Panama Canal) leaves the victim alive, but naked and without resource, the interest attaches to the De Lesseps and not to the poor, robbed peasant. In politics the same mischievous tendency and preference prevail. Abel, i. e. the mincrity, lies slain in all lands by the clumsy club of his brawny brother, the majority. What does there now exist of individual freedom and the representation of the minority anywhere? The minority is hounded down and bellowed down into silence, and must do as it is bidden, whether the question be a glass of beer or a change in the Constitution, a vaccinated infant or an overthrown monarchy. Ulster is but a quarter of Ireland. Lie down, Ulster; poor Abel, there you are; let yourself be brained without a kick or a cry. Increase of Crime in the United States.-Statistics show that in this country marriages are on the decrease and divorces on the increase, the latter ranking next to Japan in all countries where statistics are kept. In Japan the population has increased during the past twenty years from 33.000,000 to 40,000,000, notwithstanding the birth-rate is less than any other nation in the world except France. The increase of population is accounted for by the fact that notwithstanding the birth-rate is exceptionally low, so also is the infant mortality. It is very easy to obtain a divorce in Japan, as may be imagined when in one year the marriages were 325,000 and the divorces 109,058, or more than one in three. Possibly if divorces were as easily obtained in this country, they might be almost as numerous. The papers are full of infanticide, wifepoisoning, and abductions, and the records of financial prosperity and crime bring us face to face with the startling fact that we are increasing in a greater ratio in the latter than in the former. In 1850 there was one criminal in 3,500 of our population, but in 1890 there was one in 786.5, a terrible increase in forty years. The Republic is young. Reckoned by the age of nations it has hardly yet cast aside its swaddling-clothes, and yet in energy, in prosperity, in health and strength, it stands as ancient Rome stood, a giant among the Powers of the world. There must be some way to stay this mad rush of crime; some remedy for this bacteria which is poisoning the fountains of moral and physical health. The great working interests of the Nation must be en rapport with each other, each contributing its quota to the general work. Foremost in this work must stand a cultured and scientific medical profession, searching in heredity, in brain and physical organization, in climate, in surroundings, the cause of crime, of poverty, and mental degradation. And the remedy must be enforced by the action of the philanthropist with his wealth, the Church with all its power, woman with her high spiritual intuition, and broad-minded, far-seeing statesmen to push forward the work with the concentrated power of the State.-Medical Times, New York, April. But The Democracy of Our Day.-Many people have maintained that democracy has been the result of education. But, if the word is used in its ordinary sense, these people are wrong. Education ordinarily is used to mean general knowledge and cultivation, with sharpened powers of reasoning, and increased capacity for entertaining and being moved by ideas. when we speak of political knowledge in this connection, we mean knowledge in an extremely limited sense, having nothing to do with ideas, and little with elaborate reasoning. We mean merely knowledge of contemporary public events; and if the daily diffusion of this deserves the name of education, education has done more not less than its apostles are accustomed to claim for it. Whereas steam made democracy a possibility, the newspaper made it a necessity. Any human being in possession of his senses inevitably thinks about anything that is brought immediately under his notice. He thinks about a mouse if it runs under his eyes across his breakfast-table. In the same way, when the people of this country began to have the events of each day not only offered to their notice, but actually thrust upon it, they naturally began to think about them, whether they wished to do so or not; it was impossible to think about them without forming opinions, and it was impossible to form opinions without discussing them. In this way was generated what is now called public opinion, and public opinion is democracy in its nebular stage. Of course, whether public opinion is sound or not, may depend on the amount of education which the public happen to possess; but it was not education that gave rise to it. It arose simply from the natural, the inevitable workings of the common human faculties; and the masses began to interest themselves in the government of the country, not because they recognized they had any glorious right to do so, but for the plain and homely reason that they could not help doing so.