text: X**S. xi^ 3 ® X\ llSw 5 1..-> ik'- hi i nii • I / f "“ia\ "' vZ V. h I xs J J I ] -1-1 v| (Fili i T llTl j Tizit^J' fr ifY ia i/A < |jy xj% w. -J a HMD BY A. J. WHIMBOB 08. VOL. XXXIX.—NO. 4. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as Second Class Matter. THE NEW YORK DISPATCH, PUBLISHED AT NO. 11 FRANKFORT STREET. The NEW YORK DISPATCH is a journal of light, agreeable and sparkling Literature and News. One page is devoted to Masonic Matters, and careful attention is given to Music and the Drama. The Dispatch is sold by all News Agents of the city and suburbs, at FIVE CENTS A COPY. TERMS FOR MAIL SUBSCRIBERS: FINGLE SUBSCRIPTIONS $2.50 a year TWO SUBSCRIBERS $0.00 - FIVE SUBSCRIBERS $0.00 “ ALL MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS MUST BE PAID IN ADVANCE. POSTAGE PAID EVERYWHERE BY THE DISPATCH OFFICE. Circulation Assured: OVER 37,000 WEEKLY. Address NEW YORK DISPATCH, Post Office box No. 17 75. THEATRICAL DISCIPLES. SEVERAL SHYLOCKS. The “Shylocks” of the Past—The Low Comedy Jew. From Dogget to Macready —Charles Kean’s Revival of the Cowley-Irving’s Performance. BY JOHN CARBOY. No mongrel Jew in the old clo' line of trade, no shent for shent delvcr in the mines of finance, no cunning son of Israel, over the dark and dingy den swung and creaked upon their rusty iron hooks the three golden balls, nor any of the tribe of shekel harvesters have suffered the torture which has been the lot of Shakespeare’s SyllocL. Since nearly three hundred years ago, this unfortunate Hebrew of the stage has been represented, misrepresented, and experimented upon by all sorts of actors of high and low degree. His character has been dissected, dessicated, and reconstructed into all the abominable conditions of Hebraic deformity which the ingenuity of intelligence or the suggestive fancy of theatrical ignoramuses could invent. Actors of repute in the olden time have pranced him through the play as a grinning low comedy buffoon; others have made him, by distortion and misrepresentation of the text, a stalking scarecrow; an image of diabolic malignity, unrelieved by the faintest tinge of humanly feeling; and again he has had presentation as a mouthing mystery—whose real nature was hidden in the wretched reading and fantastic perversion of the lines. Doggett, before Macklin’s time, treated Shylock, in his performance, as CURTIS DOES SAMUEL PLASTRICK, and was satisfied that he had done his duty to his manager and himself when his trial scene elicited roars of laughter from the audience. One, Sam Carter, “a player of small personages in divers plays,” a little while before Doggett’s time, warmed up the old Jew, and presented him in cocked-hat, bag-wig, knee-breeches, and swords. There is no record as to whether Mr. Carter repeated his performance. Possibly he may have been the Alvin Joslin of his day and generation, and depended for success upon a uniformed brass band in the carnival scene and an ample display of diamonds on his person in the Trial act. By and by, after there had been something of a lull in the attacks upon this long suffering character, “The Merchant of Venice” was revived and given a restoration to the stage by Fleetwood, the then manager of Drury Lane Theatre. He was induced to do this by Charles Macklin, whose greatest accesses had been in the performance of comedy and eccentric characters. It was agreed that he should play Shylock on the evening of February 14, 1741. There was a rumor current that he proposed to play it as a tragic character, and Quin, who was to be the Antonio, openly predicted that if he did he would be incontinently and deservedly hissed off the stage. But Macklin persevered—insisted upon his right to give his own coloring to the character. At the rehearsals he gave no indication of the reading he had adopted—he merely repeated his speeches and lines without the accompaniments of either expression, gesture, or attitude. The audience received him at first coldly, but as the play progressed it became enthusiastic. A critic of the time records that in the interview with Tubal, "he broke the tones of utterance; he was at once malevolent and then infuriate and then malignant; the transitions were strictly natural and the variation of his countenance admirable. In the dumb action of the trial scene, he was amazingly descriptive." Twenty successive representations were given of the play. On the third evening of the performance, Alexander Pope from one of the boxes proclaimed, "This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew;" but demanded of the player why his Shylock wore a red hat. Macklin answered that he had read that the Jews in Venice were compelled by law to wear red hats. Despite Macklin's positive demand, Mrs. Clive, as the Portia, treated the part coarsely, and in the trial scene made a burlesque of it, imitating the forensic peculiarities of Murray—afterward the celebrated Lord Mansfield. Again in 1754, Sheridan appeared in Shylock, but the recollection of Macklin overshadowed his effort, and it was but coldly received. Five or six years afterward came a revival of the notion that Shylock should be played as an eccentric low comedy character, and in 1759 Shuter, who in '54 had played Launcelot Gobbo, appeared as Shylock for his benefit. The original Sir Peter Teasle and Lord Ogleby first played Shylock for his benefit at Drury Lane in 1768. His Portia was