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chanan has an article on "The Modern Stage," which is full of personalities. He falls foul of our dramatic critics; he falls foul of more than one of the London managers-for instance, he declares that Nature clearly intended Mr. Chatterton to manage a hippodrome instead of a theatre; and he falls foul of certain of our dramatists. The playwright for whom he has the greatest admiration is seemingly Mr. Wills; him he rightly calls "an exceedingly clever though undoubtedly careless writer." No; after all he has a greater admiration for Mr. Gilbert; him he describes as the English Aristophanes, adding-and I believe you will agree with the remark-that "no living writer has his" (Mr. Gilbert's) "originality, and no living writer has his quiddity." Mr. Gilbert's burlesque of the "Happy Land," Mr. Buchanan further believes to be "the primest political satire of this generation." Of Mr. Tom Taylor, too, our critic speaks kindly, but holds that, though he is the author of some of the very brightest pieces of the day, he is ofttimes "too consciously theatrical." So far, praise in the main; but our poet does not go on in this strain for long. When he comes to consider Mr. Boucicault's claims to be called a dramatist, he grows angry indeed. "It is clear," remarks he, "that when the stage secured a Boucicault, literature lost a Close;" the famous bald-headed actor-author can only be described, in short, as "the Shakespeare of the New Cut and Seven Dials." As to Mr. John Oxenford, the dramatic critic of the Times, our irascible poet belabors him soundly, certain as he is in his own mind that he (Mr. Oxenford) has no wish to raise the drama, for, if he had, asks Mr. Buchanan, would he be a 66 producer of stuff merely written for the market? Mr. Oxenford," continues he, so that there shall be no possibility of his being misunderstood, "writes too many worthless plays to be a trustworthy reporter of the modern theatre for the leading newspaper in the kingdom."

There is a good deal more of a similar kind anent other notabilities, the result of all which is that Mr. Buchanan is being "hauled over the coals" by the whole of our periodical press. Fortunately, he is used to that kind of thing, and bears it in the coolest way possible. But I opine that when his next play is produced (he mustn't ask Mr. Chatterton to bring it out!), he will be paid back with inter

est.

I mentioned the "poet" Close just now. What an eccentric old man he is! Lord Palmerston, you will remember, got him placed on the Civil List, when up came a dozen people-many of them disappointed authors themselves to prove that Mr. Close was not a poet at all-that, in fact, he could not write half a dozen lines grammatically. And so it really is. His verses are the merest doggerel, yet he makes money out of them by chronicling notable events and praising (in print) the loveliness of the rich ladies and the generosity of the rich lords who visit him at the little bookstall which he keeps at Kirkby-Stephen, near Lake Windermere. He is constantly forwarding a minute account of his movements to me for publication; poor man! he seems to think all the world is interested in them. Now it is to say that Lady Broadacres has given him a sovereign; anon to announce that he is about to dedicate some verses to my Lord of Woodsland. His last letter is to the effect that he is writing "a grand epic poem " (the words are his own) on-whom do you think? Why, on Captain Boyton, who, it appears, is about to visit the lakes. Further, he assures me that, though in his sixtieth year, he is (horribile

dictu!) "composing impromptu verses every day!"

Here is an anecdote anent Mr. H. J. Byron -whose "Our Boys" and "Weak Women" are still running merrily at the Vaudeville and Strand respectively-which has never appeared in print: Years ago a new piece of his (I forget the name of it) was produced at Liverpool. It was somewhat "slow," for at that time Mr. Byron was trying his "'prentice-hand." The audience began to show signs of impatience, and just as a few hisses were becoming audible, a sawing sound was heard. "What was that, Byron?" asked the manager, who was standing beside the young dramatist, at the side-wings. "Oh," replied Mr. Byron, "I suppose it's the carpenters cutting down the piece!" Mr. Byron, by-the-way, is always saying witty things in conversation-just as Mr. Albery is. If their remarks were judiciously taken down, I have no doubt they could be made to contribute not a little to the success of some new comedy.

The Pall Mall Gazette (which is edited, I may tell you, by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, the brother of James Greenwood, the "Amateur Casual") has just done a very kindly thing. It has called attention in glowing terms to a little volume of patriotic verses written by a humble Irishman, one Mr. O'Con

or.

