The silken bands that heart to heart unite. And oh! How wretched should a hostile fate To strangers in strange lands consign her. Here, I owe my life; to whom that life should be, - SCENE 2. Iphigenia. Arcas. Arcas. Greeting and hail to great Diana's Priestess Iphigenia. We are prepared to give them fit reception; Arcas. Still so unhappy! Pardon my presumption ! Is it not rather that thou art ungrateful? Iphigenia. Thanks you have always. Arcas. Aye, but not the thanks That recompense the benefit; the look That speaks a heart content in grateful love. When, many years ago, mysterious fate Placed thee a Priestess in this holy fane, Thoas received thee, as a gift from Heaven, With reverence and love. To thee this shore Gave kindly welcome, tho' to all beside So full of horror. For what stranger else Had entered our realm, who did not bleed At Dian's altar, a devoted victim According to time-consecrated custom. Iphigenia. Breath is not life; and what a life is this, Chained to this holy spot, as if a ghost Were doomed around its grave ever to wander. Is this a life conscions of life and joy, And such is Woman's fate-such most is mine. Arcas. The noble pride that sees not its own merit I pardon but lament it; for it robs thee Of what thou prizest most, and well hast purchased. And often has sent back from certain death Who, wise and brave, our councils and our arms Arcas. And thine, much-honored Priestess! Were thy While he, rejoicing in thy presence, takes smile, Oh! holy virgin, also clear and bright, Iphigenia. As best becomes the Exile and the Orphan. Arcas. Art thou an Exile and an Orphan here? Iphigenia. Can a strange shore become our Fatherland? Arcas. But now to thee thy Fatherland is foreign. Ipligeria. Ah true! Most true! And hence my heart still bleeds. In Life's first dawn, while yet the unpractised heart - Then perished Youth's best joys; then withering shrunk What am I, but a shadow to myself, Wherein no flush of joy again can bloom. The infection of thy mildness? Is this nothing? Sheds balm on thousands? When the Gods have made thee A source of comfort to the happy people To whom they kindly gave thee, and a refuge Iphigenia. Dwindles to nothing, in the eye that looks Arcas. But is it just to undervalue merit, "Twere surely better so Than rate ourselves too highly. Of what thou dost, and what is best for thee. Dost thou from him thy origin conceal? Anger against me? Arcas. Does he then cherish So it almost seems. The heart of youthful blood drives not the King My People's praises. All that I have gained Of my lone dwelling. Now-my rage appeased- Iphigenia. Too much thou offerest to one unknown, And the protection thou hast kindly granted. Thoas. And is it right, from me as from a Peasant, The secret of thy origin to hide? In any country this would be ungrateful: But here, where strangers tremble to encounter A guest received with favor, one who lives Oh, King! the name of Parents and of race, 'Twas in perplexity and not distrust. Did'st thou but know who stands before thee here, Whose the accursed head thy pity shelters, Horror, perchance, would seize thy noble heart, And shuddering, thou wouldest drive me from thy realm, To end my wanderings in a blest return To all I love ;-forth to the misery Which, hovering round the exile, clings to him Thoas. Whate'er the counsels of the Gods decree Iphigenia. Thy bounty wins the blessing, not thy guest. Then lay aside thy coy reserve, and give Thy confidence to one too just to wrong it. The Goddess, who to me delivered thee, To home and friends, that moment thou art free. The deep hid secret, which, when once disclosed, E'en as the Gods decree. Know then my lineage. Thoas. A word of Power! And yet thou speakest it Was he thy ancestor, whom all the world He, in whose time-earned wisdom and experience, Iphigenia. In joint authority the subject State. "Tis the same. But Gods should not The visage grim in death, and severed limbs Converse with men, as with their equals hold. But bears it Only ancestral guilt? None of its own. Iphigenia. Ab, True! The mighty mind and Titan strength By treacherous murder won. She to his love Of either victim. Shuddering, thy face, Oh King! thou turnest away. And so the Sun Their doom. What else their wicked hearts have prompted Thoas. Let them rest in silence. Enough of horrors. Say now, by what wonder Was Agamemnon, oldest son of Atreus. A son was wanting. Soon that wish was granted, Thoas. Silent! Speak on. Thou hast no cause to rue By their great chief offended, thus detained Thy confidence. Proceed. The eager host, and by the mouth of