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On one side of the grave sleeps his wife: his two daughters on the other. One is Susanna, Daughter of William Shakespeare, Gentleman: so the name is spelt, by people who should have known how to spell it. There are some lines, of which these are the first four :

Witty above her sexe, but that's not all:
Wise to salvation was good Mistres Hall.
Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this
Only of Him with whom she's now in blisse.

Of course the writer did not mean it: but it is curious how carefully he assures us that if there was any moral good in Mistress Hall, she did not derive it from her father. cleverness perhaps she might.

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There are other monuments: a grand recumbent figure of John a-Combe: but here one does not care for any that are away from the great interest of the place. But we cannot always stay here; and at last we come slowly away, examining the church carefully as we go. The nave has sideaisles galleries in them. The chancel is aisle-less. There is a transept without aisles; and over the intersection a graceful spire. The windows are filled with perpendicular tracery. The people of Govan, near Glasgow, are under the wild illusion that their parish church is a fac-simile of this church. The spire remotely resembled this; the churches have not a feature in common. Out of the church at length, and all around it. The south transept is covered with ivy, of which the writer took a leaf away. The sacred leaf is fixed on the fly-leaf of his Knight's Edition, Vol. I. Written beneath is Taken from the Transept of the church of Stratford-on-Avon, near Shakespeare's Grave, Oct. 17, 1871. Close beneath the east end of the church is the slow river, here dammed up for the convenience of a great mill, hard by. Willows beyond the river: then the flat, rich English landscape, still quite green. In the churchyard wall, close by the river, are stone sedilia, canopied, plainly brought from elsewhere. Let us sit here awhile. It is a low wall by the river side: the water just below. Passing from the churchyard, we go by the large mill; on its side are marked the lines to which, at various times of flood, the river has risen. It must have made all the country round a sea. Cross the river by a footbridge, elevated high; and along the further side to the point where you have the church opposite you. Now Stratford-on-Avon is a possession forever; and as the day declines we go. Going, one thought of another genius, a far less genius than Shakspeare, but a genius as real: the scenes of whose birth and death have been familiar since childhood.

All ask the cottage of his birth,

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung, And gather feelings, not of earth,

His fields and streams among.

They linger by the Doon's low trees,

And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries, The poet's tomb is there!

But they did not mind in the least about moving his bones. The rest of the dead was disturbed, and certain fussy persons "tried their hats" upon the skull of Burns. They found (as might well have been anticipated) that all their hats were a great deal too small.

Birmingham once more: returning to it for the last time. Again the dreary dinner, eaten in a populous solitude; and the cup of specially bad tea. Again climb the desolate stone stairs, uncarpeted, reminding one of a prison. The only home-like place in a great hotel is one's own little chamber. Here are the friendly faces of a few books, companions of one's solitude. Here the receptacle (warranted solid leather) which gains almost a human interest through long common travel, and faithfully keeping so much given to its care. It must be packed to-night: things go into their accustomed places: the bare little room looks barer when they are stowed away. Pasted on the door, the ominous warning obtrudes itself, -Please bolt the door before going to bed.

How many little details are crowded into one's memory! and how capriciously they go and stay! Next morning, at 8.50, away by the Midland line. Tamworth, Burton, where were many trucks laden with innumerable casks of beer; Derby, Chesterfield, with its strange spire, much off the perpendicular; Sheffield under a thick pall of smoke; Normanton, York, Newcastle, Berwick, Edinburgh at 8.30 P.M., after a long day. A restful day to one's mind, of pleasant reading, with little intermissions, and glimpses of not unfamiliar scenes gliding by.

STAGE BANQUETS.

A VETERAN actor of inferior fame once expressed his extreme dislike to what he was pleased to term" the sham wine-parties" of Macbeth and others. He was aweary of the Barmecide banquets of the stage, of affecting to quaff with gusto imaginary wine out of empty pasteboard goblets, and of making believe to have an appetite for wooden

apples and "property" comestibles. He was in every

sense a poor player, and had often been a very hungry one. He took especial pleasure in remembering the entertainments of the theatre in which the necessities of performance, or regard for rooted tradition, involved the setting of real edible food before the actors. At the same time he greatly lamented the limited number of dramas in which these precious opportunities occurred.

