secret key, was a closet containing the gigantic strong-box, wherein was deposited his marvelous collection of diamonds. This strong-box, in itself a marvel of mechanism, was suspended by four chains in the cavity which it occupied, beneath which was a well dug deep beneath the foundations of the hotel, so that the duke had but to press a spring in order to cause his treasure-chest to disappear from view. Besides which, the closet was so constructed that, had any one unacquainted with the secret of the lock essayed to open it, he would have received the discharge of a number of concealed gun-barrels arranged like a mitrailleuse. In this coffer the duke kept not only his diamonds but his bank-notes, his papers, and his ingots of gold, many of which, to escape from prying eyes and fingers, he had caused to be disguised as cakes of chocolate. In that iron box was inclosed all that life held for him of interest or of love.

He was as much afraid of assassins as he was of thieves, and surrounded his life with as many precautions as he did his wealth. He never employed a cook, never partaking at home of any food, except a cup of chocolate, which he prepared himself by the help of a spirit-lamp. The milk for this chocolate was brought to him directly from the country, in a locked silver can, one key of which never left him, and the other was deposited with the farmer who supplied him, precautions which did not hinder him from insisting that his valet should always taste the first spoonful of the beverage when prepared. He always took his dinner at one of the great restaurants of the Boulevard, preferring usually the Maison d'Or. Once, when he was detained in the house by some slight indisposition, the Marquis de Planty, who was then his physician, scolded him for eating nothing but sweets when at home. But he could not persuade the duke to have a steak or a chop prepared for himself in his own house; he was forced to go out, to have the meal cooked himself, and to bring it to his royal patient, who exacted from him a solemn oath that he had never lost sight of the eatables for a moment. Reassured on this point, the duke nade short work of his dinner, which he declared to have been the best he had ever caten. He was, however, nothing of a gourmand, eating little, and never drinking wine, which had been forbidden to him in his youth by his physicians, his usual beverage being ordinary beer. He was extravagantly fond, however, of fruits, ices, preserves, and bonbons, of which he partook on all occasions without much regard to ceremony. Sometimes his magnificent carriage, with its four splendid horses, would be seen drawn up before the door of a fruiterer's shop, while the proprietor of the equipage, seated therein, was engaged in devouring piles of peaches or of grapes, which were brought to him from the shop. At other times, when taking ices at Tortoni's, he would pay largely for the privilege of going down into the kitchen and eating the ice-cream direct from the freezer. His great delight was to enter a confectioner's shop and to eat as long and as much as he liked from the various piles of bonbons and crystallized fruits, leaving behind him on

He passed nearly his whole time in the house. He remained in bed, where he read, wrote, and received his intimate friends, till about four o'clock in the afternoon, after which his toilet always took up an immense time, so that during a great part of the year he never saw the sun. The excessive care which he took of his person, and the artificial character of his make-up, are matters of public notoriety. He painted his face, or caused it to be painted, with all the minuteness and artistic finish that might be bestowed upon a water-color drawing. His beard, on the culture of which he bestowed much time, was combed, perfumed, and dyed daily. As to his wigs, he possessed them by dozens; and in respect to these wigs and his manner of using them an amusing story is told. A celebrated dame of the demi-monde, being presented to the duke at the opera one evening, expressed to him an ardent desire to inspect the wonders of the fairy palace of which she had heard so much. The duke gallantly promised that she should have that pleasure that very evening after the opera. Accordingly, when the performance was over, he escorted her to his hotel, took her up. stairs by means of the satin-lined elevator, and introduced her into a dimly-lighted room, where he left her under the pretext of ordering more lamps. The lady waited for some minutes for his return, and, finally, becoming impatient, she began to look about her, to discover where she was. To her amazement, she saw in one corner of the room a head which stared at her with motionless and glassy eyes.

She rushed in terror to the door, but found that it was fastened on the outside. A second glance around the dimlylighted apartment revealed the fact that she was surrounded by heads, not five, or ten, or twenty, but thirty, all of which bore a ghastly likeness to the duke himself. Her piercing shrieks at last brought to her assistance a lackey, who opened the door and released her. She asked where the duke was-he had quitted the house. The adventurous dame was only too glad to find herself outside of such a Bluebeard mansion; so she called a carriage, and returned home as fast as possible, cured of all her curiosity in regard to the Duke of Brunswick's palace. This mysterious apartment was simply the room where the duke kept his wigs, and the heads were wax models of his own countenance, each differing slightly in coloring or in the arrangement of the hair. Each day the duke made choice of the particular wig and style of visage which he wished to assume, and his valet was charged with the task of reproducing the colors of the wax model upon his features.