-The Quarterly Review, London, Fanuary to April. EDUCATION, LITERATURE, ART. THE NEED OF ÆSTHETIC CULTURE IN GENERAL THA EDUCATION. EDOUARD MANEUVRIER. Translated and Condensed for THE LIterary DigesT from a Paper in Revue Internationale de l'Enseignment, Paris, March. HAT education should be applied to the entire nature of the human being is an axiom. In the application of this proposition, however, there has been, it seems to me, one oversight that the intelligence and the will should be thoroughly educated, every one declares: but little is ever said about the education of the sensibility. By that I mean æsthetic education, the cultivation of the soul by the use of the beautiful, by the arts. It may, perhaps, be answered that the aesthetic culture is quite sufficiently assured by literary instruction; that Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Horace, Corneille, Racine, and others are artists who are quite sufficient to develop the sensibility; that their works, which are in the hands of all our pupils, offer to those who know how to taste them, incomparable lessons in delicacy and refinement. Let us take an exact account of classic studies and their results. Let us consider, for example, the candidates who appear before our faculties for a final examination. We shall see how scantily these have culled the divine flowers of poetry, how very few are chosen among the many called, how many barbarians there are among these bachelors. Two obstacles are in the way: one is the inadequacy of literary studies, because of the extent of the course. Nothing is studied thoroughly, and very rarely does a pupil reach the point where he is able to read texts without effort. The student does not know enough Greek to enjoy Greek masterpieces, nor even Latin enough to take pleasure in the Latin classics. The student's sentiments are not his own, but those he has been directed to feel; all his emotions are suggested. This culture at second-hand has not sufficient life to endure, and the student has hardly left college before the little flame of literary enthusiasm, sometimes lighted by the words of a good master, is extinguished, generally for ever. The other obstacle is, that æsthetic culture, by means of literature, is not within reach of everybody. Only a chosen few, endowed with a certain fitness of mind, are capable of this culture. With those, the pleasure is the result of an intellectual act. Before feeling these literary beauties, you must comprehend them. Such are the joys of intellectual aristocrats. Culture by the graphic and plastic arts, and especially by music, offers the advantage of being accessible to nearly all. It is infinitely easier to learn to draw, to play on the violin, than to learn Greek. A youth who is slow at apprehending phrases, and very little interested in literature, may become a worthy draughtsman or a distinguished musician. His soul will open to these manifestations of the beautiful, which it is able to see and hear. The arts are powerful educators. Where the influence of literature has failed, they can, in a measure, replace it. Since the time when Orpheus tamed tigers and Arion charmed the dolphins, music has never ceased to work wonders. When artistic education is added to scientific education, it produces an exquisite flower of humanity. Thorough enjoyment of what is beautiful is not a gift of birth; you must acquire it, you must learn to feel. Our systems of education in the University and out of it insufficiently provide for this culture. The faculty of reasoning absorbs our whole being, yet that faculty has no more value than the faculty of feeling. From this it results that so many men think strongly and feel weakly. They have fine ideas and coarse feelings. Hence it is that so many men of intellect find life tedious. It is because they have never learned to discover the pleasures without number contained in art and nature. Eyes have they but they see not, ears have they but they hear not. The infinite variety of forms and movements, the festivals of color and of light, the exquisite charms of music-all these exist not for them. THE FIRST ENGLISH BOOK-SALE. Longman's Magazine, London, April. F it had not been for an indiscreet pamphlet published by an English theologian on Holland, our ignorance of English book-collectors might have lasted indefinitely longer. But during a brief stay in his native land, the pamphleteer introduced into this country the Dutch custom of selling by auction, the books of dead collectors. Hence we are able to say with precision that at nine o'clock of the morning of Oct. 31, 1676, at the house of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, in Warwick Court, Warwick Lane, began the first auction that ever took place in England. The pamphleteer, Joseph Hill, was one of the most earnest and most moderate of the Seventeenth-Century Presbyterians. A distinguished career at Cambridge was closed by his refusal to take the oath enjoined by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and the University authorities cut his name out of the books in-kindness to him " to prevent his being formally ejected from his offices. Hill took refuge at Leyden, and was soon appointed to the charge of the Scottish Church at Middleburg in Zeeland. But though a refugee he remained English at heart, and in 1672 wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Interests of the United Provinces, being a Defense of the Zeelander's Choice," in which he defended the action of King Charles