Mr. O'Conor is, it seems, a working-man settled at Deptford, and is at present trying to gain a very minor post in our school board. That he has considerable poetic instinct is certain. Take, for example, his "Backwoods Song:

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"We camp beneath the tall pines,
We're trappers true and tried;
From early dawn till shadows fall,
O'er hills and dales we ride.
At evening in the clearing
Dear Ireland's hills we see,
Where freedom fell through striking well
For God and Country.

"The shades of night are falling,
But light or shade fails to blind
The broken-hearted exile
From the land he left behind.
But a truce to grief! Let's pledge
Every home and altar free!

And be our boast, our backwoods toast-
For God and Country!

"For God and Country!

For God and Country!
Boys, be our toast and proudest boast,
For God and Country!"

Is not that very inspiriting? I can fancy I hear that chorus given by half a dozen brawny Irish immigrants. How it would echo among the pines! Again, the following lines on "The Vanithee," a good old housewife, have surely the true lilt:

"Let some go praise our maidens fair-
To me a jewel rich and rare,
A gem, a priceless gem to me,
Is Ireland's pride, the Vanithee.
"When winter nights were cold and long,
Who cheered our hearts with jest and song
Till laughter shook the old roof-tree?
Oh, who but Ireland's Vanithee.
"Who oft on feast of Hallowe'en
Made glad the heart of each colleen,
And burned the nuts? He'll cross the sea,'
And 'She'll get wed,' said Vanithee.
""Twas sad from Erin's hills to part,
But oh, what mostly broke my heart
And made it grieve to exiled be
Was parting with the Vanithee.
"She's dear to me, and, by the day!
You may believe the words I say:
Were I a king, a queen should be
My dear old, brave old Vanithee.

"Come, fill we to the brim each cup,
And froth it up, boys, froth it up!
Here's Ireland o'er the deep blue sea!
Here's Ireland's pride, the Vanithee!"

I don't think I ever mentioned that Mr. William Black, the novelist, is a most ardent sportsman. He is, though, and your readers may like to know it. There are few better shots. Almost every year he hies to the Scotch moors, and does terrible execution among the feathery tribe.

Mr. Irving made a rather telling speech on the occasion the other day of the thirtieth annual festival of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. He presided, and was supported by Signor Salvini among others. After telling his audience that some twenty years ago he, then quite a boy, might have been seen standing by the door of the London Tavern (where the present festival was held), watching eager ly the guests as they assembled for the Fund's dinner, he candidly admitted that he could not make so eloquent an appeal for the charity as had many of his predecessors. "I am unable to draw gold by my glowing words," added he. "Eloquence such as theirs, the true philosopher's stone, I don't possess." Then he went on to show that "actors are a proverbially benevolent and open-handed race. They certainly have a great temptation to live well," remarked he, "and I remember a famous comedian once saying to me, 'Sir, when I play Charles Surface I dine off the liver-wing of a chicken, moistened by a bumper of sparkling Burgundy.' Artistic instincts," he continued, "are frightfully opposed to business habits. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, I am not speaking of the fortunate London actor with his snug room here, his comfortable cottage there, and a handy little sum at his banker's. I am speaking of the poor country actor who, on twenty-five or thirty shillings a week (when he can get it) to fulfill an engagement, has to journey from Aberdeen to Plymouth, who has to play lords, dukes, and electors and Counts Palatine, and dress them all himself; who has, perhaps, to exist four, five, or six months out of the twelve, chameleon-like, on air, and perhaps with a wife and several small children. How is this unfortunate being to put by for the rainy day? And if the man be earnest and a student, he must speud money in artistic work. He wants a wig for this, and shoes and buckles for that; in short, every thing that has been worn since clothes were invented. And all this on twenty-five shillings a week! He must try and look the character he acts, and the more artistic the man's mind, and the more fastidious his taste, the more is he tempted to be what the thoughtless call extravagant."

Mr. Irving's words had much effect, as was shown by the large sum subscribed then and there for the institution. A right modest man is he; but he is by no means a good afterdinner speaker. Like Miss Cushman, he carries the theatrical intonation into private life. WILL WILLIAMS.

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demand an extended description. A brief
reference, however, to certain special points
may serve to render the design more plain.

ending in a suitable cock and mouth-piece, is attached. By means of these the wearer can inflate all or any of the desired sections. The inflation is simply a process of blowing up. Hence, should there be any slight escape of air, it can be readily replaced even in the water. As the only exposed portion of the body is the face, or at least that small part of it which includes the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, the only line where there is any need of compression is that which marks the boundary of this space. This is effected by means of a light but strong elastic band, which fits closely over the space indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 2. Should it be deemed advisable to leave the hands exposed, a similar band about the wrists accomplishes this result.