Kalchas Thoas. Thou sprung from Kings, thou hast no stronger | Her chosen Priestess. But may Dian Pardon claim Upon my favor or my confidence Than when unknown. My offer I renew. Iphigenia. My King, how can I hazard such a step? Thwart not her plan. Devoutly have I asked Iphigenia. My trust is not in words that only dazzle. I have disclosed to thee my inmost heart: And knows not thine own heart how mine must yearn May sometimes lisp my name, Joy's reign restored, Thoas. Go then. Obey thy wilful heart, and spurn Iphigenia. Oh! King, bethink thee of thy noble word, Nor let my confidence be thus requited. I thought thee well prepared to hear the truth. Thoas. I was; but not for this-so unexpected! But what else could I look for? Knew I not I had to deal with woman? Iphigenia. Do not rail, O King against our sex. It is indeed Are Woman's weapons. Trust me that in this To thee I am superior, that I know, Better than thou, that which should make thee happy. Full of fond hope as well as good intentions, Thou urgest me to yield: and I have cause Thoas. It is no God that speaks. "Tis thy own heart. Thoas. Then 'tis the Priestess only that can hear it. Iphigenia. The Prince, above all else, is bound to listen. Thoas. Oh no! Thy holy office, and thy claim Hereditary to the Thunderer's table Have placed thee nearer to the Gods than me, An earth-born Savage. Iphigenia. Thus it is I suffer For confidence that thou hast wrung from me. Thoas. I'm but a man. Twere better we stop here. My word is steadfast. Eerve the Goddess still My fault, that I so long, against our Law And my own conscience, have. withheld from her In which I thought I saw a daughter's fondness, Of a young bride, beguiled me from my duty, But now they charge my Son's untimely death And I no more for thy sake will restrain The crowd that clamors for the sacrifice. Iphigenia. Not for my sake I asked it. He, who thinks The Gods delight in blood, mistakes them widely, Charging on them his cruel purposes. Did not the Goddess save me from the Priest, Thoas. 'Tis not for us, with ready sophistry Do thou thy duty. Leave me to do mine. I hold them captive, and the injured Goddess I send them hither, and thou knowest the rest. [Exit.] Iphigenia. Thou hast clouds, my kind deliverer, O! withhold my hand from blood! No Peace, no blessing can attend it. To dog and fright his hour of wo. [END OF ACT I.] *The translator is aware that this hymn sounds strangely in English. Perhaps it will be as unacceptable to his readers as to himself. It was his wish to have preserved the measure, giving a rhyming close to the lines, but he relinquished this purpose in compliance with the request of a German friend, at whose suggestion he undertook the translation. It was the wish of that gentleman to exhibit Goëthé to the American public in a dress resembling as nearly as possible his German costume. His metre, therefore, is exactly copied throughout. Hence, too, the translation is literal to a fault, as it sometimes happens that certain words are quite unpoetical in one language, while the corresponding word in another is consecrated by custom to the Poet's use. The translator is not conscious of any greater liberty than that of rendering "grasp" for "faust" "fist," and "nod" for "wink," which means the same in German as in English. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW. Views in regard to an extension of the privileges of Copyright in the United States, to the citizens of other countries, in a Letter to the Hon. Isaac E. Holmes, of South Carolina, member of Congress. By the author of "The Yemassee," "The Kinsmen," " Richard Hurdis," " Damsel of Darien," &c. HON. I. E. HOLMES: that it has honored the country abroad, and has been serving it at home; and that, to American authorship, not yet thirty years old, the nation is largely indebted for much of its public morality, its private virtues, its individual independence, and that social tone which prevents the absolute and general usurpation of opinion, in matters of taste, by foreign and inferior models;-to the rank influence of which we are particularly exposed by House of Representatives, Washington. DEAR SIR-You have done me the honor to the premature and excessive growth of our comrequest my views of the effect of the Copyright|mercial tendencies. Law, as it exists at present, upon the interests of I trust that it will not be demanding too violent domestic authorship, and of such an extension of a concession from any citizen, when we assume, its privileges, as will enable the citizens of foreign that a Literature of some kind is