interval; no one can deny that.  I bow before the divine decree that swept them away from Antioch to Jerusalem, but I am not yet prepared to transfer my spiritual allegiance to Italian popes and Greek patriarchs.  We believe that our family were among the first followers of Jesus, and that we then held lands in Bashan which we hold now.  We had a gospel once in our district where there was some allusion to this, and being written by neighbors, and probably at the time, I dare say it was accurate; but the Western Churches declared our gospel was not authentic, though why I cannot tell, and they succeeded in extirpating it.  It was not an additional reason why we should enter into their fold.  So I am content to dwell in Galilee and trace the footsteps of my Divine Master, musing over his life and pregnant sayings amid the mounts he sanctified and the waters he loved so well.”

BEAUMARCHAIS

(1732-1799)

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS

Pierre Augustin Caron was born in Paris, January 24th, 1732.  He was the son of a watchmaker, and learned his father’s trade.  He invented a new escapement, and was allowed to call himself “Clockmaker to the King”—­Louis XV.  At twenty-four he married a widow, and took the name of Beaumarchais from a small fief belonging to her.  Within a year his wife died.  Being a fine musician, he was appointed instructor of the King’s daughters; and he was quick to turn to good account the influence thus acquired.  In 1764 he made a sudden trip to Spain to vindicate a sister of his, who had been betrothed to a man called Clavijo and whom this Spaniard had refused to marry.  He succeeded in his mission, and his own brilliant account of this characteristic episode in his career suggested to Goethe the play of ‘Clavigo.’  Beaumarchais himself brought back from Madrid a liking for things Spanish and a knowledge of Iberian customs and character.

[Illustration:  Beaumarchais]

He had been a watchmaker, a musician, a court official, a speculator, and it was only when he was thirty-five that he turned dramatist.  Various French authors, Diderot especially, weary of confinement to tragedy and comedy, the only two forms then admitted on the French stage, were seeking a new dramatic formula in which they might treat pathetic situations of modern life; and it is due largely to their efforts that the modern “play” or “drama,” the story of every-day existence, has been evolved.  The first dramatic attempt of Beaumarchais was a drama called ‘Eugenie,’ acted at the Theatre Francais in 1767, and succeeding just enough to encourage him to try again.  The second, ’The Two Friends,’ acted in 1770, was a frank failure.  For the pathetic, Beaumarchais had little aptitude; and these two serious efforts were of use to him only so far as their performance may have helped him to master the many technical difficulties of the theatre.