As it is not improbable that an assortment of these suits will soon become a feature of every steamer's furniture-as are now the well-known though rarely-serviceable cork life-preservers-a careful examination of their form and methods of use may yet prove of practical value to our readers; and, as we are instructed, as a feature of wise statesmanship, that in times of peace we prepare for war, so it may not be amiss that the hour of safety be made, by means of this and like observations, to serve us in preparing for that danger which awaits all who "go down to the sea in ships."

THE following facts, as given by the Virginia Enterprise, will doubtless prove suggestive to those who are interested in certain problems in the department of terrestrial physics. We were permitted to present recently certain interesting facts regarding the retention of frost by rocks and along rocky strata, and, in the following facts, it seems demonstrated that when unexplored, or under pressure, rocks may be made to retain heat for great periods of time: "On the 30th of October last, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the large, new air-shaft of the Belcher mine, then completed to the one-thousand-foot level, took fire and was destroyed. The timber of the shaft all burned out and the rock fell in and blocked

it up. After mature deliberation, it was thought that it would be better and cheaper to sink a new shaft than to try to clear out the old one, so badly were the sides caved and so great was the quantity of rock that had fallen into it. The new shaft was sunk a short distance to the west of the old one. It has now reached a point near the one-thousand-foot level, where it will be continued down an incline. The incline was started at the one-thousand-foot

level, and carried up to meet the vertical por

Fig. 1 represents the swimmer or shipwrecked passenger in full outfit, and ready to jump or be cast overboard; while the sectional view given in Fig. 2 best illustrates the peculiarities of construction, the method of inflation, etc. Referring to this latter figure, it will be observed that the rubber suit is in reality two suits, the one inclosing the body closely, while the other, fitting over this loosely, leaves at intervals open spaces or air-chambers. These, when inflated, are sufficiently buoyant to sustain the inclosed body upon the surface of the waves. The suit, which is of stout rubber cloth, consists of two parts-jacket and pantaloons, secured at the waist by a belt. Besides these two grand divisions, there are, in the jacket, several lesser ones, formed by the stitching or fastening together of the outer and inner coats. By this means separate air-sacks are formed, one in front and the other behind, they were driven in trying to come up. They while that portion extending along the back of the neck and head is also separated, and when inflated acts as a pillow.

tion of the shaft. The course of this incline carried it through the remains of the old vertical shaft; but, as soon as it was tapped, the men found that they could do nothing in it on account of the ashes, burnt earth, and rocks, that poured down into their incline. A tunnel was run until it had reached a point a short distance west of the old shaft, when a vertical upraise was made to the line of the proposed incline to be run up to meet the new shaft. The men then began to work down on the incline in order to reach the point from which

have succeeded in getting into the bottom of the old shaft, where, much to their surprise, they found the rock still red-hot. In trying to put in timbers they were set on fire, and in order to work at all it is found necessary to

bring a line of hose into the place and play a stream of water upon the rocks wedged in the bottom of the old shaft. There is no timber

on fire among the rocks. They seem to have been heated to a degree so intense at the time of the fire, that they have remained red-hot ever since. When we find so small a mass of rocks as can be contained in the bottom of a shaft remaining hot for over five months, after having been heated to whiteness, should we be incredulous on being assured by scientists that the centre of the earth, once a molten mass of rock, still remains in a molten state after untold ages? Nearly three years after the great fire in the Yellow-Jacket mine, places were found in the lower levels where the rock was still red-hot."

THE dreaded Colorado beetle, the history, form, and habits of which were made the subject of a recently - illustrated article in the JOURNAL, has at length, as then predicted, made its appearance along our Eastern coasts. In New Jersey and Eastern New York this pest is now actively at work, and one of the attractive features of a Fulton-Street seed-store is a little glass cage of the beetles, alive and active. In all respects they correspond with our description, and, guided by that, no reader need fail to recognize the presence of the invaders. "It is an ill wind that blows no good," however, and hence the manufacturers of Parisgreen are driving a brisk trade in this dangerous poison, regarding the efficacy of which opinions are divided. In the mean time the march is still eastward, and already our English neighbors have taken fright, and are starting measures to repel the invaders should they succeed in landing on their shores. The President of the Entomological Society, in his recent anniversary address, directs attention to the subject as follows: "The Colorado potatobeetle is an enemy whose rapid advances toward the shores of the Atlantic are a menace to Europe. When once established on the seaboard, they may wing their way to vessels in port, being accustomed to fly in swarms, and may thus be borne over to found a colony in this country, irrespective of conveyance with the tubers themselves. Agricultural and horticultural societies should make provision for the dissemination of correct information respecting these insects; and specimens of the beetles themselves should be obtained for distribution, with the view to familiarize persons with their aspect, and to prevent their diffusion." It will be seen that the English authorities advise a course of proceeding which we have already adopted, and should our readers have listened to the warnings already given them, we doubt not they have been aided in an early recognition of the enemy.