II. in respect of his secret treaty with Louis in 1670,. Hill was ordered to leave Holland until the war was over, and on his return to England the King rewarded his patriotism with a pension of £80, and the offer of a bishopric as the price of his conformity. The offer was declined. During Hill's stay in England, he would naturally have renewed his acquaintance with an old Cambridge Don, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, with whom he had many tastes in common. Both were book-collectors, both classical scholars, and when Seaman died, during Hill's stay in London, we may be quite sure that Hill was among his mourners. Seaman left a library of five or six thousand books without any provision as to their disposal. To sell them to the booksellers was to give them away. What was to be done with them? It was here that Dr. Hill stepped in and "advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approvedof way of selling libraries by auction," as yet unknown in this country. The arrangements were soon made, and a catalogue compiled by William Cooper in not very good READER-It hath not been usual here in England to make Sales of Books by way of auction, or who will give most for them. But it having been practised in other countreys to the advantage both of buyers and sellers, it was, therefore, conceived (for the encouragement of Learning) to publish the Sale of these Books this manner of way; and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable to schollers, and, therefore, we thought it convenient to give an Advertisement concerning the manner of proceeding therein. "First, That having this Catalogue of the Books and their Editions under their several Heads and Numbers, it will be more easie for any Person of Quality, Gentlemen, or others, to Depute any one to buy such Books for them as they shall desire, if their occasions will not permit them to be present at the Auction themselves. Fifthly, That the Auction will begin the 31st of October at the Deceased Dr's House in Warwick Court in Warwick Lane, punctually at Nine of the Clock in the Morning, and Two in the Afternoon, and this to continue daily until all the Books be sold; Wherefore it is desired that the Gentlemen, or those Deputed by them may be there precisely at the Hours appointed lest they should miss the opportunity of buying these Books, which either themselves or their friends desire." In subsequent auctions these rules were repeated with only slight alterations and the addition of a “Lastly” intimating that the books could be viewed before the auction. Photography and Public Libraries.-For a long time savants and men of erudition have desired that objects of art, manuscripts, miniatures, printed works, and artistic bindings, in the public libraries, should be photographed, in order to preserve souvenirs of them in case of loss or fire. In France, during the last twenty years, several libraries, or dépôts of archives, have been destroyed or damaged by conflagrations, as, for example, those at Vienne, Bourges, Saintes, Bayonne, and Langres. At Bourg, the archives of the Department of Ain escaped by a miracle the fire which destroyed the prefecture. In other towns, partial conflagrations have been kept within bounds, but the danger always exists. Valuable authority for the use of the photograph is Dr. Richard Garnett, Keeper of the Printed Books of the British Museum. For years he has advocated the photographic reproduction of the treasures entrusted to his care, and, in a recent interview, says: "A public library should keep a photographer in its employ. So far as relates to photographing objects belonging to the State (or to Cities), commercial photography ought not to be allowed. The State ought to appoint a photographer and pay him a salary for the exclusive use of his time. The State should provide him with the necessary assistants, apparatus, 1 and chemicals. The expense would be relatively small for the treasury, and would be almost met through the demand by private persons who would buy photographs of objects, especially of those belonging to the British Museum. The demand already reaches a considerable figure, and it would rise much higher should the price of photographs be reduced in consequence of the transformation of commercial photographers into a functionary dependent on the State."-M. Pellechet, in Revue des Bibliothèques, Paris, January. A Probably True Portrait of Christopher Columbus.