His dress was always extremely elegant, though sometimes very eccentric. He delighted in embroidered dressing-gowns and in magnificent uniforms. Among his servants was numbered for years a magnificent negro, black as jet, and of colossal stature, who, attired in a Mameluke costume of the very richest materials, covered with embroideries and blazing with diamonds, was always on guard in the antechamber of the duke's pal

"I'm for looks, and not for use," he made answer, showing his snowy teeth.

One night at a ball given by Prince Jerome Bonaparte, the duke's carriage was delayed for a few moments. The negro came forward to announce its arrival, and immedi ately he was surrounded by a number of the guests, who were curious to see this splendid specimen of servitude, whereupon the duke in his impatience cried out: "Selim, clear the way there! Draw your sabre, and cut me down some half a dozen of these impertinent creatures!"

Imagine the effect of this outburst in the midst of a crowd composed of the most elegant ladies and the highest dignitaries of the new empire!

If there was any thing on earth that the duke loved better than diamonds, it was a lawsuit. He would go to law about the merest trifle or the most insignificant sum. Once he sued a washer-woman about a bill of seven francs. A single watch, which he sent to a jeweler to be repaired, and of which the back was formed of a single ruby, was in itself the subject of twelve lawsuits. The erection of his hotel on the Rue Beaujon furnished occasion for ten more! He said him. self, just before he died, that he had squan dered millions in that way, and that justice was a lottery.

As to his diamonds, he consecrated fabulous sums to the formation of his collection, which speedily became celebrated throughout Europe. Among the most remarkable of the trinkets which he possessed was a pair of epaulets, formed, not of gold - thread, but of magnificent yellow diamonds from Brazil. They were valued at two hundred thousand dollars each, and were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1855, watched day and night by four policemen, who took turns in mounting guard over the crystal case which contained this treasure. These epaulets gave rise one evening to a curious and comical scene. It was at a ball given by the Count de Nieuwerkerke. The duke, in the uniform of a Brunswickian general, was blazing with diamonds, and had on the famous epaulets, A lady, passing by, remarked to the person who accompanied her:

"Only look at those epaulets, made of topazes!"

"Topazes, madame!" cried the duke, indignant at the insult offered to his jewels; "they are diamonds-the finest yellow diamonds of Brazil. Look well at them, if you never saw any before."

Thus adjured, the lady, nothing loath, examined minutely the dazzling epaulets; then she passed to the orders that the duke wore, and so prolonged her inspection that she attracted a number of other lady specta tors, and the duke was soon surrounded by a crowd of ladies, all admiring his gorgeous gems, and causing him to resemble very much a Palais Royal window with its throng of gazers. Finally, his patience became exhausted, and he cried, suiting his gestures to his words:

"Ah, ladies, if you are so fond of diamonds, I can show you still finer ones-I use them for buttons to my under-garments. Wait

a moment-"

But the ladies fled.

He never forgot nor forgave the broken promise of Napoleon III. to reinstate him on his paternal throne. One day, being present at some scientific experiments, shown before that sovereign, on reducing diamonds to vapor, the emperor offered, laughing, to sacrifice all his diamonds to the cause of science if the duke would do as much.

Ah, sire," made answer the duke, with a meaning glance, "I am only a poor exile, and am forced to be economical. Were I ever to have the happiness of mounting a throne as your majesty has done, I would promise to be more generous-and I keep my promises."

His daughter's conversion to Catholicism seemed to arouse in his breast a terrible enmity against her. Up to that time he had treated her as became his acknowledged child, but afterward whatever heart he possessed seemed closed against her. When she married the Count de Cirrey, though he gave his consent to the alliance, he was only represented at the ceremony by one of his chamberlains. Prayers, entreaties, and, finally, long years of litigation, were exhausted in the effort to make him provide for her and for her children, but in vain. An adverse decision of the French tribunal in this question drove him from his fairy palace on the Rue Beaujon to Geneva. No particle of his immense wealth was bequeathed to the countess. He at first intended to leave his whole fortune to the prince imperial, and a will to that effect was actually drawn up. When the war with Prussia was declared, the duke, then once more installed in Paris, hastened to remind Louis Napoleon of the old compact between them, and claimed from him in advance, as the conqueror of Germany, the fulfillment of his ancient promise. But a few weeks later the duke was forced to fly with his diamonds from before the advancing legions of the Prussians. He took refuge anew in Geneva, and there, in March, 1871, he drew up the new will, which constituted the city of Geneva his sole heir. It is said that he came to this singular decision upon observing in what admirable condition the ancient tombs in the Protestant church of St. Peter, in that city, were preserved. Pausing before the mausoleum erected to the memory of the Duke de Rohan two hundred years before, he remarked: "The Swiss respect the sanctity of the grave. It is not here as it is in France, where the mob fling the ashes of princes into the Seine." Be this as it may, his will contained full directions for a magnificent tomb to be erected above his remains.