Mrs. Duncan, afterward Mrs. Barry, and Mrs. Crawford. Then came Yates, the comedian, who appeared as Shylock for his benefit in 1770. The Dramatic Censor of that period in criticizing his performance, gave him this sort of a “send off:” “There are many parts in which Mr. Yates claims much respect; scarce one in which he could be more contemptible than Shylock—a quaint snip snap mode of expression, and confusing of words together, which enervates the actors meaning; a dissonant harshness of tone mars every line, and a total barrenness of power causes insipidity to flag every scene. May this gentleman never mutilate a line of blank verse again.” Then at intervals came a succession of Shylocks great, good, bad, and indifferent. At Birmingham a tailor dropped his hissing goose, and making an exhibition of himself as Shylock was given the goose by the audience. MACREADY first appeared as Shylock on the occasion of his benefit at Covent Garden in 1823. He was dissatisfied with his own performance, although the critics were unanimous in its praise. At the end, when he repeated the impersonation at the Haffarket in 1839, he described his effort as “an utter failure.” But he afterward grew better pleased with his conception, and included it in his list of favorite parts. It was in Shylock that Mr. Phelps made his first appearance in London at the Haymarket in 1837. Charles Kean, appearing as Shylock at the Princess, in 1858, was an imitation, but with far less ability, of Edmund Kean’s conception and performance of the Jew. Charles Kean, in his revival of the play, produced it with an extraordinary eplendor of costumes, scenic effects and stage appointments. Accurate pictures of Venice in 1859 were presented to the audience. The state process of the Doge, the busy throngs of nobles, inquisitors, foreigners, traders, water-carriers, flowera, licet of gondolas, a Venetian carnival with a masquerade, the merry songs and choruses of the roysterers, and in the midst of the mad revels the abduction of Jessica filled the stage with a glory of effect and of beauty it never before had. Belmont, Portia’s residence, was a magnificent revelation of medieval architecture and luxury. The trial was held in a grandly conceived and superbly designed “Hall of the Senators.” Mr. Kean restored to the cast all the characters which had long been excluded from it in the acting editions of the play. Mrs. Charles Kean was the Portia and Mr. Ryder the Basement. Later on Carl Formes tried Shylock, as also did the Hungarian, Herr Moritz, the former at the Princess, in 1869, and the latter at the Queen’s Theatre, Long Acre, in 1878. They were unlamented failures. In 1875 it was again revived, this time at the Princess of Wales Theatre, and in it Miss Ellen Terry appeared as Portia. and she was greeted with the unanimous approval of the critics and the public. But the revival was short-lived, for it had for its Shylock Mr. Charles Coghlan, who played at it so execrably that it damned the enterprise of the management. His Shylock was as tame and colorless an impersonation as his performance of Jean Renaud in “A Celebrated Case,” It was worse than Osmond Tearle’s Hamlet or Bandmann’s Othello. UPON THE AMERICAN STAGE there have been Shylock's Shylock and Shylock's Shylock. We have had the seved up in every style, from the raw article presented by Dr. Landis to the great ones of the elder Wallack, the hard all-maniculous Jew of Murdock, the “sawed-off” exposition by Roberts, the studied and elaborate yet always picturesque Shylock of Booth the younger; the Irish Jew of Barry Sullivan, who treated the character as if it were that of a melodramatic peddler in hard luck. We have had the Shylock of Gustavus Brooke, of Anderson, and other English notables. Save that of Brooke and that of the elder Wallack, none of these hold any prominence in the memory of the playgoers of the olden time who still linger upon the stage of life. The character is one which, unless greatly played, possesses little attraction for the general play-going public. Indifferently represented even when supported by an able impersonation of Portia and surrounded by all the excellence and affluence of appropriate scenic accessories, has found little place in public favor. “The Merchant of Venice” was first performed in this city in The old John Street Theatre, under the management of Mr. Douglass, on the last night of the season, July 19th, 1773, with Mr. Hallam as Shylock and Mrs. Morris as Portia. THE LATEST PERFORMANCE is that by Mr. Irving’s “Lyceum Company,” Mr. Irving as Shylock and Miss Ellen Terry as Portia, their first appearance in these characters having been made on last Tuesday evening. Mr. Irving’s impersonation of the character was that which might be naturally expected from a clever artist, but not from a great actor. It was, as it seemed to me, the work of a student in theatrical business, whose studies had been and were still concentrated upon the creation of a few effective points, and not upon making his work one rounded and finished whole of excellence; so complete in all its conditions that his impersonation would remain in the memory of his audience a perfect embodiment and not a thing of shreds and patches; shreds of effects and patches of passion. His “Shylock” was not a realization of Shakespeare’s creation no more than was Dogget’s or Yates’—and the Censor’s criticism