THE Egyptian Geographical Society, recently organized under the patronage of his highness the khédive, with Dr. Schweinfurth as president, has entered at once upon an active and promising career. The khédive has placed at the disposal of the society a handsome suite of apartments, furnished in suitable style, including a valuable library, having also headed the subscription-list with an endowment-fund of two thousand dollars a year. In his inaugural address, Dr. Schweinfurth referred to geographical research as follows: "It has become an immense domain, the meeting-place of all branches of human science. The geography of the present does not aim at merely describing the form of the earth or the vesture which it has assumed; it seeks to show the chain of bidden causes of which this form is the expression." It thus appears that, though or

ganized as a geographical society, it is the evi- | dent purpose of its president to embrace in its service all departments of physical inquiry. Nor would it be strange should the Egyptians -so long distinguished as lovers of the marvelous-under this new tutelage again come to the front, directing their labors in more legitimate channels, instead of wasting them, as heretofore, in attempting to solve the mysteries of Nature by reading the stars, or exacting the secret of life from the alembic and elixir.

THE increase in the number of "gas-wells" opened throughout the petroleum regions is leading to active inquiries as to the possible service they may be made to render. It is believed that, could this natural gas be all utilized, it would rival in value the oil itself. Already in certain cities and towns natural gas is made to render service as an illuminator, and in the oil-regions it is often used as fuel beneath the boilers of the drilling and pumping-engines. We learn from the National Oil Journal that a gas-well near Sarversville, in the Butler oil-regions, flows with a pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch, and is roughly estimated to yield a million cubic feet of gas a day. It is proposed to lay a six-inch pipe from this well to Pittsburg, a distance of about seventeen miles, and thus to supply manufacturing establishments of this city with gaseous fuel. In the present connection, we would note the discovery of a similar gas-well in Kansas. It was opened by workmen digging for coal at Wyandotte, and the gas which escapes daily is estimated at a quarter of a million cubic feet. Though often impure in its natural state, this gas may be submitted to special purifying processes, by which it is rendered available for ordinary illuminating purposes.

MR. MACLEAY, whose zeal and generosity in the cause of science we have already commended, has entered actively upon the organization of his projected expedition to New Guin

ea.

For this purpose he has fitted out at New Sydney a four-hundred-ton man-of-war, which vessel will be transformed into an exploring and supply ship. Though he announces as his chief object the enriching of his natural-history collection, yet the fact that

several naturalists have been invited to join

the party proves that this generous patron of science has in mind a broader service than the personal one he gives forth. There will be instituted an extensive series of deep-sea dredging, in addition to which the rivers of the country will be ascended by means of a steamlaunch.

Ir is announced that Seth Green, having failed by persuasion and argument to induce the North River fishermen to leave their nets open for one day in the week so as to allow the shad to pass up the river, has at last resorted to a novel expedient whereby this reasonable demand may be enforced. This consists in hatching and turning into the seineinfested river forty thousand young sturgeon. It is claimed that, when these have grown to a sufficient size, they will find a way along this water-course or make one by breaking the nets. Should this new ally prove as stanch a one as is predicted, the fishermen will have occasion to regret their stubborn refusal to listen to the entreaties of the veteran fish-culturist.

.IT is stated that eggs may be preserved for a long time by simply dipping them in paraffine. Great care must be taken to procure fresh eggs, as this treatment will not serve to check decomposition after it has once begun.

As the main purpose of this and all kindred processes is merely to exclude the air and protect the surface from the approach of spores, it is surprising that this method has not before suggested itself. Paraffine is an article so readily obtained and applied that a test of this statement might readily be made.

M. VON HULLE, chief gardener of the Botanical Gardens at Ghent, having observed the buoyant power of the leaves of the Victoria regia, was led to test this power, which he accomplished by loading one of the leaves with bricks. By this means he found that the single leaf was able to sustain a weight of seven hundred and sixty-one pounds.