The last two years of his life were passed in Geneva, partly at the Hôtel Métropole and partly at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage. An occasional drive or visit to the theatre was his only distraction outside of his apartments. For six months before his death, oppressed by increasing corpulence, he refused to quit the house, notwithstanding the exhortations of his physician. He looked after his affairs,

as usual, with minutest care. Chess and his diamonds formed the great recreations of his life. On the 18th of August, 1873, he was engaged in a game of chess quite late in the afternoon; suddenly he arose, and saying to his adversary, "Do not cheat me (ne me volez pas), he passed into the next room. These were his last words. When his attendants, surprised that he did not return, went to seek him, they found him in the agonies of death, and in a few moments he expired. Thus ended that strange, heartless, eccentric, useless life, whose commencement had been surrounded with such a halo of romance and chivalry.

portraiture of a man overcome with grief and distracted by a conflict of emotion and duty, and whether it is a delineation that exhibits a knowledge of the resources of the actor's art. In order to adequately answer these questions we must take up the impersonation point by point.

We all know the picture presented by Mr. Booth in this part. His light and graceful figure, his pale face bordered with dark and clinging hair, his features well chiseled and mobile with expression, his large and handsome eyes-all these personal attractions are commonly known and recognized as fitting him peculiarly for the character of Hamlet. But this pleasing image is prone, we think, to charm away the judgment of many

be judged by its mental features, and not by its accidents.

It was this sudden death that preserved to the city of Geneva the inheritance of the eccentric old voluptuary, who had scandal-people who forget that a work of art must ized its Calvinistic walls by his manners and his mistresses for three years past. Having carelessly thrown some water from a tumbler out of a window, it had drenched a passerby, who forthwith threatened the duke with legal proceedings. Furious at the threat, he resolved to tear up his will, to return to Paris, and to turn his back on ungrateful Geneva forever. He would restore his rosy Parisian palace, which had been sadly damaged during the Commune; he would go back to the delights of his Parisian life. His lawyer and his steward had been sent for, and preparations for his departure had already been begun. But, before he could make ready, he was summoned to depart on a longer journey, and one which knows no return His undestroyed will bequeathed his treasures to the city wherein he breathed his last, and Charles, Duke of Brunswick, degenerate descendant of the heroes of Jena and of Waterloo, took his place amid the faded figures of a forgotten past.

MR. BOOTH'S HAMLET.

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ACH of us has his ideal of Hamlet, but probably no ideal differs from other conceptions in any essential circumstance. We all think of the young prince as a man of fine sensitive organization, as one prone to philosophical contemplation and with a disposition to melancholy, as a spirit upon which is imposed a task too formidable for its brooding casuistry and its cautious introspection. We may differ as to the question of Hamlet's sanity, but this is mainly because the word awakens different ideas in different minds; and we may have varying interpretations of certain passages; but before us all looms up a distinct image in which we discern filial piety, warm feeling, impressible imagination, high dreaming, and a lordly disposition. Hamlet has his hundred shadings, his almost infinite aspects of thought and feeling, but the central ideal is always the same-a being exquisitely attuned by Nature, struck into discord by unhappy and jarring conditions.

In studying Mr. Booth's impersonation of the Danish prince we need not enter into all the speculations of the critics and the commentators. It is sufficient to ask whether it is a true picture in the leading and essential features of the character-whether it is the

A characteristic of Mr. Booth is that he never seems to be satisfied with his conceptions. His performances are marked by ceaseless change. Of course, this disposition gives opportunity for improvement and development, but unfortunately it is with this actor more frequently manifested in mere details of "business" than in expression of idea. He restlessly changes his entrances, his exits, his poses, his situations, his effects, but these transpositions rarely bring him any nearer a just knowledge of the essential spirit of the part. We fear that he does not change his ideal, because he has no adequate ideal to change. The character is mainly what he can make it by stage situations. His eye is forever on the audience. To do things that will gratify the superficial observation of his auditors is always his aim; but, in these ef forts to make a captivating picture to the eye or a telling point for the ear, the real Hamlet does not often reveal itself. We will endeavor to make this assertion good.

