1809.] 
tians of Jerusalem have sent to his relief 
a monk of Libanon, distinguished. for 
micdical skill, The tender attentions of 
Sittah to her brother, recall those un- 
surpassably beautiful scenes of Euripides, 
in which Electra watches the perturbed 
Orestes. 
ladin is desirous of seeing Nathan. No- 
thing can be more equitable than the 
manner in which the poet paints the 
emptiness and impotence of those con- 
solations, which the sceptic has to offer 
over.a death-bed, to the troubled con- 
science. Froman "unpublished version of 
the poem, this striking interview shall be 
given. 
Scene: the apartment of Saladin, who reposes 
on a sofa in an alcove. 
SALADIN, pushing aside the curtain. 
Abdallah, 
Come nigh, and wipe my forehead. Ah! 
how weary! 
ABDALLAH. 
Tt seems as if thy slumbers were not tranquil, 
not so refreshing as we wish’d: thy dreams 
have harrow’d off thy brow that peaceful 
smoothness, 
which sleep else gives the sufferer. 
SALADIN. 
I have been 
in other worlds—alas! how weak I feel 
where light and darkness streve more hor- 
ribly . 
than life and death within my soul.—Is 
Nathan 
come yet, Abdallah ? ; 
ABDALLAH shows in Nathan and retires. 
Sultan, he attends. 
SALA DING (~ 
Then let him enter.—-We are now, my 
Nathan, + 8G 
got to the frontier. —Sit thee as, I pray.!: 
Now I have slept, I hope totalk,with thees.: 
more calmly. Thou art sorrowful, : myix 
Nathan. i his 
NATHAN. 
It grieves me, Saladin. 
SALADIN. 
1 know thy feeling : 
but recollect it Js the will of God, 
and bow to it. Nathan, 1 have sent for thee, 
to give my breast once more the lost repuse, 
thy wisdom took away. 
NATHAN, 
eas Sultan, -L 
O God forbid! 
SALADIN, 
Or rather sayy 
my own presumption, Nathan. O how direly 
has Truth reveng’d upon me her importance! 
It was at bottom but a sport of fancy, 
a mere amusive levity; but really 
truth is too high to sport witb, too important 
to make a jest of. 
MoxtTity Mac, No. 185. 
from thee? 
Critical Survey of Lessing’s 1. orks. 
During a pause of fever, Sa- , 
yam 
455 
NATHAN. 
I am anxious, Satan, 
to understand precisely these allusions. 
SALADIN. 
The ring, the enchanted opal zing, whose 
glitter 
drew me into this maze. It was a tale, 
that slid so unexpectedly, so gently, 
into my open and unguarded soul ; 
shedding so much forbearance and humane. 
ness 
o’er my consenting heart; itseem’d to close . 
at once the mouth of each precipitate 
intolerant decider. Ah! indeed 
some strength of mind is needful to with- 
stand, 
particularly ehien eectee me, Nathan— 
the teacher has been first announced to us, 
from lips of praising thousands, by the name 
of the wise man. [took it as thou gayest it 3 
and little thought, O Nathan, that so soon 
the judges thousand thousand years for me 
would have an end. NowImust die. And 
then— 
in this uncertainty, and with my ring 
alone, am summon’d up before the judge. 
OQ! Nathan, how, if 1 have been deceiv’d? 
NATHAN. 
And, Sultan, how, if all have been deceived? 2 
SALADIN, 
There lies the sting. Thus would, with ali . 
his love, 
thy father be a cheat—have given, for truth, 
to his awn sgn, who languish’d after light, 
mere error, Nathan, how can God, our 
father, 
have given illusion, error, to mankind ? 
NATHAN. 
What—if his creatures had not strength to 
bear 
the purest rays of truth.—Whiat, if illusion, 
or a faint morning, twilight upon earth, 
were for the human Mewiciess while here, 
their highest scope; and on yon side the 
tomb 
fit the untemper’d noon of truth broke on 
us, 
God leads us step by step unto perfection : : 
. and many are the grades and shades of il- 
lusioa 
between deep night and the broad day of. 
wisdom. 
What we call truth is merely man’s opinion, 
a web of human pride, rash notions prated 
to all-remembering credulity, 
by old Tradition’s tongue. 
deep 
for our horizon far. God—he is truths 
and man a thing that errs and fails. 
SALADIN. 
Must err? 
must fail? Ifso}3 thou may’st have spoken 
falsely, 
and may’st, instead of knowledge,’ have 
taught error. , 
NATHAN, 
Truth lies too 
I? 
30 S*#LABIN;: 