He had grateful memories of the rather obsolete Scottish melodrama of "Cramond Brig;' for in this work old custom demanded the introduction of a real sheep's head with accompanying "trotters." He told of a North Brittish manager who was wont-especially when the salaries he was supposed to pay were somewhat in arrear, and he desired to keep his company in good humor and, may be, alive- to produce this play on Saturday nights. For some days before the performance the dainties that were destined to grace it underwent exhibition in the green-room. A label bore the inscription: "This sheep's head will appear in the play of Cramond Brig' on next Saturday night. God save the King." "It afforded us all two famous dinners," reveals our veteran. "We had a large pot of broth made with the head and feet: these we ate on Saturday night; the broth we had on Sunday." So in another Scottish play, "The Gentle Shepherd" of Allan Ramsay, it was long the custom on stages north of the Tweed to present a real haggis, although niggardly managers were often tempted to substitute for the genuine dish a far less savory if more wholesome mess of oatmeal. But a play more famous still for the reality of its victuals, and better known to modern times, was Prince Hoare's musical farce, "No Song, no Supper." A steaming hot boiled leg of lamb and turnips may be described as quite the leading character in this entertainment. Without this appetizing addition the play has never been represented. There is a story, however, which one can only hope is incorrect, of an impresario of Oriental origin, who, supplying the necessary meal, yet subsequently fined his company all round on the ground that they had "combined to destroy certain of the properties of the theatre."

There are many other plays in the course of which genuine food is consumed on the stage. But some excuse for the generally fictitious nature of theatrical repasts is to be found in the fact that eating, during performance, is often a very difficult matter for the actors to accomplish. Michael Kelly in his Memoirs relates that he was required to eat part of a fowl in the supper scene of a bygone operatic play called "A House to be Sold." Bannister at rehearsal had informed him that it was very difficult to swallow food on the stage. Kelly was incredulous, however. "But strange as it may appear," he writes, "I found it a fact that I could not get down a morsel. My embarrassment was a great source of fun to Bannister and Suett, who were both gifted with the accommodating talent of stage feeding. Whoever saw poor Suett as the lawyer in "No Song, no Supper," tucking in his boiled leg of lamb, or in

'The Siege of Belgrade,' will be little disposed to question my testimony to the fact." From this account, however, it is manifest that the difficulty of "stage feeding," as Kelly calls it, is not invariably felt by all actors alike. And probably, although the appetites of the superior players may often fail them, the supernumerary or the representative of minor characters could generally contrive to make a respectable meal if the circumstances of the case supplied the opportunity.