One of the innovations by Mr. Booth in his recent reappearance in this part is to enter upon the stage in his first scene at a somewhat later moment than has been usual. Ordinarily either Hamlet and the court are discovered as the scene opens, or the king and queen, followed by their courtiers, enter upon the stage - Hamlet lingering, melancholy and dejected, upon the outskirts of the court party. But Mr. Booth now chooses to stalk rapidly and in a pronounced manner upon the stage just as the cue for his first speech is to be given. The studious and observant spectator is at once a little dashed. Where is the wistful, brooding, melancholy Hamlet, whose "veiled lids" seek "for his noble father in the dust ?" Why does he tell the queen that

"Nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,"

denotes him truly, when neither fruitful river of the eye nor dejected visage denotes him at all? And, just as there is no melancholy in the manner, there is little sadness in the tones. There are Hamlets who exaggerate the melancholy of the unhappy prince in this scene, but Mr. Booth almost wears his grief with a jaunty air. We think of the profound sorrow which "passeth show," and wonder by what signs Mr. Booth imagines that he

portrays it. Absolutely, instead of the "melancholy," the "tender," the weak and musing Hamlet, one sees clearly enough that this emphatic, straightforward gentleman would make quick work with whoever opposed him.

Do those who discover so much excellence in Mr. Booth's personation know how the soliloquy that follows this scene ought to be delivered? Should it be a piece of schoolboy declamation, or the outpouring of one weighted with grief, and filled with indignation at an outrage upon his father's memory? A soliloquy is the musing of the heart. It is spoken aloud as a dramatic necessity, not as a natural fact. The auditor hears it, but the actor should be unconscious of this, and utter only as he feels-sometimes musingly, sometimes hesitatingly, sometimes as if he brooded over the thought, sometimes with a rush and explosion of feeling. Now, it seems to us that neither in conception of how a soliloquy should be read, nor of what profound agitation is stirring Hamlet's heart, nor of the shades of meaning expressed in the language, does Mr. Booth show a master's skill in this speech. From the opening line

"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!" to the close, there seems to us little more than the hurried movement of a not very well-trained elocutionist. Of course, there are some good points, and the sympathetic auditors applaud. But there is little thought or true feeling. The language is not shaped and chiseled into sharply-defined meaning as if by a master, and the sentiment suffers in proportion. It is simply impossible to explain or describe how at times Mr. Booth gallops over his sentences in a wholesale disregard of those shades of meaning and niceties of expression that make up the charm of good reading. He is very deficient in pause, which, rightly used, adds effect and impressiveness to the thought. He has the habit of throwing his emphasis upon insignificant words in one line, and running over the next in a level monotone that empties it of all its character. Why should he say—

"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world?" What has of to do with the expression of the idea in this line? Why should he say

. . . . with which she followed my poor father's body,"

when no other father's body could possibly be under consideration? But Mr. Booth has an amazing fondness for pronouns, and rarely fails to throw his emphasis upon them. He, without an altogether false, but by an imperfect reading, misleads his auditors in the line

"It is not, nor it cannot come to good,” who, by the accentuation of " come," are perplexed to know why it should be a question of come or go. What is needed here is, with contrasted inflections, a full antithetical emphasis on "is"-meaning "It is not good, and it cannot come to good."

We give these few instances of the tendency on the part of this actor to lose possession of his author's meaning, but in many cases this arises not so much because of

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false emphasis as of gliding over sentences without those inflections and accentuations, that exquisite management of light and shade, by which the meaning is, as it were, illuminated.

The scene with Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo, that follows this soliloquy, is very good. Mr. Booth is always better in dialogue than in soliloquy. Clear, direct, definite, profound thinking is not his forte; but the arts of the stage serve him very well indeed in all scenes where there is action and interplay. He reads that sort of test-line

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"My father-methinks I see my father"—____ excellently well-it is rarely, if ever, done better; and thoroughly good is that which follows-"In my mind's eye, Horatio"— sentence so often given with a wholly inadequate accent. He turns toward Horatio at his excited question-" Where, my lord? "— and, with a surprised but yet explanatory inflection, says that the vision he sees is wholly of mental creation-doing this with a fine emphasis and expression. The response of "Saw who?" to Horatio's "I think I saw him yesternight," is wrong. Some actors make an ado here-this also is wrong. Hamlet has no conception of Horatio's meaning, but he does see that something is meant. Mr. Booth's off-hand, indifferent "Saw who?" is an affectation of realism and is not supported by the context. Horatio's remark, if understood rightly, conveys a startling assertion; that he could not understand him rightly was Hamlet's prompt surmise, and hence the wondering, perplexed response, "Saw !" That is "What is it you say? "Who?" That is "It cannot be that I heard aright; whom do you mean?"

