bles whom the newly-elected Emperor has ordered off to
execution:

Hernani:

Dieu qui donne le sceptre et qui te le donna
M'a fait duc de Segorbe et duc de Cardona,
Marquis de Monroy, comte Albatera, vicomte
De Gor, seigneur de lieux dont j'ignore le compte.
Je suis Jean d'Aragon, grand maitre d'Avis, ne
Dans l'exil, fils proscrit d'un pere assassine
Par sentence du tien, roi Carlos de Castille.

* * * * *

(_Aux autres conjures_)
Couvrons nous, grands d'Espagnol
(_Tous les Espagnols se couvrent_)
Oui, nos tetes, o roi!
Ont le droit de tomber couvertes devant toi!

An effective scene of this type occurs in _Monsieur Beaucaire_, where
the supposed hairdresser is on the point of being ejected with contumely
from the pump-room at Bath, when the French Ambassador enters, drops on
his knee, kisses the young man's hand, and presents him to the astounded
company as the Duc d'Orleans, Comte de Valois, and I know not what
besides--a personage who immeasurably outshines the noblest of his
insulters. Quieter, but not less telling, is the peripety in _The Little
Father of the Wilderness_, by Messrs. Lloyd Osbourne and Austin Strong.
The Pere Marlotte, who, by his heroism and self-devotion, has added vast
territories to the French possessions in America, is summoned to the
court of Louis XV, and naturally concludes that the king has heard of
his services and wishes to reward them. He finds, on the contrary, that
he is wanted merely to decide a foolish bet; and he is treated with the
grossest insolence and contempt. Just as he is departing in humiliation,
the Governor-General of Canada arrives, with a suite of officers and
Indians. The moment they are aware of Pere Marlotte's presence, they all
kneel to him and pay him deeper homage than they have paid to the king,
who accepts the rebuke and joins in their demonstration.

A famous peripety of the romantic order occurs in _H.M.S. Pinafore_,
where, on the discovery that Captain Corcoran and Ralph Rackstraw have
been changed at birth, Ralph instantly becomes captain of the ship,
while the captain declines into an able-bodied seaman. This is one of
the instances in which the idealism of art ekes out the imperfections
of reality.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: That great spiritual drama known as the Book of Job opens,
after the Prologue in Heaven, with one of the most startling of
perip