The difficulty that attends eating on the stage does not, it would seem, extend to drinking, and sometimes the introduction of real and potent liquors during the performance has lead to unfortunate results. Thus Whincop, who, in 1747, published a tragedy called "Scanderbeg," adding to it "A List of all the Dramatic Authors, with some Account of their Lives," &c., describes a curious occurrence at the Theatre Royal in 1693. A comedy entitled The Wary Widow; or, Sir Noisy Parrot," written by one Higden, and now a very scarce book, had been produced; but on the first representation," the author had contrived so much drinking of punch in the play that the actors almost all got drunk, and were unable to get through with it, so that the audience was dismissed at the end of the third act." Upon subsequent performances of the comedy no doubt the management reduced the strength of the punch, or substituted some harmless beverage, toast-and-water perhaps, imitative of that ardent compound so far as mere color was concerned. There have been actors, however, who have refused to accept the innocent semblance of vinous liquor supplied by the management, and especially when, as part of their performance, they were required to simulate intoxication. A certain representative of Cassio was wont to take to the theatre a bottle of claret from his own cellar, whenever he was called upon to sustain that character. It took possession of him too thoroughly, he said with a plausible air, to allow of his affecting inebriety after holding an empty goblet to his lips, or swallowing mere toast-andwater or small beer. Still his precaution had its disadvantages. The real claret he comsumed might make his intemperance somewhat too genuine and accurate; and his portrayal of Cassio's speedy return to sobriety might be in such wise very difficult of accomplishment. So there have been players of dainty taste, who, required to eat in the presence of the audience, have elected to bring their own provisions, from some suspicion of the quality of the food provided by the management. We have heard of a clown who, entering the theatre nightly to undertake the duties of his part, was observed to carry with him always a neat little paper parcel. What did it contain? bystanders inquired of each other. Well, in the comic scenes of pantomime it is not unusual to see a very small child, dressed perhaps as a charity-boy, crossing the stage, bearing in his hand a slice of bread and butter. The clown steals this article of food and devours it; whereupon the child, crying aloud, pursues him hither and thither about the stage. The incident always excites much amusement; for in pantomimes the world is turned upsidedown, and moral principles have no existence; cruelty is only comical, and outrageous crime the best of jokes. The paper parcel borne to the theatre by the clown under mention enclosed the bread and butter that was to figure in the harlequinade. "You see I'm a particular feeder," the performer explained. "I can't eat bread and butter of any one's cutting. Besides, I've tried it, and they only afford salt butter. I can't stand that. So as I've got to eat it and no mistake, with all the house looking at me, I cut a slice when I'm having my own tea, at home, and bring it down with me."

Rather among the refreshments of the side-wings than of the stage must be counted that reeking hot tumbler of "very brown, very hot, and very strong brandy-and-water," which as Doctor Doran relates, was prepared for poor Edmund Kean, as, towards the close of his career, he was wont to stagger from before the footlights, and, overcome by his exertions and infirmities, to sink, "a helpless, speechless, fainting, bent-up mass," into the chair placed in readiness to receive the shattered, ruined actor.

With Kean's prototype in acting and in excess, George Frederick Cooke, it

was less a question of stage or side-wing refreshments than of the measure of preliminary potation he had indulged in. In what state would he come down to the theatre? Upon the answer to that inquiry the entertainment of the night greatly depended. "I was drunk the night before last," Cooke said on one occasion; "still I acted, and they hissed me. Last night I was drunk again, and I didn't act; they hissed all the same. There's no knowing how to please the public." A fine actor, Cooke was also a genuine humorist, and it must be said for him, although a like excuse has been perhaps too often pleaded for such failings as his, that his senses gave way, and his brain became affected after very slight indulgence. From this, however, he could not be persuaded to abstain, and so made havoc of his genius, and terminated, prematurely and ignobly enough, his professional career.

Many stories are extant as to performances being interrupted by the entry of innocent messengers bringing to the players, in the presence of the audience, refreshments they had designed to consume behind the scenes, or sheltered from observation between the wings. Thus is it told of one Walls, who was the prompter in a Scottish theatre, and occasionally appeared in minor parts, that he once directed a maid-of-all-work, employed in the wardrobe de partment of the theatre, to bring him a gill of whiskey. The night was wet, so the girl, not caring to go out, entrusted the commission to a litttle boy who happened to be standing by. The play was Othello, and Wall played the Duke. The scene of the senate was in course of representation, Brabantio had just stated, —

My particular grief

Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature, That it engiuts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself,

and the Duke, obedient to his cue, had inquired:

Why, what's the matter?

when the little boy appeared upon the stage bearing a pewter measure, and explained, "It's just the whiskey, Mr. Walls; and I could na git ony at fourpence, so yer awn the landlord a penny; and he says it's time you was payin' what's doon i' the book." The senate broke up amidst the uproarious laughter of the audience.