We dwell here upon these few minor circumstances because they have their significance. We repeat that altogether this interview is well done, exhibiting as a whole an excellent command over the resources of dramatic art.

In the ghost-scene recur similar merits and defects. The wonder is that Mr. Booth cannot "prosperously deliver himself" of a number of successive lines. One may often quarrel with his utterance of single lines, but yet throughout the play his great force lies in these. In the soliloquy the language is commonly turned on as by a faucet. There is, of course, a partial grasp and expression, but never complete mastery-rarely an utterance that shows subjective insight, or that sort of art that subordinates the declamation to the thought.

In his speech at the sight of the ghost there is, it is true, passionate earnestness, yet it is too manufactured and external, as it were too little as if his heart were bent upon wringing from the spirit before him a response. "Oh, answer me!" in his hands is rather declamation than a cry of appeal. There is, however, effective "business" in the scene, and if the ear craves a better rendition of the lines, the eye is filled with a striking dramatic picture.

The ghost is heard; the ghost departs; and now comes a significant scene-that is, as Shakespeare wrote it, but scarcely as the actors act it. Mr. Booth at one time re

stored some part of the dialogue excised here in the usual stage versions, but has now returned to the emasculated edition, which casts out just that portion that is of psychological value in the rendition of the

scene.

Intense feeling is prone to react toward bysteric mirth. There are agonies that are beyond expression-the heart oppressed to suffocation by the weight of feeling, and the brain crazed by a tumult of thought, find their best vent in some violent and feverish opposite. The words addressed by Hamlet to the unseen ghost when calling upon Horatio and Marcellus to swear to secrecy, are to be explained by this theory. The ribald looseness of "Art thou there, truepenny? Come on-you hear this fellow in the cellarage-" and

"Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast? ""

shocks only those who do not see in these outbreaks signs, not of irreverence, but of an intense reaction against overwhelming hor rors. No actor seems to have understood the significance of these passages, and hence they have usually been omitted on the stage. Even when Mr. Booth in former times spoke them he did not seem to feel all that they mean. To our mind the "wild and whirling words" throughout this scene are not assumed, have no deliberate purpose, are not meant by Hamlet to confound or confuse his listeners, but are simply the incoherent utterances of a man whose emotions are too profound to be trusted to customary forms of expression.

And here begins that fever of the brain which hangs about the man ever afterward, which some have pronounced insanity and others the assumption solely of an "antic disposition." This fever, this hysteric wildness, this intense feeling that can only find ex. pression by abnormal methods, and in words wholly foreign to the subject, this phase of emotion has never, we are right in saying if we may judge from the records, been expressed on the stage. The psychological Hamlet is yet to arise. And this Hamlet, when he comes, will master the character not by analysis but by synthesis. No man can get at this wonderful creation by logical processes. He must know what Hamlet is by being Ham let, by subjectively feeling and knowing all his wayward impulses, his imaginative fancies, his philosophical brooding. He may not philosophically know that, not what is called consistency, but what is called inconsistency, is the rule of Nature and human character; but he must instinctively act upon this principle, and interpret by that great inward light whose authority is paramount.

It must be conceded that Mr. Booth acts the interplay with Horatio, Marcellus, and the ghost, very well indeed, as the stage Hamids go. We do not know that we have seen it better done. There are good pictures, effective touches,, and a satisfaction to the eye, if not a complete one for the mind. We are glad to see that he does not adopt the stage version of the scene which distinguishes between Horatio and Marcellus, delivering the lines-'.

"For your desire to know what is between us, O'ermaster it as you may

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to Marcellus, as if it were a matter between

Guildenstern, and Polonius; he retains the player for a moment to ask a question or two and then dismisses him-and these questions

A TRIP IN CLOUD-LAND.

BOVE and around us is a vast realm,

into by the other. This wholly unsupported notion is not sustained by Mr. Booth, as it ought not to be sustained by one capable of interpreting a plain matter rightly.