upon the latter’s performance might, with but little alteration, be made applicable to Mr. Irving. Evidently Mr. Irving considers the best and surest method of winning the sympathy of an audience to be the fundamental basis of theatrical art. Virtually his argument is this: “If I can make the coloring of my pictures grateful and pleasing, and create a sympathy for the character which I am playing, no matter how I may distort its nature, disregard the meaning of the text of the author, and set at defiance the feelings and passions which should be dominant in it, to gain my desire, my work will be crowned with success.” “Ergo. If I can create pity for “Shylock” in his debasement, and by the trickery of art, aided by all the appliances and accessories which my ingenuity and craft as a stage manager can suggest, my “Shylock” will catch the popular fancy. And popular favor means fame, and money.” Upon the same principle by a provision of the nature of the character, Mr. Irving may some day try this sympathetic experiment with Pescara, lago, and even win the commendation of his audiences by making them shed tears of pity over his version— as he would recite it— of the career of Jonathan Wild. As he plays Mathias, the audience in the end pity the sad fate of the murderer who dies in the midst of his family instead of being properly hanged for his crime. The audience have no other feeling than that of pity for the weak-minded Charles I. as Mr. Irvine portrays him— a character by the way which is somewhat fitted to Mr. Irving’s capacity, for Charles was a being created for no other purpose than to be pitied. There is no feeling other than that of sympathy with the miserable wretch Louis XI, as Mr. Irving presents him to the audience. So, working the sympathetic dodge, he elevates—in dramatic form, as did Bulwer in a novel—the scholastic Eugene Aram, from his proper condition as a murderer and the confederate of a murderer, to the gracious estate of a noble-souled but terribly unfortunate gentleman. Plainly stated—as plainly as Shakespeare’s language in the play can make it—Shylock is an usurper, a hoarder of his means, who starves his servant, who secludes the daughter he loves from the enjoyments and pleasures of her age; who is hard and cruel in nature, has a malignant hatred of Christians and is inordinately selfish in every sense of the word. His ravings over the loss of his daughter are as nothing compared to his rage and violence over the loss of his turquoise ring and the jewels he had hoarded in his house. But the Shylock of Mr. Irving is a poor, worthy old Hebrew, who is the victim of persecution. He is to be pitied because his daughter is so ungrateful as to prefer happiness with the man she loves to the tyranny of her father and the miserable loneliness of his home. HE IS TO BE PITTED BECAUSE Antonio was not able to pay the three thousand ducats on time. This poor old persecuted Hebraic gentleman with the brown gaberdine, the wierd, rolling eyes, and grizzly beard, who has fifty percent, a month interest in every expression of his face, must be pitied because when the trial comes he wants the full forfeit nominated in the bond, and the court is to be despised because it hesitates. This Shylock wants his pound of Antonio's personal flesh; he brings his knife and scales to cut and weigh it. He is willing to cut it out then and there, and why should a cruel court, and a still more cruel advocate, deny him such a trifle—especially when for it he is willing to waive all future claim for the three thousand ducats? Yea, he would cut the heart out of this Antonio—and as Mr. Irving’s Shylock stands there, with that piteous expression creeping over his face, and with bowed head, humiliated, robbed by the unfeeling Christians not only of his pound of flesh, but of his entire fortune, every man or woman in the audience is ready and anxious to “pity the sorrows of a poor old man.” There is no sympathy for the merchant Antonio in his distress; there is no admiration, with this Shylock present, for the manliness and nobility of Bassanio, and but a passing show of interest in the charming presence, the womanly love of Portia. In this “Merchant of Venice” all there is is Mr. Irving's dear, lovable old Shylock and a marvelously perfect and artistically picturesque surroundings of scenic effect and costumes, and an almost continuous amount of music. Portia must win whatever share of attention she can by the art of an actress, by the charm of her presence, and the beauty of her reading and the grace of her action. NEW YORK, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1883. But these are of little avail; the whole argument of the comedy is lost sight of —in this DISTORTION OF SHYLOCK. Dogget made him a laughing stock; Mr. Irving makes him a thing to be pitied. Mr. Wallack, Mr. Booth, and all who have essayed the character, have not appealed to their audiences for sympathy for Shy lock; they have presented him as the hard, merciless being, as Shakespeare’drew’him—as a man whose nature was selfish and vindictive, and whose motive was revenge upon the race who held his in loathing and contempt. He asks for no pity, craves not the sympathy of either Pagan, Christian, or his own people. He wants justice, but wants it only when it assumes the form of relentless vengeance. Such a Shylock Mr. Irving does not portray. It is beyond his reach; in