Real macaroni in Masaniello, and real champagne in Don Giovanni, in order that Leporello may have opportunities for "comic business "in the supper scene, are demanded by the customs of the operatic stage. Realism generally, indeed, is greatly affected in the modern theatre. The audiences of to-day require not merely that real water shall be seen to flow from a pump, or to form a cataract, but that real wine shall proceed from real bottles, and be fairly swallowed by the performers. In Paris, a complaint was recently made that, in a scene representing an entertainment in modern fashionable society, the champagne supplied was only of a second-rate quality. Through powerful opera-glasses the bottle labels could be read, and the management's sacrifice of truthfulness to economy was severely criticized. The audience resented the introduction of the cheaper liquor, as though they had themselves been constrained to drink it.

As part also of the modern regard for realism may be noted the "cooking scenes," which have frequently figured in recent plays. The old conjuring trick of making a pudding in a hat never won more admiration than is now obtained by such simple expedients as frying bacon or sausages, or broiling chops or steaks upon the stage in sight of the audience. The manufacture of paste for puddings or pies by one of the dramatis persona has always been very favorably received, and the first glimpse of the real rolling-pin, and the real flour to be thus employed, has always been attended with applause. In a late production, the opening of a soda-water bottle by one of the characters was generally regarded as quite the most impressive effect of the repre

sentation.

At Christmas time, when the shops are so copiously supplied with articles of food as to suggest a notion that the world is content to live upon half-rations at other seasons of the year, there is extraordinary storing of provisions at certain of the theatres. These are not edible, however; they are due to the art of the property-maker, and are designed for what are known as the "spill and pelt" scenes of the pantomime. They represent juicy legs of mutton, brightly streaked with red and white, quartern loaves, trussed fowls, turnips, carrots and cabbages, strings of sausages, fish of all kinds, sizes, and colors; they are to be stolen and pocketed by the clown, recaptured by the policeman, and afterwards wildly whirled in all directions in a general "rally" of all the characters in the harlequinade. They are but adroitly painted canvas stuffed with straw or sawdust. No doubt the property-maker sometimes views from the wings with considerable dismay the severe usage to which his works of art are subjected. "He's an excellent clown, sir," one such was once heard to say, regarding from his own stand-point the performance of the jester in question. "He don't destroy the properties as some do." Perhaps now and then, too, a minor actor or a supernumerary, who has derided "the sham wine-parties of Macbeth and others," may lament the scandalous waste of seeming good victuals in a pantomime. But, as a rule, these performers are not fanciful on this, or, indeed, on any other subject. They are not to be deceived by the illusions of the stage; they are themselves too much a part of its shams and artifices. Property legs of mutton are to them not even food for reflection, but simply "properties," and nothing more. Otherwise, a somewhat too cynical disposition might be unfortunately encouraged; and the poor player, whose part requires him to be lavish of bank-notes of enormous amount upon the stage, and the hungry "super," constrained to maltreat articles of food which he would prize dearly if they were but real, might be too bitterly affected by noting the grievous discrepancy existing between their private and their public careers -the men they are, and the characters they seem to be.

M. TAINE'S "NOTES ON ENGLAND."

ENGLISH GIRLS AND AUTHORESSES.

NUMBERS of dinners or luncheons in town, walks in the country, with persons belonging to the upper middle class, and with some of the nobility. The drawing-rooms and the dinners are the same as everywhere else; there is a certain level of luxury and of elegance where all the wealthy classes of Europe meet. The only very striking thing at table, or in the evening, is the exceeding freshness of the ladies, and their toilette also; the hue of the skin is dazzling. Yesterday, I was placed beside a young lady whose neck and shoulders resembled snow, or rather mother-of-pearl; this extraordinary white is so powerful, that, to my eyes, it is not life-like; she wore a rosecolored dress, wreath of red flowers, green trimmings, and a golden necklace around the throat, like a savage queen; they have rarely a feeling for colors.

