own conscience, and to the tortures of his own discords. The most
villanous things, however, have one merit; they are transitory as the best
things; and _that_ was true of the overture: it perished. Then, suddenly,
--oh, heavens! what a revelation of beauty!--forth stepped, walking in
brightness, the most faultless of Grecian marbles, Miss Helen Faucit as
Antigone. What perfection of Athenian sculpture! the noble figure, the
lovely arms, the fluent drapery! What an unveiling of the ideal
statuesque! Is it Hebe? is it Aurora? is it a goddess that moves before
us? Perfect she is in form; perfect in attitude;

'Beautiful exceedingly,
Like a ladie from a far countrie.'

Here was the redeeming jewel of the performance. It flattered one's
patriotic feelings, to see this noble young countrywoman realizing so
exquisitely, and restoring to our imaginations, the noblest of Grecian
girls. We critics, dispersed through the house, in the very teeth of duty
and conscience, all at one moment unanimously fell in love with Miss
Faucit. We felt in our remorse, and did not pretend to deny, that our duty
was--to be savage. But when was the voice of duty listened to in the first
uproars of passion? One thing I regretted, viz. that from the
indistinctness of my sight for distant faces, I could not accurately
discriminate Miss Faucit's features; but I was told by my next neighbor
that they were as true to the antique as her figure. Miss Faucit's voice
is fine and impassioned, being deep for a female voice; but in this organ
lay also the only blemish of her personation. In her last scene, which is
injudiciously managed by the Greek poet,--too long by much, and perhaps
misconceived in the modern way of understanding it,--her voice grew too
husky to execute the cadences of the intonations: yet, even in this scene,
her fall to the ground, under the burden of her farewell anguish, was in a