ALREADY the honors of a discoverer and public benefactor are being granted to M. De la Bastie, the inventor of the process of toughening glass, recently described in the JOURNAL. The jury of the French Central Society of Horticulture have awarded to him a large gold medal" on account of the services his discovery is likely to render to horticulture."

IN a brief communication in Silliman's Journal on the "Rate of Growth in Corals," Professor Joseph Le Conte advances the opinion, supported by personal observation, that the annual growth of madrepore-points in the Gulf of Mexico is not more than three and one-half or four inches a year.

THE two new asteroids discovered by Professor C. H. Peters on the night of June 3d last, have been christened "Vibilia " and "Adeona," Nos. 144 and 145. The magnitude of the former is estimated at the 10th, and of the latter the 11.5th.

PROFESSOR BAEYER, of Strasburg, has been appointed to the professorship of Chemistry at Munich-a post which has remained vacant since the death of Liebig.

Miscellany:

NOTEWORTHY THINGS GLEANED HERE

ROM

AND THERE.

a volume by George Henry Lewes, just published in London (being in the main, however, a collection of papers that have appeared in the periodicals), we derive the following just comments on a well-known complaint current among actors:

It is thought a hardship that great actors in quitting the stage can leave no monument more solid than a name. The painter leaves behind him pictures to attest his power; the author leaves behind him books; the actor leaves only a tradition. The curtain falls-the artist is annihilated. Succeeding generations may be told of his genius; none can test it.

All this I take to be a most misplaced sorrow. With the best wishes in the world I cannot bring myself to place the actor on a level with the painter or the author. I cannot concede to the actor such a parity of intellectual greatness; while, at the same time, I am forced to remember that, with inferior abilities, he secures far greater reward, both of pudding and praise. It is not difficult to assign the causes of an actor's superior reward, both in noisy reputation and in solid guineas. He amuses. He amuses more than the most amusing author. And our luxuries always cost us more than our necessities. Taglioni or Carlotta were better paid than Edmund

Kean or Macready; Jenny Lind better than both put together.

But while the dramatic artist appeals to a larger audience, and moves them more forcibly than either painter or author, owing to the very nature of his art, a very slight acquaintance with acting and actors will suffice to show there can be no parity in the rank of a great painter and a great actor. Place Kean beside Caravaggio (and, though I select the greatest actor I have known, I take a thirdrate painter, not wishing to overpower the argument with such names as Raphael, Michel Angelo, Titian), and ask what comparison can be made of their intellectual qualifications? Or take Macready, and weigh him in the scale with Bulwer or Dickens.

The truth is, we exaggerate the talent of an actor because we judge only from the effect he produces, without inquiring too curiously into the means. But, while the painter has nothing but his canvas, and the author has nothing but white paper and printer's ink with which to produce his effects, the actor has all other arts as handmaids; the poet labors for him, creates his part, gives him his eloquence, his music, his imagery, his tenderness, his pathos, his sublimity; the scene-painter aids him; the costumes, the lights, the music, all the fascination of the stage-all subserve the actor's effect: these raise him upon a pedestal; remove them, and what is he? He who can make a stage-mob bend and sway with his eloquence, what could he do with a real mob, no poet by to prompt him? He who can charm us with the stateliest imagery of a noble mind, when robed in the sables of Hamlet or in the toga of Coriolanus, what can he do in coat and trousers on the world's stage? Rub off the paint, and the eyes are no longer brilliant! Reduce the actor to his intrinsic value, and then weigh him with the rivals whom he surpasses in reputation and in fortune.

If my estimate of the intrinsic value of acting is lower than seems generally current, it is from no desire to disparage an art I have always loved, but from a desire to state what seems to me the simple truth on the matter, and to show that the demand for posthumous fame is misplaced. Already the actor gets more fame than he deserves, and we are called upon to weep that he gets no more! During his reign the applause which follows him exeeeds in intensity that of all other claimants for public approbation; so long as he lives he is an object of strong sympathy and interest; and when he dies he leaves behind him such influence upon his art as his genius may have effected (true fame !) and a monument to kindle the emulation of successors. Is not that enough? Must he weep because other times will not see his acting? Must we weep because all that energy, labor, genius, if you will, is no more than a tradition? Folly!* In this crowded world how few there are who can leave even a name! how rare those who leave more! The author can be read by future ages? Oh, yes, he can be read: the books are preserved; but is he read? Who disturbs them from their repose upon the dusty shelves of silent libraries? What are the great men of former ages, with rare-very rare-exceptions, but names to the world which shelves their well-bound volumes?