-The Duke of Talleyrand is the owner of a painting by Sebastian del Piombo, which is supposed to be a portrait of Columbus. Two Delegates of the Government of the United States, having expressed a desire to have the picture exhibited at the Chicago Exposition, the Duke willingly gave permission to have it sent to America. As, however, the varnish of the painting was a little clouded by time, the owner had it restored by a skillful artist, M. E. Chevreau, in the hope that he might find on the canvas some proof that the personage depicted by Del Piombo was really Christopher Columbus, or discover for what reason the name of Columbus was given to the personage represented. After completing his task, M. Chevreau made the following summary of his observations. "The close examination that I have made of the portrait of Christopher Columbus, signed by Sebastian of Venice or del Piombo, which I have restored, leaves in my mind no doubt of its authenticity. The noble and severe style of the whole work, the firmness of the drawing, the breadth of the model, are, in all points, worthy of this master. The inscriptions on the canvas are contemporaneous with the painting, and have the same marks of antiquity which are found in the head and other parts of the picture. Was it painted from life? Of that there is little probability, since Sebastian was barely twenty years old when Columbus died. That, however, is of no consequence. It is no less certain that the portrait resembles the original, for it is inadmissible to suppose that, five or six years after the death of the great man, an artist of the rank of Sebastian del Piombo would have consented to paint the portrait of a person as celebrated as Columbus without having ample material for making a likeness, especially since at that time many living persons had certainly known the navigator, and consequently would have been in a position to give information to and criticise the painter. It is evident, then, that he worked after some drawing made from life. This has been the case with many celebrated portraits. Besides all this, I would remark, that the proportions of the figure, much larger than life, the general aspect, the right hand resting on a coiled cable, the inscription, all indicate that the portrait was ordered for some meeting-room. In a word, it is an official portrait and those who ordered it were admirers, perhaps old friends, who certainly would not have been contented with a Christopher Columbus created by the fancy of the painter. There can be no doubt, as I think, in regard to the matter, and these features are those of the great navigator."—Comptes Rendus des Séances de la Société de Géographie, Paris, February. Restoration drama that the annals of actresses on the English stage begin. One of the first actresses was Mistress (Miss) Sanderson who married the great tragedian, Thomas Betterton, in December, 1662, and was not only a first-rate actress, but a good woman and a devoted wife, a combination only too rare in those days. She played the leading female parts in the Duke's company for thirty years with signal success, and was especially renowned. in Shakespeare's heroines. At last (in 1695) increasing age and failing health obliged her to give up her parts to her husband's ward, Mrs. Barry. It has been erroneously stated that Mrs. Barry, Betterton's ward, the greatest tragic actress of her generation, lies also in the Cloisters, the fact being that she is buried at Acton. When a small child of about six, the charming Mrs. Bracegirdle made her debut as a page in the same company as Mrs. Barry. She was also either adopted by Betterton or placed under his care, and, though inferior to Elizabeth Barry in talent, captivated, every heart by her charming manners and appearance. "It will be no extravagant thing to say that scarce an audience saw her that were less than half of them lovers without a suspected favorite among them." Mrs. Bracegirdle's career on the stage was comparatively short. In 1706-7 the star of Ann Oldfield was rising, and in a trial of strength between the two actresses, when each acted the same part on consecutive nights, the town gave the preference to the younger lady, whereupon Mrs. Bracegirdle retired in dudgeon rather than suffer herself to be eclipsed by her rival. Once only did she appear on the stage again: to take part with Mrs. Barry in Betterton's first benefit. She lived long enough to see the début of the great Garrick, and to banter old Colley Cibber on his jealousy of the young actor. She died in 1748, and was buried beside her old friends the Bettertons in the East Cloister. Ann Oldfield, the only actress buried actually inside the Abbey walls, was, while superior to Mrs. Bracegirdle on the stage, far below her in personal character. She was the acknowledged queen of comedy in her day, and is said to have been inimitable in certain tragic parts. Strange as it may seem nowadays, the burial of a notorious actress in the Abbey roused no opposition from anybody. But when General Churchill wanted to place a monument there to the lady's memory, Wilcocks, the dean, refused to allow it. Barton Booth, who played with Ann Oldfield, was originally destined for the Church, but he ran away from home at the age of 17 (1698) and went on the stage in the Dublin Theatre. After making a great sensation by his acting of the Ghost to Betterton's Hamlet, he ultimately became the acknowledged successor of the old tragedian in popular favor. Nearly forty years (1772) after his death, a monument was placed to his memory in Poet's Corner by his second wife, née Saintlow, once a celebrated actress herself. His family emigrated to the New World, and two of his decendants, both actors, are known to fame. One, Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, Washington; the other is a familiar figure in Shakespearean parts on both sides of the water. Mrs. Cibber, so long associated on the same stage with Garrick, made her début