We come now to the second act. Throughout the scenes therein we fail to discern in Mr. Booth the Hamlet weighted with a profound mystery, distracted by a whirl of doubts and apprehensions, who finds relief from the burden of his heart by wild and feverish utterances. Few Hamlets ever get an antic disposition" on at all, but Mr. Booth's erratic demeanor is one of mirth simply and purely. He is light-hearted, not wild-brained. He is jovial with Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Polonius, not fitful with a strange fever. He gives little sign of the weight he carries in his bosom, except at the moments when the text requires him to fall into the mood. There is no show of repressed grief; no unwary sighs escape from him; his comedy is not a mask; he is not Hamlet, but a very good comedy gentleman playing pranks upon his friends. We must say that he plays these pranks in a good stage-fashion. He knows how to titillate with bits of effect. His comment, "My uncle is King of Denmark; and those that would make mowes at him while

my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, an❘ hundred ducats a piece for his picture in little," is prompted by seeing miniatures of the king worn by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; and this is a good trifle. His notion of addressing as an aside to Rosencrantz, "I am but mad north-northwest," is done for the sake of making a good stage-picture, but is not justified by the text, and is wholly wrong. All through this scene we detect the actor who has a thorough command of the stage, but not one who has thorough command of the ideal he is attempting to portray-whose Hamlet here is light and childish rather than profound, which rarely seems to be really burdened, shadowed with a great mystery, and seeking to hide the wound in the breast by forced and fantastic mirth.

Really absurd, for which we must hold Mr. Booth accountable, is the idea of Polonius addressing to the player, after the "passionate speech," the words, "Look, whether he has not turned his color, and has tears in his eyes!-Pray you, no more," instead of to Hamlet, to whom it was obviously made. What possible concern could Polonius feel in the fact that the player was effectively simulating the passion of the speech that he was delivering? It is because the prince is so visibly affected by the passion of the player that the garrulous but ever-watchful old man would check it. This view is fully sustained by Hamlet's passionate outburst that occurs a few moments later, in which we see how intensely the player's speech had stirred his soul to its depths.

It would really seem as if the significance and matter of this tremulous soliloquy were patent on its face. Hamlet is overcome by the simulated passion of the player, and is eager to escape to himself. He hastily but not uncourteously dismisses Rosencrantz,

bids the player follow the rest, and then exclaiming, “Now I am alone," gives the pentup passions of his heart relief in a torrent of words.

We must pronounce Mr. Booth's utterance of this speech the most signal failure of his personation. He approaches it lightly, with no foreshowing, with no indication of the tumult surging in his heart. He shakes his finger at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ; he is jocose even with the player; he idles; he is amused; he shows here, indeed, as he does on some other occasions, a want of dignity as well as a lack of feeling; and, when at last he speaks, he exhibits very little of the wild passion that the lines so powerfully express.

Look at the language. Recall the scene. Remember what has occurred to work up Hamlet's emotions, and hear him exclaim: "Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am 1: Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so as to his own conceit," and so on in like vein :

"... What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion, That I have?"

Then he fiercely upbraids himself, bitterly asks if he is a coward; then, with wild vehemence, bursts into a tremendous denunciation of his uncle:

"... Bloody, bawdy, villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless, villain !

un

A moment later he partially recovers his selfpossession, and denounces himself for packing his heart with words," and "falling a cursing like a very drab."

Unpacking his heart with words! This is the clew to the passionate outbreak. It is the one occasion during the whole play that the overwrought heart finds this vent. Better for Hamlet had it been oftener. The heart that forever sits brooding over a wrong is sure to go distraught. But Mr. Booth does not unpack his heart. He does not show us one freighted with feeling that needs must deliver itself through the vehemence of words. This speech can scarcely be uttered with an excess of frenzy. The man's whole volume of grief here rushes into expression. There is no reserve. There is no moderation. There is a tumult that in the actor's hands should be limited only by those laws of art by which effect is not destroyed by extravagance. It is something, indeed, that if rightly done would tax the full measure of an actor's power and of his art, and yet no art could compass it. It is here that genius must reveal itself if the requisite reach of feeling and overpowering passion is to be attained at all.

We have now reached the third act, when arises the perplexed question of Hamlet's sanity. But we have already occupied as much space as can be spared in one number of the JOURNAL for this subject, and must hence postpone the rest of our remarks until next week.

