arms before she could be baptised. The likeness in feature, the age, the scar of a hurt his little son had received, all convinced Lusignan that he still had children in Zaire and Nerestan. Nature spoke to the hearts of all three at once, and expressed itself in tears. "Embrace me, my dear children," cried Lusignan, "and look once more on your father." Zaire and Nerestan could not tear themselves from his arms. "But alas!" exclaimed this unhappy old man, "shall I taste an unmixed joy? Heaven that restores my daughter, does it restore her as a Christian?" At these words Zaire blushed and trembled, and avowed herself a Mahometan. Grief, religion, and nature lent strength at this moment to Lusignan: he embraced his daughter, pointing to the Holy Sepulchre; and animated by despair, by zeal, and aided by so many Christians and by his son, he strongly moved her. She cast herself at his feet and promised to become a Christian.
Thus far Voltaire; and this will appear, to most, the doubtful point of the play. How people may feel who unexpectedly see for the first time their nearest relations, of whose existence they had remained in ignorance, is a problem which few can solve; but we may be tolerably certain that a young girl such as Zaire would be unlikely to renounce her lover and change her faith in a moment, at the bidding of a newly-found father. However, if this difficulty be tided over—in which good acting might greatly help—things go smoothly through the rest of the plot:—
At this moment comes an officer to separate Zaire from her father and brother, and to arrest all the French knights, and, as Lusignan is removed, he binds her by an oath to secrecy. This sudden severity was the result of a council held by Orosman. St Louis's fleet had sailed from Cyprus—as was feared, for the Syrian coast; but a second courier having brought the news of the departure of St Louis for