absolutely necountries to partake of its securities, in common cessary to every nation that professes to be civiwith our own. Upon a subject of so much doubt lized. It is, perhaps, the highest, if not the only and disputation, I should have been better pleased definite proof of national civilization. It is conto refer you to more experienced writers than my-tended that a foreign Literature is not only not self to those whose greater knowledge of the enough for the wants of such a people, but that, business of Literature, and higher distinction in its in all cases where it is suffered to supersede their walks, would entitle them to speak with more au- own, it must prove ultimately fatal to their moral, thority, and with less doubtful claims to the res- if not their political independence. It is contendpect and consideration of the country. But, re-ed, and on sufficient grounds, that a people, who garding the question as a vital one, and in the receive their Literature exclusively from a foreign silence of those whom I myself should much pre- land, are, in fact, if not in form, essentially gofer to hear, I do not feel altogether at liberty to verned from abroad;-that their laws are furnished, decline the task to which I am invited. Believing, if not prescribed, by a foreign and, frequently, a as I do, that the condition of the law as it now hostile power; and that, as it is only through our stands, endangers, and will long continue to jeo- own minds that we can be free, so, when these are pard, the best interests of the country, as regards surrendered to the tutelage of strangers, we are, its intellectual progress, not less than the minor, to all intents and purposes, a people in bondage. but still important interests of the American au- The proposition, however startling it may seem, thor, considered simply as an individual,—I feel, as is by no means too strongly put. Unhappily, our own an additional incentive to your application, the national experience furnishes us with an illustrasense of a pressing, not to say imperious duty, tion, which is beyond the denial of the most bigoted which obliges me to speak. I am not conscious, mind. It applies, with singular force and directhowever, that I can throw any new lights upon the ness to the actual relation, in which we have long subject. I do not know that I can furnish one ad-stood, and still measureably stand, to the controlditional argument to those which have been so fre-ling intellect of Great Britain. There is no disquently set before the American people, and, seem-guising the pernicious influence, which, to this day, ingly, in vain; but, I can, at least, in good faith, she maintains over our moral and mental character. present an additional witness in the cause, and array, in simple order, those suggestions of my reason and my experience, which have inclined me, after frequent deliberation, to place myself on the present side of the question. There is no concealing, as there is no defending, the odious servility with which a large portion of our population, in the great cities, contemplate her haughty aristocracy; borrow their affectations, ape their arrogances, adopt their prejudices, and shackle Perhaps, as a preliminary to this discussion, im- themselves, hand and foot, in the miserable folds portant, if not absolutely essential to a just percep- of their meretricious and highly artificial society. tion of all its bearings, it would be well to take a The disgusting meanness which hangs upon the hasty survey of the past history and present con- heels of her travellers, which beslavers them with dition of American Literature. It is important to caresses, and, subsequently, requites their natural show, that something has been done by native au- scorn with blackguardism, is shocking to the nathorship, to justify what might else seem to be an tional pride and debasing to the national characimportunate and impertinent clamoring at the doors ter. Unhappily, though I am pleased to think of Congress, for a species of bounty and shows of that the great body of our people, particularly favor, for the benefit of those who can exhibit no proper title to consideration. We admit the necessity, on the threshold, of showing that American Literature, is not a name merely, but a thing;that it has been a thing of, works and triumphs ; the rural portions-revolt at such proceedings and keep from participation in them, the few who are guilty of this servility find too facile a sanction for its exercise, in the readiness with which, as a whole, we receive the opinions, adopt the laws, and bor |