„Je vous ai dit cent fois, n'aime en lui que lui-méème,“ she says to Antiochus, and when Titus, after the death of his father, elected Roman emperor, in deep mourning for his dear father and engaged in governmental business, has neither time nor opportunity to visit her as he formerly did, she repairs to his appartments, complains of his neglecting her, and entreats him to grant only one look or one word from his lips, which would satisfy her heart more than diadems and finery. With an excess of joy and pleasure she tells Antiochus of her happiness and the impending marriage. Yet, with her love pride has taken possession of her. For when Antiochus confesses his long-concealed love, she reproves him for his talking of it to her, the future empress of Rome. And how proudly and haughtily she describes to her confident Phaenicia the glory and the enviable dignity of Titus! She also knows how much he is attached to her and thinks him jealous when, incapable of uttering his hard resolution, he goes away from her. She has an absolute confidence in Titus, who has assured his sincerity by ever so many oaths. She, therefore, will not believe the words of Antiochus who, in delivering his commission, tells her that Titus is resolved to abandon her and that she is to leave Rome to-morrow.

„Nous séparer! Qui? moi? Titus de Bérénice?......

Apréès tant de serments Titus m' abandonner!

Titus, qui me jurait...„ Non, je ne le puis croire,“ she exclaims, much astonished, and accuses her best and truest friend, as she always repeated, of the suspicion of disuniting her and Titus. She is tortured, notwithstanding, with suspense. In an audience, immediately applied for, the first words she addresses to Titus shall give her surety, whether the report given by Antiochus is founded on truth or not. But now after Titus has uttered the fatal words„il faut nous séparer“, Berenice falls into despair and thinks him false and perjured, because he has so often sworn to love her and yet gives orders for her de- parting from Rome, and, though an emperor, has not abolished or at least changed the hard Ro- man marriage-law. Though Titus shows her the impossibility of such a proceeding, her despair at being disappointed of her highest expectations, is worked up to such a degree, that she longs for death and will leave as revengers the remembrance of her past integrities and present tor- ments, and her blood she is going to shed even in the palace. Titus, however, out of his senses with grief and sorrow, and making her responsible for what he is about to do, contrives to con- vince her of his great love. She admits that she has been mistaken, and, with respect to the ob- stacles, she declares ready to abandon Titus, and, in order to see him nevermore, to pass away the rest of her life far from Rome. 5

We must confess, that the character of Berenice in this tragedy possesses in a very high degree the dramatic interest and that it claims not only our highest esteem, but also deserves our deepest pity, when her ardent wishes are not fulfilled. The very same, in some regards per- haps a higher dramatic interest by the naturalness of the expressions and the power and inten- seness of feeling possesses the delineation of Berenice's character in Otway.

Berenice appears here also to be attached by the truest and most sincere love to Titus without whom she believes it impossible to live.„Me Titus loves“ she says to Phaenicia, and these words are expressive of all her thoughts and feelings; she fears neither the hard Roman marriage- law nor the more and more increasing discontentement of the Roman people at her having an