at the Opera. Garrick trained ber and saw her develop greater power than he had ever given her credit for. She died in 1776, aged 52, and was privately buried in the North Cloister. Two years later there died at Bath an actress, Mrs. Pritchard, considered by some critics as a finer actress than Mrs. Cibber. She is chiefly remembered now as Mrs. Siddons's greatest forerunner in the part of Lady Macbeth, though in her day she won the most brilliant success in comedy. She died in August, 1768, and, although not buried in the Abbey, a monument was put up to her in Poet's Corner by her admirers. Two actors, celebrated in different ways, died in the same year, 1777, and were both buried in the North Cloister-the trage. dian Barry and the comedian Foote. Mrs. Spranger Barry, wife of the tragedian, and herself an actress of no mean repute, was also buried in the Abbey Cloister. . Garrick held the foremost place on the English stage for thirty-eight years. The romance of his life will be found in his marriage, and, as in the case of Betterton, no shadow darkened his domestic happiness. Garrick died January 20, 1799, in retirement, and at his funeral a string of carriages blocked the way from the Strand to the Abbey, while a guard of soldiers kept back the dense crowds. Forty-three years later, Mrs. Garrick, who lived to be 98, was laid in her husband's grave. There remains to be mentioned only Mrs. Siddons, the last of the great tragic actresses of the Eighteenth Century, who found a resting-place in Westminster Abbey, and with her the muster-roll is closed. THE THE POETRY OF THE COMMONPLACE. Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in HE dimness of outliue which enables us to regard a shoemaker of the Sixteenth Century as a romantic character, the soft halo with which time illuminates the commonplace, makes us forget that an opera like Richard Wagner's "Meistersinger von Nürnberg," is based essentially upon the commonplace; that the scenes are of the most ordinary and familiar sort, that the actors are cobblers, grocers, bakers, tailors, soapboilers, and 'prentices; and that the plot deals with the petty interests of a stuffy German town. Moreover, the plot of the drama has the same homely characteristics. The motives upon which it is based are the simple primary affections that stir us quickest and deepest and that touch the chords common to all hearts. There is no esoteric emotion, no refinement of passion, no broad and striking personification of abstract qualities as in the " Ring," no consuming fever of poisoned love as in "Tristan," no solemn mysticism of the ewige Weibliche as in "Tannhäuser," or of religion as in "Parsifal." The cobblestones of Nuremburg are always under our feet. The dialogue, too, is full of the traits of plain people, who think deeper than they speak. Their talk, like that of almost all simple folk, abounds in methaphors; and if it were not for the interpreting power of the music, we should hardly guess the wealth of emotion which the homely words express. A dramatist is great in proportion as he makes his characters, not active, but living. This dramatic skill Wagner shows especially in that scene in which the third act opensthe scene in Hans Sachs's workshop. The plot advances hardly a step; we see the characters simply living, and see them all the better because the quiet picture is set between the hubbub of the street fight and the pomp of the Johannisfest; because the storm and stress of action have subsided, and left the current of life to run smoothly, its farthest depths clear to our gaze. In this scene in the workshop, Wagner's conception of what we may call the poetry of the commonplace, the nature of our ordinary lives as seen from the divine side, together with his power of representing a man in meditation as well as in action is revealed in Hans Sachs, the poet-cobbler. We see Sachs, the poet, when he sits with the huge folio in his lap, pondering upon the perversity of human ways, gazing with the deep and simple wonder at the "Wahn! Wahn! Ueberall Wahn!" that meets him, and in which he finds even himself involved. He is the cobbler when he tortures the apprehensions of the suspicious Bickmesser; and he is poet, cobbler, and lover in that charming scene when Eva enters, seeking the lover from whom, the night before, Sachs had separated her, but making her tight shoe the naïve pretext of her visit. "When I stand it makes me walk, and when I walk it makes me stand.", The cobbler kneels before her, examines and plies her with questions about the shoe; until at last Eva, in her distress, cries out, "Nay, master! dost thou know better than I where the shoe pinches?" At this moment, in tlie doorway behind Sachs, Walther appears. The cobbler guesses the meaning of the cry of joy that Eva utters, and exclaims, "Ah, now I know where the shoe pinches !" This is the ecstatic moment of the drama; the ardent lover, in his knightly array, singing the song that is to win him his bride, the elder man silently bending over the tiny shoe, and the maiden radiant with love, to whom the newly awakened passion suddenly reveals the full meaning of the other love that has so long watched over her. She sees the fruits of