order to present it he would bo compelled to change his entire method of acting. Take his Shylock and divest it of all the scenic charm in which it is framed, and the tricks of ef fect by which his manilold defects are so deftly con cealed; let him read it, act it, amid the ordinary surroundings of common stock scenery, and with none of the adventitious aids which he has been politic enough to gather about him, and beside the Shylocks, not only of his own countrymen {but of the American stage, he will present a sorry figure. In other phrase, let me say that had he come here unheralded as “the great man of the English stage,” and as an ordinary star, made his appearance upon this stage in Shylock, as others greater than him self have done, and possessing genius—which ho has not—his performance would have been incon tinently damned by the critics, and, so far as the rU’jJjC would not have attracted an audience larger than a corporal’s guard on Ins sec ond night. Mr. Irving is an artist, not an actor, whose intelligence comprehends only the efficacy of methods which shall please the eye, charm the sense, and for the moment daze the judgment of the multitude. The comedy of “The Merchant of Venice” has had upon our stage. So effective a showing in Artistic regard for its unrivaled scenery, costumes, and theatrical effect, nor has there in the groupings, in the arrangement of the entrances, exits, positions, and general movements of the characters been made visible so great a perfection in stage management. But all this excellence does not enhance the value or merit of Mr. Irving’s Shylock. A paste brilliant is not converted into a genuine diamond by the process of placing it in a golden setting. As an object of pity, Mr. Irving’s Shylock is a remarkable impersonation. As a realization of Shakespeare’s ideal it cannot, injustice to the text, be accepted as anything more than a thing of shreds and patches. CELEBRATED CLAIMANTS. “The Last King of Portugal.” THIRTY FALSE DAUPHIN. DIMETRI THE FALSE ZAK. THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. PECULIAR ROMANCES OF HISTORY. This century has witnessed but one case of a celebrated claimant—Tichborne—though several claimants on a smaller scale have attracted some attention, but were speedily crushed. The old adage, that “possession is nine points of the law,” is never more forcibly illustrated than when a wandering, self-styled heir to some great name and estate suddenly turns up and seeks to dispossess the man in power. Right or wrong, the person in possession usually ends by staying there in spite of all the claimant’s efforts to unseat him. It is surprising how many adherents even the most audacious impostor can obtain, but when he has any show at all for demanding restitution of his so-called rights, the number of people that will believe his story is something marvelous—as in the Tichborne case. In olden times when titles to estates were not so clearly defined as now, these claimant cases were much more frequent. There is hardly a great name that has not been attacked by someone boldly asserting that it was wrongfully borne, and even the right to thrones has not been exempt from such disputes. To English-speaking people the most interesting of these is that which began at the birth of the son of the abdicated King James II.—that Charles Stuart, who was called “THE PRETENDER.” More blood was shed to substantiate his claims than in any similar cause. What a thrilling, fascinating page of history is that of his adventures and vicissitudes—a romance that ended only with the death in 1872 of the last of his so-called descendants, John Sobieski Stuart. The saddest, and the crudest of the countless outrages which disgraced the blood-stained demons of the French Revolution, was that of the torture of the innocent boy prince, Louis-Charles, second son of Louis XVI. When he was but four years old, his elder brother died, and Louis-Charles became heir to the throne of France. No more terrible inheritance was ever bequeathed to a child, for in 1793, Louis, his father, suffered death on the scaffold. The dauphin was torn from his mother, Marie Antoinette, and made a prisoner in the temple. Here in the charge of brutal shoe maker named Simon, the child was so neglected, beaten and starved, that he died in June, 1795, aged ten years, two months and twelve days. Toward the close of his life the agonies he endured were somewhat mitigated by the humanity of a new jailer named Lasue. The wretched child died in Lasue’s arms, and everything relating to his death, identification and burial was drawn up in state documents, duly attested and printed. Such testimony would seem to be sufficient to have set at rest all doubts of the dauphin's death, yet no less than THIRTY CLAIMANTS appeared, as the rightful Louis XVII of France. With singular unanimity they all told the same story of their escape from the Temple. They were carried out in the basket of a laundress, and a deaf and dumb boy substituted in their stead. The deaf and dumb boy died, while the dauphin made his way to England, Germany, Spain and various other countries including The United States, where he appeared among the Indians as an itinerant preacher, bearing the name of the Reverend Eleazar Williams. As in their stories, most of these rogues pursened the same course of action. They wheedled some rich old woman into believing