbrick, and X. Y. Z. being the only ones which have definitely put the opposing view. Spermologos treads the ancient via media, and her paper appears to Chelsea China to be at once tolerant and practical, making allowance for differing temperaments, and knowing how hard it is for sinful man to wind himself very high in this world of many motives.

(Chelsea China would point out, in answer to Dandelion, who puts forward a point of view somewhat neglected in other papers, that the burning question of the day is not whether ritual is to be symbolical or merely ornamental, but as to what the symbols used ought to mean. This point is of course quite outside the debate, and, very properly, has not been touched upon, but besides the fear that the thing symbolised may be forgotten in the symbol, it may show forth a false doctrine, or bring a true one into undue importance. This is a digression, and is only mentioned in answer to Dandelion.) What is being discussed is not symbolism, but ornament. Anthems, flowers, banners, services' (using the word in a technical, musical sense), numerous lights, etc., are only remotely symbolical. They may be offerings for glory and for beauty,' or they may not.

The practical question really is, and it must be a matter of degree: Does a large amount of non-essential ornament so tend to edification, as to be worth the amount of commonplace fuss, and the great attention to small externals, which it requires in the managers?

The debaters, as a whole, have decided that it does. It is the decision of the day in which we are called upon to live—and worship. But there used to be such a thing as high doctrine, and plain practice,' like Wordsworth's high thinking and plain living;' and it made some very good Church people in its time-not to say Saints. 4. Papers received from X. Y. Z., who would like, in ordinary places : 1. Psalms read to preserve their rhythm. (Query. Is good rhythmical reading much commoner than good singing?) 2. Soft singing. 3. No anthems, and careful practice of chants and hymns.

Blackbird and M. H. T. both send excellent defences of elaborate services, papers which justify themselves, and are in themselves a proof of the good gained. They come, however, to much the same