The illustrious mathematician Jacobi, in his old age, was once consoled by a flattering disciple with the remark that all future mathematicians would delight in his work. He drew down the corners of his mouth and said, despairingly, "Yes; but to think that all my predecessors knew nothing of my work!" Here was vanity hungrier than that of the actor.

Unless some one will tell me in sober gravity (what is sometimes absurdly said in fulsome dinner-speeches and foolish dedications) that the actor has a "kindred genius" with the poet whose creations he represents, and that in sheer intellectual calibre Kean and Macready were nearly on a par with Shakespeare, I do not see what cause of complaint can exist in the actor's not sharing the posthumous fame of a Shakespeare. His fame while he lives surpasses that of almost all other men. Byron was not so widely worshiped as Kean. Lawrence and Northcote, Wilkie and Mulready, what space did they fill in the public eye compared with Young, Charles Kemble, or Macready? Surely this renown is ample!

If Macready share the regret of his friends, and if he yearn for posthumous fame, there is yet one issue for him to give the world assurance of his powers. Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe. Now, Shakespeare must have occupied more of Macready's time and thought than any other subject. Let fruits be given. Let us have from him an edition of Shakespeare, bringing all his practical experience as an actor to illustrate this the first of dramatists. We want no more black-letter. We want no more hyperboles of admiration. We want the dramatic excellences and defects illustrated and set forth. Will Macready undertake such a task? It would be a delightful object to occupy his leisure; and it would settle the question as to his own intellectual claims.

The foregoing was written in 1851. This year (1875) the "Reminiscences and Diaries of Macready" have been given to the world by Sir Frederick Pollock, and they strikingly confirm the justice of my estimate, which almost reads like an echo of what Macready himself expressed. In those volumes we see the incessant study which this eminently conscientious man to the last bestowed on every detail connected with his art; we see also how he endeavored by study to make up for natural deficiencies, and how conscious he was of these deficiencies. We see him over-sensitive to the imaginary disrespect in which his profession is held, and throughout his career hating the stage while devoting himself to the art. But, although his sensitiveness suffered from many of the external conditions of the player's life, his own acceptance by the world was a constant rebuke to his exaggerated claims. He was undeniably a cultivated, honorable, and able man, and would have made an excellent clergyman or member of Parliament; but there is absolutely no evidence that he could have made such a figure either in the church or senate as would compare with that which he made upon the stage.

and called in Tate and Colman to give him a lively ending for "King Lear."

The grand days of the drama are often talked of with reverence, when Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith, were the frequenters of the theatre, and Garrick was the tragedian; but they were actually the grand days of the player as opposed to those of the poet. If Garrick's taste is to be judged by the tragedies brought upon the stage during his time, it must be pronounced low, indeed. Before this period there had been at least a great deal of literary meris engaged in dramatic productions which prevented them from being totally worthless. Eminent authors, although they did not prove themselves to be eminent dramatists, yet scattered through their plays some sparks of talent: it would be impossible to read Addison's "Cato" without the conviction that its writer was no common man-singularly accomplished even in tedium; or to peruse Rowe's "Jane Shore" without regretting that its author had not sufficient sensibility and imaginative power to produce as good a drama as he could a stage-play; but there is nothing to hope or fear from Garrick's pet writers.

Among these, William Whitehead, the laureate, produced his feeble "Roman Father;" then Mr. Crispe, known in Madame d'Arblay's diaries as "dear Daddy Crispe," made a miserable play of "Virginia;" and the industrious Murphy suspended his labors in classic translations and borrowed learning to struggle with his "Zenobia " and "Orphans in China." At this time Henry Jones, the bricklayer, left his trade to manufacture plays, and Glover invented new Medeas, and Mallet Elviras and Alfreds.

Dramatic literature, crushed out by Puritanism during the time of the Commonwealth, had blossomed again into the full-blown sin of the reactionary movement under Charles II. It borrowed classic rules from the French in bombastic tragedy, and took to itself all the licentiousness of the court - manners in its comedy. To humor audiences impatient of seriousness, the tragic authors of that time. apologized for the pathos of their subject, as soon as the curtain fell, by indecent epilogues; and this fashion, with some modification of its grossness, was carried on into the eighteenth century.