the unregarded devotion of Sachs in the power of her new affection, and, overwhelmed with the rush of gratitude and love, leans sobbing upon his shoulder. Such is the poetry of the commonplace as Wagner has shown it to us. At first we do not recognize it. The gorgeous trappings of the wonderful music so deck out those plain, homely incidents that we are dazzled by the splendid display. But after the opera, as we sit in our easy chair before the fire, the simplicity of it all begins to dawn upon us. We realize that the whole evening long we have seen no personage nobler than a knight, and no more thrilling scene of action than a street fight. Gradually our thought and emotions cluster about one figure, the person of the poet-cobbler; and Hans Sachs, thinking the thoughts of the world as he plies the hammer upon his last, becomes for us the perfect type and expression of the poetry of the commonplace-the revealer of the heavenward openings in our own dull lives. IN ELEONORA DUSE-A NEW DRAMATIC LIGHT. N the April number of Current Literature (New York) is an illustrated article, made up mostly of extracts from various sources, on the new Italian actress whose name and fame have recently become known on this side of the Atlantic.. "Madame Duse's repertory includes not alone a number of Shakespearean characters, but also a number of modern French ones, such as Camille and Fédora, in which her acting has been brought in direct contrast to that of Sarah Bernhardt. Critics have been enthusiastic in their praise of her naturalness and realism. "The great characteristic of Eleonora Duse, and one which raises her far above all her contemporaries, is the manner in which she eliminates all artifice, method, and indeed everything that partakes of the artificial, in her life upon the stage. She will not aid her portrayals by resorting to those sham elaborations, by which actors think they may transform themselves into the persons whom for a few hours they represent. Truth is her goal; it is also her path. With her it is ever present. She achieves truth, without catering to the public caprice, her own womanly vanity, or the world of illusion belonging to stage-life. She sees the truth; she feels it. Yet it is subjective truth. And of sorrow, the grand motive of feminine action upon the stage, she is the truest exponent.' Laura Marholm in Nord und Süd says of her: "I tried to compare her with Wolter, Bernhardt, Ellmenreich, or some other great actress of the past ten years or more; there were no grounds of comparison. The whole group of French and German traditions arranged themselves on one side, a unity in themselves, and she, too, stood on one side, a unity in herself, each a separate world, each a finished culture-type. It was not simply an Italian in contrast with French and German, not one school with another school-but one woman-temperament with other woman-temperaments, a differentiation of sensibility in comparison with her predecessors, something primitively massive, something wildly dazzling; one is even tempted to say, something hardly womanly." Helena Modjeska.-There are many curious stories told of the beginnings of famous actresses. They usually are the children of poor professional people. That is the regulation story-their poverty and struggles, and, finally, they make a hit and go on to fame. Helena Modjeska was one of the exceptions to this rule. Near the quaint old city of Cracow, the home of the ancient kings of Poland, a devastating fire had destroyed a little village, leaving the inhabitants homeless and dependent upon charity. Little Helena Modjeska, for she was only a miss at the time, suggested to a friend that they get-up an amateur theatrical entertainment for the benefit of the sufferers. "But you can't act," rejoined her friend. "Well, I can try," said Modjeska, and she did try, for that very day she sought the association of three others who were fond of dramatic entertainments, and, after waiting on the owner of one of the public halls in Cracow, they succeeded in having it donated for their performance. The night came and the hall was crowded, for there was not only wide-spread interest in the charity, but also much curiosity to witness the début of Helena Modjeska and her friends. One of the pieces presented was that of A Saucy Lackey," in which little Helena enacted the title rôle. That night there happened in Cracow the director of the Imperial Theatre, at Warsaw, Chichinski, who had strolled into the entertainment in the hope of finding some talent of promise. So pleased was he, that he sought Modjeska after the performance was over, and said: "You played that impudent lackey so well that I was tempted to box your ears," and after some further praise took the amateur's address, and left. A short time after, a vacancy occurred at the Imperial Theatre, and the manager remembering the ability displayed by Modjeska, made her an offer to join the stock company of the national play-house. It was there that she achieved her first great triumphs and remained as leading lady for many years. No one was more surprised than Modjeska herself when she learned that she had appeared under the critical eye of the greatest theatrical manager of her country, and thus it was, while performing an act of charity, that a door was opened to a career that has few parallels in the history of the stage.