he story which enhances it. An old man of eighty is the husband of a
young woman, whose heart preserves the calmness of purity; no love
episode comes to disturb her serene course, no impure, dishonorable
jealousy casts a shade on her bright name. She treads her path through
a life of difficulties, like some angelic nature, though quite human by
the form she wears."

Wishing only to call attention to the beauty of the female characters he
created, without reference to the other beauties contained in the work,
we shall continue to quote Bulwer for the second of these admirable
creations of womankind in his dramas, namely, Myrrha. After having
praised that magnificent tragedy "Sardanapalus," he adds:--

"But the principal beauty of this drama is the conception of Myrrha.
This young Greek slave, so tender and courageous, in love with her lord
and master, yet sighing after her liberty; adoring equally her natal
land and the gentle barbarian: what a new and dramatic combination of
sentiments! It is in this conflict of emotions that the master's hand
shows itself with happiest triumph.

"The heroism of this beautiful Ionian never goes beyond nature, yet
stops only at sublimest limits. The proud melancholy that blends with
her character, when she thinks of her fatherland; her ardent, generous,
_unselfish_ love, her passionate desire of elevating the soul of
Sardanapalus, so as to justify her devotion to him, the earnest yet
sweet severity that reigned over her gentlest qualities, showing her
faithful and fearless, capable of sustaining with, a firm hand the torch
that was to consume on the sacred pile (according to her religion) both
Assyrian and Greek; all these combinations are the result of the purest
sentiments, the noblest art. The last words of Myrrha on the funereal
pyre are in good keeping with the grand conception of her character.
With the natural aspirations of a Greek, her thoughts turn at this
moment to her distant clime; but still they come back at the same time
to her lord, who is beside her, and blending almost in one sigh the two
contrary affections of her soul, Myrrha cries:--

"Then farewell, thou earth!
And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia!
Be thou still free and beautiful, and far
Aloof from desolation! My last prayer
Was for thee, my last thoughts, save _one_, were of thee!
_Sar._ And that?
_Myr._ Is yours."

"The principal charm," says