Garrick was looked to as a master in this species of composition, and did his best to encourage it; his literary talents were precisely of that kind which luxuriated in the short compass of a prologue. Here they were at home; here there was just a sufficient demand for easy rhyme, confident, unfettered fancy, and bold, unexpected meanings, which looked like wit. Nor did Garrick in these compositions forget his managerial tricks; so great a quantity of stage-business was given by him to prologue and epilogue that at last few actors but himself were accomplished enough to do them justice. He was always ready with some ingenuity to divert his public. Sometimes a bewildered country boy wandered on to the stage with a prologue to his supposed master's of the current theories in regard to the great-play, or a tipsy sailor rolled forward, reading ness of past dramatic periods:

LADY POLLOCK, in Temple Bar, in an article entitled "The Poet and the Stage," has something to say calculated to disabuse some

Garrick, independently of his special art, was a clever, cultivated man, but the fever of a restless self-love was in his blood, and he sacrificed his authors on all sides. He killed the living and mutilated the dead. In "Hamlet" he cut down whatever scenes he thought ineffective for his glory, and took into his own part favorite passages belonging to the other characters. In the same spirit he degraded "Richard III." to a series of stage-clamors,

the play-bill for the night, or a charming actress, after having drowned the stage in tears, sprang from behind the curtain as the Comic Muse. All these contrivances prolonged the custom of prologue and epilogue; but the better judgment will in the end prevail against a bad fashion; and first condemned by Thomson, and next sternly rejected by Home (the author of "Douglas "), other critics afterward ventured to protest, and gradually these things ceased to be.

One of the principal causes of the rapid de

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cline of dramatic literature during Garrick's management to the yet lower position than the low one it had previously occupied, is to be found in the general character of the great player's genius. Before his time the management had been in the hands either of some one individual not himself upon the stage, or of several actors all equally concerned in the character of the pieces performed at their theatre, but differing in the direction of their own talents for the stage. Wilkes, Cibber, and Dogget, and Wilkes, Cibber, and Booth, were a junto of this kind. Garrick was supreme at Drury Lane, both as actor and manager, and had the power to exercise a fatal influence. If he had by a happy chance been a fine critic, he might have contrived to gratify his vanity without injuring Shakespeare, and without dictating his imaginary stage necessities to the playwriters, among whom he gradually alienated the most respectable. It is an evidence of the force of the great tragedian that Garrick's audiences, consisting in great part of literary men, made no protest against his barbarous dealings with our greatest poet or his encouragement of our meanest scribblers. Satisfied with the passion he roused, they did not question the instruments he used. His despotism was accepted. That a fine actor has considerable dominion over the authors he represents is indisputable, yet it must be remembered, somewhat to diminish the marvel of Garrick's proceedings, that his own bad taste was but an exaggerated growth of his period, and that Johnson, the oracle of that age, has left us many criticisms to laugh

at.

At the end of the Garrick epoch the literature of the stage was completely debased; a great quantity of new plays were produced every season, which only existed by their novelty, and were not for a moment supposed to have any other principle of vitality in them; the consequence was that when Mrs. Siddons and her brother John Kemble appeared upon the scene they found no author worthy to write for them.

Lady Pollock (who the reader will recollect is wife of Sir Frederick Pollock, editor of Macready's "Diaries and Reminiscences," recently published) proceeds in her entertaining paper to give her views upon Fechter and Henry Irving:

He

In the worst period of literary stagnation, some ten years after Macready's retirement, M. Fechter, a clever French actor, came to London to wake the echoes of Shakespeare's music with a foreign accent. In the character of Hamlet, partly by the surprise which was excited by his attempt, and partly by his real merit, he met with considerable success. was a skillful artist, but he made frequent mistakes of emphasis, and he was deficient in sustained force. He was good in a flash of passion, or a graceful movement; but he had no depth of feeling, and there were deficiencies of heart as well as of language when he sought to interpret the highest passion. His representation of Othello deserves to be recorded as a proof of the player's influence on the poet. The actor, being incapable of any great poetical conception, substituted paltry devices and petty elaborations of action for the majestic movement of passion; the play was for the time vulgarized, and all its richness of sound and vastness of imagination were cramped into such mean dimensions that it seemed no better than a prosaic Parisian drama of the Dumas school. It was so little liked that

