1.  Los dos amantes del cielo:  Crisanto y Daria.  Comedias de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca.  Por Don Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch.  Madrid, 1865, tomo 3, p. 234.

2.  It may be added to what Dr. Trench has so well said, that Calderon’s auto, “El arbol del mejor Fruto” (The Tree of the choicest Fruit), is founded on the same sublime theme.  It is translated into German by Lorinser, under the title of “Der Baum der bessern Frucht”, Breslau, 1861.

THE TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN.

PERSONS.

Numerianus, Emperor of Rome. 
Polemius, Chief Senator. 
Chrysanthus, his son. 
Claudius, cousin of Chrysanthus. 
Aurelius, a Roman general. 
Carpophorus, a venerable priest. 
Escarpin, servant of Chrysanthus. 
Daria,
Cynthia,
Nisida,
Chloris,
    } Priestesses of Diana. 
Two spirits. 
Angels. 
Soldiers, servants, people, music, etc.

Scene:  Rome and its environs.

ACT THE FIRST.

Scene I.—­A Room in the house of Polemius at Rome.

Chrysanthus is seen seated near a writing table on which are several books:  he is reading a small volume with deep attention.

Chrysanthus. 
Ah! how shallow is my mind! 
How confined! and how restricted![3]
Ah! how driftless are my words! 
And my thoughts themselves how driftless! 
Since I cannot comprehend,
Cannot pierce the secrets hidden
In this little book that I
Found by chance with others mingled. 
I its meaning cannot reach,
Howsoe’er my mind I rivet,
Though to this, and this alone,
Many a day has now been given. 
But I cannot therefore yield,
Must not own myself outwitted:—­
No; a studious toil so great
Should not end in aught so little. 
O’er this book my whole life long
Shall I brood until the riddle
Is made plain, or till some sage
Simplifies what here is written. 
For which end I ’ll read once more
Its beginning.  How my instinct
Uses the same word with which
Even the book itself beginneth!—­
“In the beginning was the Word” . .[4]
If in language plain and simple
Word means speech, how then was it
In the beginning?  Since a whisper
Presupposes power to breathe it,
Proves an earlier existence,
And to that anterior Power
Here the book doth not bear witness. 
Then this follows:  “And the Word
Was with God”—­nay more, ’t is written,
“And the Word was God:  was with Him
In the beginning, and by him then
All created things were made
And without Him naught was finshed":—­
Oh! what mysteries, what wonders,
In this tangled labyrinthine
Maze lie hid! which I so many
Years have studied, with such mingled
Aid from lore divine and human