their story and advancing them money to prosecute their claims. With the exception of Williams they each and severally cost the French government large sums in litigation ,to crush them as they cropped up, and the French people individually much money, for they all found adherents and financial supporters. Of all the thirty, self-styled Louis XVII’s of France, Eleazar Williams presented the flimsiest pretensions. These were based on a communica tion which he alleged took place between him and the Prince de Joinville while in this country in 1841. When this conversation was reported to the prince he declared it to be a fabrication from beginning to end. Nevertheless, Williams found many to believe his story, and the newspapers of the day devoted columns to debating the questions of his claims— the articles being usually headed, “ Have we a Dau phin Among Us ?” As almost every country has produced a spurious Louis XVII, it would not do for America to be worse off than sister nations, but unlike most of the other claimants, Williams’ descendants have wisely let their father’s supposititious royalty rest in his grave. The English claimant was named Meves, and as late as 1871 was issuing counter-proclamations to the late Count de Chambord, reluting his right to represent himself as the head of the house of Bour bon. The Duchess d’Angouleme, sister of the ill-fated little dauphin, was not to be shaken in the belief that her brother had been tortured to death in tho nnb Temple, and was deaf to the appeals of the multi- I tudinous claimants to acknowledge them as her brother. On the 30th of October, 1834, a man was placed at the bar of the Assize Court of the Seine on a charge of conspiracy to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe, and of assuming titles which did not belong to him, for the purpose of perpetrating fraud. He was another of the pretenders to the character of Louis XVI. Like his predecessor, he was ignorant of humble origin and a laborer. The clothes-basket of the laundress was brought into requisition for his benefit also, and in it he said he lay ensconced while devoted friends were carrying him away from the Temple, and the bloodthirsty Simon. Lasue, the faithful keeper of the Temple, was still living, aged seventy-six. He was again called upon to give the testimony he had so often given, which in brief, was as follows: “Two people came to my house and asked me if the dauphin were really dead, and if he had not been carried out of the Temple. I told them that the poor child died in my arms, and that though a thousand years were to pass, his Majesty, Louis XVI., would never reappear. He was ill for nine months after the establishment of the Commune, and died resting on my left arm.” “But it is said that another child was substituted for him, and that the real dauphin was smuggled out of the Tower.” “That is a false idea. I used to be a captain of the French Gardes in the old days, and in capacity often saw the young dauphin, and I am convinced that the child who was under my care was the I solemnly declare that the child who died in my arms was in reality Louis XVII., with the same features and the same figure.” So many false claimants to kingly honors have sprung up from time to time in various countries, that a volume might be written on the romance of thrones. In 1578, DON SEBASTIAN. The King of Portugal, a lad of years of age, only set out at the head of an army with the avowed purpose of conquering such portions of Africa as were then in possession of the Moors. The opposing forces met Don Sebastian fought with great bravery. Two horses were killed under him, and he then dashed on foot into the thick of the enemy. He was never after seen alive. His body was identified by his officers and many others, forwarded to Portugal and interred with great splendor. That would seem to have settled forever the question of his fate, but in 1585 a man appeared claiming to be the dead king. He bore a strong resemblance to Don Sebastian, told a marvelous tale of imprisonment and escape, found, as all these imposters do, numbers of people to believe his story and supply money to maintain his pretensions. He was tried as an imposter and condemned to death, but escaped the extreme penalty of the law. He was followed by three others, who claimed to be "the lost king of Portugal," as Don Sebastion is romantically called in history—the last of whom brought forward such convincing proofs of his identity as to make anyone give ear to the story of his pretensions. He died in prison, protesting to the last that he was Don Sebastian. One of the many stories as to the identity of "MAN IN THE IRON MASK" was that he was the twin brother of Louis XIV. That at the birth of the royal brothers, the question arose as to which should reign, the selection being finally made in favor of the strongest, as likely to survive longest—that they did not dare to kill a royal child, and so he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, the mask being necessary to conceal his resemblance to the “Grand Monarche.” This is not only a plausible, but a reasonable theory, when the royal treatment he received is remembered—and that no man of distinction was missed in France at the time—that there was no reason for the concealment of his features except some such as is given by this supposition. Catherine II of Russia waded to the