M. Fechter produced no more Shakespearean plays.

Twenty-four years have passed since the day of Macready's retirement, and now for the first time an English actor has appeared whose genius gives us reason to expect the restoration of poetical drama to our stage. Mr. Henry Irving brings to whatever character he undertakes fine thought and vivid emotion; these qualities have been evident in all his representations, but the complex character of Hamlet has given him the freest scope for the use of his powers. Out of solitary contemplation he has drawn his inspiration, for he came upon an empty stage, where there was no departing or reigning greatness to kindle or to guide him. His fervent imagination imparts life, the first requisite in acting, to his personation; a life taken from the poet's heart into the depths of his own. He is the impressionable, flexible Hamlet: tender by nature, stung into bitterness by an intolerable sense of wrong, but never strong and resolute. Fitful, moody; alternately meditative and impetuous; passionate in imagination, and too subtile in thought for a persistent course of action, he is carried to the verge of frenzy by the unequal conflict of the inner man with the circumstances which surround him. But his fury is short-lived, and his spirits instantly fall back into that profound dejection which makes the young prince weary of his life. Such is the interpretation to which Mr. Irving's swift emotions and fine intellectual perceptions give a singular vitality and interest. He delivers what may be termed the set speeches, somewhat tarnished by frequent handling, as if he were thinking them out for the first time, and gives back to them the full freshness of a new impulse. Mr. Irving's attributes are essentially poetical, and therefore it is not to be feared that, as a disciple of the natural school of acting, he will mar its excellence by exaggeration. He has too delicate an appreciation of beauty to let slip in a slovenly utterance the melody of a poet's thought; he has too true a dramatic instinct to suffer a grand towering passion to sink into the tone of a drawing-room platitude for the gratification of certain spectators who hold that Nature is best served by depriving her of all nobility and all grace. His taste will reject that evil fashion of his time; nor is he likely to yield to those temptations which have been described as haunting the onward path of the favorite tragedian.

A LONDON writer discusses the influence of the doctrines of Swedenborg on litera

ture:

The influence of Swedenborg on imaginative literature is nowhere so obvious as in the novels of Balzac. There are traces of his theory of Correspondences in a place where they might not have been looked for, in the "Fleurs

du Mal" of Charles Baudelaire.

66

The poet, in

a mystic strain of verse," sings how colors and sounds and scents mingle and blend in the world, and produce an inaudible harmony, a color invisible, to the eyes and ears of the uninitiated. In the pretty tale of "Spirite," too, a masterpiece of Théophile Gautier, it is Swedenborg's theories of conjugal love that are travestied, and it is a Swedenborgian mystic who unlocks to the lover of Spirite the gate of the spiritual world. But the gross, sensuous Balzac-Balzac whose ideas of la vie conjugale are so frankly material-really felt, more than any other man of literary genius, the attraction of these new regions of which Swedenborg was the Columbus. Balzac's "Louis Lambert" is partly autobiographical, a sketch of his own sufferings when, as a school-boy in Vendôme, he neglected his Latin exercises to pore over such works as "Heaven and Hell revealed." Lambert in the novel is a secluded and unappreciated genius, whose life is an attempt to develop the true, the angelic nature that is hidden within our frames. Even as a boy, Lambert is second-sighted, beholds places in vision, and recognizes them later in fact, as Swedenborg saw the fire of Stockholm three hundred miles off, and as Shelley used occasionally to do, or say he did. The dream of his life is to meet an angel-woman, and meet her he does, like other people, at last. Unfortunately, he falls just before his marriage into a state which may be beatific contemplation, or may be idiotcy, and when he opens his lips after months of silence it is only to say, "The angels are white." In his more lucid intervals he would make such profound remarks as, "The Abstract thinks, the Instinctive acts." In this failure and decay of the mystic vision, when it seemed on the point of solving the secrets of the universe, Balzac probably symbolized his own mature views as to the mysticism that always attracted him. To him the system of Swedenborg is like his own mysterious Séraphitus Séraphita, a brilliant, sexless creature of strange birth, tantalizing, alluring, fading at last out of human view among the glittering snows and glacial peaks of the mountains round the Stromfiord. Séraphitus Séraphita allures her lovers to heights where the breath is caught by the sharp air, where the sight grows dim, and the brain reels. She vanishes from those who love her, leaving only a memory and a hope, the sense of having seen wonderful sights with eyes waking or dreaming, the trust that these marvels have a meaning and a promise, and the certainty that, after all, the life of earth, and not the visions of the Alpine summits, is the only life for men. Perhaps this is no uncommon result of the reading of Swedenborg's very voluminous writings, which are not, however, destitute of humor, if the seer is correctly reported to have said that the English all hang together, and see few foreigners, in some circle of the invisible world.

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