, the wrongs which
they did a hundred years since. The aristocracy is dead now; but the
theatre lives upon traditions: and don't let us be too scornful at
such simple legends as are handed down by the people from race to race.
Vulgar prejudice against the great it may be; but prejudice against
the great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long,
therefore, may fat epiciers blubber over mimic woes, and honest
proletaires shake their fists, shouting--"Gredin, scelerat, monstre de
marquis!" and such republican cries.

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling of dislike
against men in power. What a number of plays and legends have we (the
writer has submitted to the public, in the preeeding pages, a couple of
specimens; one of French, and the other of Polish origin,) in which
that great and powerful aristocrat, the Devil, is made to be miserably
tricked, humiliated, and disappointed? A play of this class, which, in
the midst of all its absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it,
was called "Le Maudit des Mers." Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in
the midst of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers,
blasphemed and drank punch; but what was his astonishment at beholding
an archangel with a sword all covered with flaming resin, who told him
that as he, in this hour of danger, was too daring, or too wicked, to
utter a prayer, he never should cease roaming the seas until he could
find some being who would pray to heaven for him!

Once only, in a hundred years, was the skipper allowed to land for this
purpose; and this piece runs through four centuries, in as many
acts, describing the agonies and unavailing attempts of the miserable
Dutchman. Willing to go any lengths in order to obtain his prayer, he,
in the second act, betrays a Virgin of the Sun to a follower of Pizarro:
and, in the third, assassinates the heroic William of Nassau; but ever
before the dropping of the curtain, the angel and sword make
their appearance--"Treachery," says the spirit, "cannot lessen thy
punishment;--crime will not obtain thy release--A la mer! a la mer!" and
the poor devil returns to the ocean, to be lonely, and tempest-tossed,
and sea-sick for a hundred years more.

But his woes are destined to end with the fourth act. Having landed in
America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed in Italian
costumes, are celebrating, in a quadrille, the victories of Washington,
he is th