the tyrant's heart. Luzio promises to go at once to Isabella in the cloister of the Elisabethans, where she has lately entered her novitiate. A convent Within the quiet cloister walls we make the acquaintance of this sister, in confidential converse with her friend Marianne, who also has entered as novice. Marianne discloses to her friend, from whom she has long been parted, the sad fate that has brought her hither. By a man of high position she had been persuaded to a secret union, under the pledge of eternal fidelity; in her hour of utmost need she had found herself abandoned, and even persecuted, for the betrayer proved to be the most powerful personage in all the state, no less a man than the King's present State-holder. Isabella's horror finds vent in a tempest of wrath, only to be allayed by the resolve to leave a world where such monstrosities can go unpunished.—When Luzio brings her tidings of the fate of her own brother, her abhorrence of his misdemeanour passes swiftly to revolt against the baseness of the hypocritical State-holder who dares so cruelly to tax her brother's infinitely lesser fault, at least attainted with no treachery. Her violence unwittingly exhibits her to Luzio in the most seductive light; fired by sudden love, he implores her to leave the nunnery for ever and take his hand. She quickly brings him to his senses, yet decides, without a moment's wavering, to accept his escort to the State-holder in the House of Justice. A courtroom Here the trial is about to take place, and I introduce it with a burlesque examination of various moral delinquents by the chief constable Brighella. This gives more prominence to the seriousness of the situation when the gloomy figure of Friedrich appears, commanding silence to the uproarious rabble that has forced the doors; he then begins the hearing of Claudio in strictest form. The relentless judge is upon the point of passing sentence, when Isabella arrives and demands a private audience of the State-holder. She comports herself with noble moderation in this private colloquy with a man she fears and yet despises, commencing with nothing but an appeal to his clemency and mercy. His objections make her more impassioned: she sets her brother's misdemeanour in a touching light, and pleads forgiveness for a fault so human and in nowise past all pardon. As she observes the