throne through her husband’s blood. Infamous cruelties were practiced throughout her reign, and plot after plot was concocted to thrust her from her high estate. Imposter after imposter appeared claiming the imperial purple, but she crushed every rebellion until Pugatscheff headed the Cossacks and threatened to dismember her empire. Jermel-jau Pugatscheff was a soldier of fortune, and, unlike most of the celebrated claimants, was a man of fine education and manners. He was almost the counterpart in appearance of Catherine’s murdered husband, Peter III. He claimed to be Peter III., and was believed to be by the Russian masses. The nobles and officers who joined him in his plot knew that he was but a poor soldier of fortune, but they were willing to engage in any scheme or support any man who appeared to have a chance to overthrow the vicious and cruel Catherine. Everywhere the people flocked to swell the army of Pugatscheff, the fictitious. Peter III. He involved the empress in civil war in order to subdue him, and for a time success seemed on his side. At length he was beaten back across the Volga, where a Russian army overtook him and gave him battle. His raw levies were no match for the regular troops. A panic seized upon his followers; they fled in confusion, and Catherine won the day. In January, 1775, Pugatscheff and some of his chief conspirators were decapitated. Some had their tongues and noses cut out, and others were sent as the writer of this can trace history, but one false heir ever accomplished his design of sitting upon the coveted throne, and that was the Polish monk Otrefief, the sham Prince Dimitri, in the early days of Russian rule, murder not infrequently determined the right to reign. Feodor, the eldest son of Ivan the Terrible, died suddenly. PRESUMABLY BY POISON. His younger brother and successor, Dimitri, was murdered by Godunuff, who was Badunuff to wade through the young prince’s blood to the throne. Discontent soon arose, and it was determined to oust him. To do this, an heir to the crown was necessary—a Dimitri must be found, and he was in the person of the monk, Otrefief. He bore an almost miraculous likeness to the murdered prince, and his privacy was frequently invaded by people curious to see so strong a resemblance. With this much in their favor, it was not difficult for the conspiring nobles to persuade the people that the man was the real prince, who had escaped assassination by retreating to a monastery. At first, the monk was shy of accepting the proposal of the conspirators to place himself at the head of an insurgent army, and declaring himself Dimitri, but finally they succeeded in firing his ambition, and he consented. He embraced the Catholic faith, and assured the Pope that if he regained the throne of his ancestors he would recall his subjects to their obedience to Rome. By this promise he secured the blessing and the patronage of the Pontiff. A wealthy boyard promised Otrefief his daughter Marina, whenever he became the Czar of Muscovy, and through this boyard’s influence the support of the King of Poland was obtained. Meanwhile, military measures were being perfected, and in 1604 the false Dimitri appeared on the Russian frontier at the head of an army and overthrew the force which Godunuff had sent against him. Battle after battle went in favor of the monk, until at last the Emperor poisoned himself. The army and the people declared in favor of Dimitri and he was crowned. THE SHAM CZAR! married Marina, and in order to satisfy the people that he was really the son of Ivan the Terrible, released Ivan’s widow from the confinement in which Godunuff had kept her during his reign. The price of her liberty—and life—was that she should publicly acknowledge Dimitri as her son. She did not hesitate to do so. But the monk once safely seated, as he thought, on the throne, indemnified himself for his former poverty and penance and gave way to every license, neglecting affairs of state, and proving himself a weak and inefficient ruler. Again the Russians began to murmur, then to revolt, and finally fettered the imperial palace, dragged out the sham Czar, killed him, and exposed his body in front of the palace so that the mob might wreak its fury upon the senseless clay. By his death the Russian throne was again left vacant, and the leader of the revolt, Schinisky, took possession. The nobles soon desired to depose him, and cast about for another Dimitri. Notwithstanding that his body had been seen by thousands, they determined to revive him. With Marina’s help they hunted up a POLISH SCHOOLMASTER, who looked like him, Marina publicly proclaimed him her husband, and lived with him as his wife. But before Schinisky could be deposed and the schoolmaster declared Emperor of all the Russias foreign enemies engaged Schinisky in war, and in despair he renounced the crown and retired to a monastery, glad to escape with his skin. No sooner was the diadem vacant than a host of false Dimitri, risen from the dead, appeared to claim it, and it was not until 1616 that Russia was freed from the last of the disturbing impostors who attempted to impersonate princes of the race of Ivan the Terrible. FAC ETO FACE. Terrible Prophecy that in Time was Frightfully Fulfilled. A SON’S VENGEANCE Driving His Victim Step by Step from Affluence to a Pauper’s Grave. AWFUL RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. “Senor