Un

governed by good old King Nobody, and guarded only by his faithful servant, Sir Attraction-Gravitation-an aged but valiant and still most potent warrior. And, although the birds are always made welcome guests by this unseen monarch, man's overtures have ever been met with suspicion and resisted. So that, since hostilities have been declared, there have been numerous incursions thitherward by the sons of men. equal as these conquests were, the champion and defender of the king and his domains, doughty Sir Attraction-fighting single-handed as he did against organized bands and great odds-came off the victor in so many of the early encounters that (being a pretty good-natured fellow) he was made generous by his success; and, seeing by the persistency and ingenuity of the incursionists that they were exceeding anxious to enjoy the territory, the king and he felt complimented rather than otherwise. The crown-jewels-among them being the famous sunstone and moonstone, both gems of extraordinary brilliancy and purity-were set firmly in the vast dome of the king's palace, far above the reach of any mortal; and having no other belongings of which they were afraid of being robbed, it was mutually agreeable to permit the lordlings of the earth to roam at will in the lower departments of the realm. But to pass beyond the lines fixed by the king was certain death, for Sir Attraction stationed his watchdog Rare Atmosphere to keep an eye on the boundaries, and when some lawless fellows have dared to trespass they have been pounced upon and slain by this beast, and then have been thrown back among their fellows, terrible examples of the fate awaiting all trespassers.

A trip in a balloon! Why, the mere thought of it, even to one who has never been "up," brings a flood of pleasing and ennobling sensations. For who has not envied the eagle his power to skim the treetops, to hover above Niagara, to circle mountain-peaks, to poise himself aloft and survey creation, or to mount straight upward and gaze at the sun?

So, considering all these points, the delights of a balloon-voyage appear so various and so complicated in their nature that I hardly know where to begin in the enumeration of them. The best general summary of these delights that I am capable of is this: a sense of triumph, a sense of calm satisfaction with one's self which is far removed from conceit, and a sense of the very best of good-will toward all created thingsin short, all that goes to make up what the philosophers call perfect pleasure.

Probably the finest balloon-voyage for pleasure ever made was that when a party of five journalists, representing the principal morning papers of the metropolis, rose from Madison Square, New York, one calm summer afternoon, in the stanch air-ship Barnum; captain, Washington H. Donaldson. It was the writer's good fortune to be a member of the party. The course the winds willed we

should take lay over what is acknowledged to be the finest scenery in America, being along the Hudson as far as Fishkill; thence back into the country, striking the river again at Hudson; thence across the Catskills near the Mountain-House, and so on up to Saratoga, where the final landing was made. We were in the air twenty-six hours -a plump night and day.

Never can I forget that summer night. Sailing out over the Hudson a few miles below West Point, we remained above its waters at a height of perhaps two hundred feet more than an hour, slowly coursing to the north. The mellow rays of a full moon lighted up our pathway. Beneath us a boat bearing an excursion - party was breasting the current. It looked to be a fairy craft. The sound of merry voices and laughter, toned down by the distance to a sweet, gentle murmur, was wafted up to us. Every few min. utes a string-band aboard the boat rasped out a tune, which to our ears was divinest harmony; for to us then the hoarse din of a battle, or the dull repetitious clang of a boiler-shop, would have had all the charms of a melody. One minute our car would be rubbing against the wens on Anthony's Nose, and the next we would be sailing placidly over the mid-current. Here it was that I felt perfect peace and joy; and with these feelings was curiously combined a sort of intoxication, which, unlike other intoxications, was followed by no painful penalty, except perhaps of sorrow that it had gone.

Strange what a brotherhood sprang up between us! We were total strangers to one another an hour before the starting. We were rough fellows, too, such as the varied life of a reporter on the daily press tends to make men. Yet we were brothers in heart and soul ten minutes after the balloon's leashes were cast off. F took a perilous perch on the edge of the basket. McK no sooner saw it than, in tones soft as a woman's and earnest with heartfelt solicitude, he begged this friend of an hour to descend to a safer level.