— Munsey's Magazine, New York, April. Mr. Irving and Tennyson's "Becket."-The Lyceum under Mr. Irving's management has been conducted in the same spirit of Art for Art's sake as might be expected to guide the destinies of a subsidized theatre. Considered merely from the point of view of money-paying popularity the management would never have presented Werner," "Twelfth-Night," "The Iron Chest," "King René's Daughter," “The Cup," or 44 "Lear." "Becket" has no doubt been a labor of love. It is fortunately its own reward. The play has hit the popular taste, and the only regret one hears connected with it is that Lord Tennyson did not live long enough to see his dramatic story upon the stage. A triumphant night for "Becket" was the one thing in life to which Lord Tennyson looked forward in his declining days. If "Becket" is not a great play, judged from the point of view of dramatic construction, it tells the stirring story of the friendship and quarrels of Henry and the Archbishop, and provides the great actor with a still finer and more human example of the splendid bigots of the Church, than the Frenchman in Lord Lytton's play, or the bulletheaded Englishman of Shakespeare. In "Becket" as in "Faust" the spectators' most varied tastes and feelings are challenged. Poetry, painting, music, the beauty of carefully arranged color, the varying sheen of brocades, and the glitter of decorative ornament, apart altogether from the theatrical presentation of a great form, all these things come within positive touch of the sensibilities. When masters of the fine arts combine together to make stage pictures, the heroic painter is, for the moment, left far behind the scenic artist in coöperation with the actor and the musician. In "Becket" we have the historic picture in action, alive with its suggested perils and triumphs, bustling with its men-at-arms, thrilling with trumpet calls, shaken with thunderclaps; or softened with sunset and endowed with the real emotions, the chastened sorrows, the dying words of the men and women themselves, The stage play, arranged, lighted, dressed, and set in motion at the Lyceum, is the same as giving life and action to the historic frescoes that decorate the walls of the Houses of Parliament, galvanizing into life the heroes and martyrs for the time, and filling the memory with living pictures that no other art can evolve; and yet, alas! the actor's work dies with him. He has, however, in his lifetime, so many advantages, so much personal fame, so much homage continually at his feet, that he may well be content to leave his name and his labors to the records of his time. In the chronicles that will carry down to posterity the name of Henry Irving, he will surely take foremost rank for his many-sided capacity; for his genius as an actor, his artistic perception, his powers of combination, and his practicability as a stage-manager; for the courage with which he has fought for the highest and best in stagecraft, and the position the theatre has taken under his leadership.— Joseph Hatton, in The Art Journal, London, April. Superstitious Practices in France. -The immense sacred stones found in various countries, and which are called dolmans, or cromlechs, or menhirs, have popular legends attached to them. Besides these legends, there are connected with these megalithic monuments, in certain parts of France, some superstitious practices which preserve a singular vitality. There are localities where sick people or ailing limbs are passed through the holes in certain stones. In other places sick people are slipped in between a sacred stone and the ground. Christianity has often put its imprint on these practices, by substituting for the stone, the object of pagan belief, a table covered with relics, or the flat stone of a saint's tomb. "We are obliged," wrote a Canon of Vannes, in 1825, “to tolerate practices which may rightly be called odd, in order to fight with more boldness and success practices which are criminal." To this conciliatory policy of the clergy we owe the preservation, not only of many ancient monuments, but of usages very curious for folk-lore, and of which there are witnesses for centuries. There are relations between the material civilization of the Gauls at the megalithic epoch and the civilization of Pelasgic Greece. The popular legends of megalithic Gaul that I have studied appear to be closely related to those of Pelasgic society, before the construction of the Greek pantheon. My conclusion is that, centuries before the great unity achieved by the Roman conquest, there existed another unity of which the cause is unknown. The most probable explanation seems to be to admit a Pelasgic current of civilization flowing from west to east, and not from east to west as is generally supposed.— Salomon Reinach, in Comptes Rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris. Tasmanian Implements.-At a meeting of the Anthropological Institute, on March 21st, President A. Macalister in the chair, Dr. Tylor exhibited a collection of the rude stone imple |