Morez, I will yet, so help me God, meet you face to face, where no cloak of law shall your evil deeds. It will be my true prophetic words were spoken by an old man over whose head the seasons had circled fully sixty times. But as he gave them utterance, his frame seemed animated once more with the glow of youth, while there flashed from his eye fire that one would have thought the hand of time had long extinct. The one to whom they were addressed was a younger man by full twenty years. Although he might have been called handsome, there was a certain sinister expression that flashed from the eye and dwelt in the corners of the mouth, which materially interfered with such an opinion. “Senor Comacho,” he replied, after a short pause, “you see at length I am master of the field. Thirty years ago you crossed my father in love and then shot him down in a duel. I gazed upon his face as he lay weltering in his blood, and although I could not grasp the idea then, I have nursed it ever since, and with my growing hate fanned the flame of revenge. I swore to revenge his death.” So spoke Senor Morez, and turning on his heel he walked away. THE SCENE was the interior of the courthouse, in the city of Mexico, some years ago. Throng and tedious trial was over, and had been decided in favor of Senor Morez. In the village of ownership to certain property, and its decision left Senor Morez homeless and penniless. It was whispered that there had been corruption; that some of Senor Morez’s gold had been thrown into the scales of justice, and that the heart-broken old man was the victim of the direst fraud. But the reader shall hear the case and then judge. Retrace with us the steps of time for some thirty years, and let us gaze upon a curing scene, which was being enacted in the immediate vicinity of the courthouse we have just mentioned. Upon a grassy lawn, five men formed an unobserved but strikingly dramatic tableau. In the center stood two, facing each other at a distance of about fifteen feet. Their determined air, and the solemn bearing of the others, would seem to indicate that their work was of no trivial nature; and the dueling pistol with which each was armed corroborated the idea. Rather apart from the others, and with his back to the scene, stood a third personage, whose connection with the affair was evidenced by the case of surgical instruments under his arm. The remaining two parties were engaged in a low but earnest conversation. And now the tableau changes. The two seconds, for such they were, have separated, while the surgeon saunters slowly toward the group. All the preliminaries have been arranged; the principals stand resolute and determined; the surgeon is examining some bandages, and nothing is wanted but the signal. Are you ready, gentlemen?" A slight nod of apsont from both parties was the only answer to this interrogation. "One — two — three — fire!" The quiet communion of Nature was broken by the simultaneous pistol-shots, and the smoke had cleared away—the tableau was again changed. Upon the ground, and struggling with the approach of death, lay one of the principals. Over him bent the surgeon, essaying in vain to staunch the blood that gushed from his side, and dyed the green carpet of Nature; while the other actor in this tragedy stood in his original position, the smoking pistol in his hand, and horror depicted upon his countenance. And now all were startled by the appearance of a lad about ten years of age, who entered hurriedly upon the scene, and then stood still, transfixed with terror and amazement. The man standing riveted to the earth by the appalling deed he had done, is Senor Comacho. The man whose life-blood is slowly ebbing away, is Senor Morez, father of the one we have already become acquainted with. The son is the lad who so unceremoniously has become acquainted with honor and blood. The other parties, having no further connection with our narrative, we will not individualize. And now that we have seen the effect, let us investigate the cause. Senor Comaeho had won the love of a maiden, of whom Senor Morez, then a widower with one child, was deeply enamored. Senor Morez was a bold, unprincipled man, and the success of his rival galled him deeply. He lost no opportunity to quarrel with him, and upon one occasion succeeded in directly insulting him. Young Comaeho could not brook this disgrace, and they sought to settle this matter by an appeal to the code of honor. The result is known, and we will now move onward in our story some twenty years. Senor Comaeho is still an unmarried man, for the fair object of the deadly quarrel would not wed a man whose hand was stained with blood. He is still in his native places however, having returned some time after the affair, and is engaged in a prosperous business. In the same place, and also in business, is Senor Morez. SON OF THE MURDERED MAN. A little time devoted here to the analysis of his character and purposes will materially aid in understanding what is to follow. Like his father, he was an unprincipled man, and scrupled at no sin to aggrandize himself. But his whole life was guided by one thought, which was even superior to his love for money, and that was—revenge. In Senor Comaeho he recognized a deadly enemy, and all his energies he devoted to his destruction. It was not personal or bodily injury that he wished to inflict, he being too