Such a wonderful sunrise as that which burst on us on the morning of the 25th is seldom seen. The balloon had been sailing low in a valley, to the east of a steep hill, whose top towered several hundred feet above us. A little village beneath us, which snuggled cozily in an angle formed by the meeting of two small streams, was dim under the mists of early morning and the shadows of the hills. There were no signs of the approach of day in the sky. It was desirable to rise over the high hill to the east, and ballast was thrown out for the purpose. The balloon shot up like an arrow. The instant we passed the level of the summit, we saw the sun peeping up at us over the shoulder of a distant mountain. It was full and round, and came in sight within the fraction of a second. The phenomenon of sunrise was reversed; we rose on the sun. But this was not a glorious sun that we saw, fresh and rosy as a summer's sun should be. He was heavy and dull-as it were, bleareyed-and blurred as if he had spent most of the night in enervating revelry, and had only just been roused from a brief doze un

der somebody's table, and wanted to drop down again and have the nap out. That he was in a very bad humor about something seemed certain. But none of this proved to

be his fault. The enemies that put him in this sorry plight, and came so near destroying our good opinion of him as an industrious, sober fellow, were clouds of vapor that rose from the intervening Hudson and floated in dense masses in front of him. He was not slow to recognize his peril; and, fighting as a wronged man always fights, and using his ardor with great advantage (a thing which few people have the knack of | doing), he soon so completely routed his foes that after half an hour no trace of them could be discovered.

And when a few hours thereafter we soared two miles above the Catskills, what a grand sense of freedom came over us and wrapped us as in fine robes and ermine! We were absolute lords of the domain; if not, pray who were? Beyond the reach of all law (not to say that law is a thing for the riddance from which God is to be thanked), we triumphed in knowing that neither man nor any of man's inventions could avail against us. Indeed, there could be no more perfect freedom than was ours, albeit we were confined within the narrow limits of a basket eight feet by three and a half.

Toward nightfall there were thrilling experiences that made the blood leap. A high wind sprang up, and carried the balloon along at prodigious speed. We could not distinguish objects on the earth. The long dragrope was out, and the end of it became fast around a limb of a tree. The balloon was brought up with a shock that nearly overturned the basket, and it took all our strength to keep from falling. The rope groaned under the strain. The gas-bag was like a huge leviathan in a net. It writhed, twisted, pushed this way and that, gathered into a ball, and sprang fiercely out. The loose cloth around the mouth would suck up, till half the netting hung empty, and then fold after fold would dart out and back with all the angry menace of a serpent's tongue. The rope kept on groaning and grinding against the edge of the basket. There were doubts if the basket would long stand the strain; but it was made of tough willow and bamboo, cunningly interwoven, and gave no signs of breaking.

The struggle was short. The branch that held the rope snapped, and we were free. And how, as a thing of life, the balloon seemed to rejoice in her recovered freedom! First, there was a quick leap forward, that threw us off our feet, and cast the great drag-rope (three hundred feet long) about like a whiplash. Then came a succession of steady jumps and a pleasant, oscillating motion, until we steadied down to the velocity of the wind.

I enjoyed all this profoundly. Does the reader doubt the truthfulness of this assertion ? This is perhaps but natural, yet I solemnly declare that I was not afraid, and gathered pleasure from the scene. Just as a sympathetic man may become so interested in a deadly battle between voracious beasts that, forgetting self, he draws nigher and nigher, until he is himself in danger, so I was

entranced by that contest up there in the clouds.

I find I am unable to do more than glance at the subject. A score of delights remain unmentioned, chief among which, after some other sensations similar to those already described, is the curious appearance which the landscape assumes. The forests, cut into at one point and another by the axe of the woodman, presented to us from our shifting perch in the air all sorts of grotesque figures: in one place we saw a pair of eye-glasses, the glasses represented by two dabs of woodland, and the connecting bridge by a creek running from one to the other; in another, a gigantic boot, shaped by cuttings on a forest, with every curve as true as if it had been fashioned by one of the "anatomical" boot-makers of the period. When seen from a vast height, the earth appeared to be dressed in a robe of dark green, shaded to a deeper hue here and there by cloudlets floating beneath the sun, and garnished all over with bright penciling, sometimes silvery and sometimes golden, of the innumerable rivers and creeks. And as there are said to be no distinctions of class in heaven, so we could discern no difference between the dashing streamlet that has its source in the mountains, with its clean, pebbly bottom and pure waters, and its laggard neighbor, dragging its noisome length between environments of sticky ooze, that hails from the swamps.

There was at no time any feeling of unsteadiness or uncertainty of foothold, like that which comes over one when tossing on the sea in a ship or boat. The basket was as firm as a parlor-floor; and indeed, when running with the wind at a speed of seventy miles an hour, not the slightest motion was perceptible, except when we looked down at the spinning earth.

What a pity these silent, trackless depths are not the highway of passenger traffic, instead of the roaring, screeching, grimy railway-train, and the boisterous, broiling seas!