much of a coward for that, but rather to ruin him in business and temporal considerations, thus leaving his old age and enfeebled form, no place of shelter. Senor Comaeho knew that Senor Morez was not his friend, but he did not dream for an instant of the deep and damning nature of his intention. Slowly, but surely, however, he drifted within the grasp of his enemy, in happy unconsciousness all the while of the MISERY THAT OVERSHADOWED HIM. Senor Comaeho was always of a liberal nature and extravagant disposition, and although his business was good, he was frequently obliged to raise money upon formal obligations. These, by some means or other, invariably found their way into the hands of Senor Morez. And he went to his office. OFFICE, NO. II FRAIFORT ST. Unconscious profligacy of the man, the intriguing machinations of Morez and a general depression of business, the affaire of Comacho were indeed in a condition of jeopardy. Now was the moment of triumph for Benor Morez. Forcing the accumulated obligations of Comacho which he held, upon him, in a moment of his direst stress, he succeeded in accomplishing what he had so long desired—his suspension from business and eventually his total bankruptcy. And now one would have thought his feeling of revenge was glutted with satisfaction. But no; with a hellish perseverance he betook himself to accomplish completely what he had so well begun. Benor Comacho was so reduced in circumstances that he was obliged to retire almost entirely from society, and lived with but one attendant, in a small cottage outside of the city of Mexico, which, with a small piece of ground on which it stood, were the sole remnants of his property. This humble retreat became the object of Senor Morez’s malicious and fiendish hate. Some slight irregularity in the disposition and assignment of Comacho’s other property was now seized upon by Morez and used by him to wrest from the grasp of the broken-hearted and dying man the last and only means of support. The matter was contested in court, with what result the reader knows, which brings us once more to the scene our narration opened with. The old man was forced to live on charity. He obtained admission to the public alms-house, while his destroyer moved in the best society. But do what he would he could not blot from his memory the face Of Senor Comacho as he stood in the court room and uttered the prophetic words. Blunge into what dissipation he would, the words of the injured man still rang in his ears, and often would he find himself muttering, “I will yet, so help me, God, meet you face to face!” And then he would curse himself, and strive to drown the memory of the scene in drink. After a few years, as if there was a stern retribution at work in his case, his business commenced to languish, and his ill-gotten gains to vanish. He lost heavily in several desperate speculations, and it was not long before the doom he had inflicted upon another became his own—bankruptcy. And as he sank lower and lower in the world, the demon of drink obtained additional power over him. He was now a nervous, debilitated man, without a home, and haunted ever by the memory of his evil deeds, and the face of Senor Comacho, that no amount of drink could serve to drown. As he lay in the throes of the delirium tremens, it glared upon him like the face of a fiend, branding in letters of fire upon his memory the day he drove him forth to destruction and death. And over and above all was the growing conviction that the old man's words were true, and that sooner or later he should meet him. This, like a horrid incubus, rested upon his soul, and haunted him day and night. And now we find him the lowest of the low, associating with depraved humanity of all kinds, and earning his daily drink—for upon that he lived—by the horrid and disgusting business of body-snatching. Yes, ghoul- Like, he and his depraved companions nightly visited the graves of its victims. One night he was waiting at his usual haunt—a low drinking den—for his pal or companion. When he entered, Morez looked up and said: “Anything new, senor? Any game afloat?” “Yes; one of the paupers up to the house pegged out today. They planted him down near the farthest end of the field; so bustle around now and get your traps. We’ll start.” Before they had made the necessary preparations, and on their way to the graveyard, it was a singularly beautiful night. Although not tempestuous, the wind was high, driving before it the ragged masses of clouds that alternately concealed and revealed the stately moon. The abode of the dead was calm and silent. All was hushed, except the two intruders, who were busy at their work, aided by the weird light of a lantern, which was placed upon a neighboring tombstone. Their work was nearly done. The freshly filled grave had been excavated, and their spades struck with hollow and startling sound the coffin lid. This was soon forced open; the ghastly raiment of the dead was dimly discernable; and gathering up the inanimate form in his arms, Senor Morez clambered from the grave. And a now a cloud that had for a time obscured the moon passed away, and its light fell full upon the face of the dead, adding to its ghastly terrors. For a few seconds Senor Morez gazed upon the face, and then uttering a shriek, he staggered backward and with the body still clasped in his arms, fell headlong in the grave. . 