Great reception at a minister's; the staircase is monumental, and the drawing-rooms are lofty, princely; but this is uncommon; in general the house is not well arranged for receiving guests. When one has a large company, the two drawing-rooms on the first floor do not suffice; very rich people who are obliged to make a display, give their entertainment on two floors; the ladies, for lack of room and in order to get air, seat themselves on the

steps of the stairs. To-day several distinguished persons were mentioned to me, but I have not the right to describe them. Some young ladies and young girls are extremely beautiful, and all the company are excessively dressed; many ladies have their hair decked with diamonds, and their shoulders, much exposed, have the incomparable whiteness of which I have just spoken; the petals of a lily, the gloss of satin do not come near to it. But there are many storks in gauze and tulle, many skinny jades, with prominent noses, jaws of macaws; ugliness is more

ugly here than among us. As to the men, their physical type and their expression badly harmonize with their position; they are often too tall, too strong, too automatic, with eyes inert or wild, with angular and knotty features. I met again the two Frenchmen belonging to the Embassy; how agreeable as a contrast are their intelligent and lively, gay faces! It is sufficient to be introduced in order to be greeted with perfect politeness. The French wrongly think that they have the privilege of this. In this respect, in Europe, all well-brought-up people resemble each other.

Another evening at Lady -'s. One of her daughters sang a Norwegian song at the piano, and sang it well, with animation and expression which are not common. According to the opinions of my musical friends, the English are still wore endowed than we are with respect to music; however, on this subject, all illusions are possible; Miss B., having pitilessly strummed a sonata, finished amidst general attention; her mother said to me, "She has quite a genius for it." Two other young girls are beautiful and pleasing; but too rosy, and upon this rosiness are too many adornments of staring green which vex the eye. But as compensation, how simple and affable are they! Twice out of three times when one converses here with a woman, one feels rested, affected, almost happy; their greeting is kindly, friendly; and such a smile of gentle and quiet goodness; no after-thought; the intention, the expression, every thing is open, natural, cordial; one is much more at ease than with a French woman; one has not the vague fear of being judged, rallied; one does not feel one's self in presence of a sharpened, piercing, cutting mind that can quarter you in a trice, nor of a vivid, exacting, wearied imagination which demands anecdotes, spice, show, amusement, flattery, all kinds of dainties, and shuts you up if you have no tit-bits to offer her. The conversation is neither a duel nor a competition; one may express a thought as it is, without embellishment; one has the right to be what one is, commonplace. One may even, without wearying her or having a pedantic air, speak to her about serious matters, obtain from her correct information, reason with her as with a man. I transcribe some conversation taken down on the spot.

On

Dined with Mrs. T-; her two nieces are at table. They have the small, plain dresses of boarding-school girls. The eldest never raises her eyes during the repast, or timidly glances around. This is not silliness; after dinner I talked freely for an hour with them. Their silence is mere bashfulness, infantine modesty, innocent wildness of the startled doe. When spoken to, their blood ascends to their cheeks; for myself, I love that youthfulness of the mind; it is not necessary that a young girl should too early have the assurance and the manners of society: the French girl is a flower too soon in bloom. They spend the winter and the summer in the country, twenty miles distant from the city. They walk for at least two hours daily; then they work in the family circle, where they listen to something, read aloud. Their occupations are drawing, music, visits to the poor, reading (they are subscribers to a circulating library). They read novels, travels, history, and some sermons. Sunday there is church, and the school for the poor village children. They do not weary; they have no desire to see company. This winter they came to France, and found French women very agreeable, amiable, engaging, and sprightly. But they are surprised and hurt at the constant supervision which we keep over our girls. In England they are much more independent. Even in London, each of them may go out alone, or at least with her sister. Yet there is excess; they censure the fast girls who follow the hounds, treat men as comrades, and sometimes smoke. All is commonplace in these two young girls, -education, mind, character, face; they are very healthy, they are fresh, nothing more; they are average girls; but this modesty, this simplicity, this health, this good sense, suffice to make a good wife who will be contented with her household, will have children without being sickly, will be faithful to her husband, and will not ruin him in dress.

The chief point is the absence of coquetry; I proceed to cite trifling instances, extreme, unfavorable. This winter in a Paris drawing-room where I was, a stout, red-faced bald man, related to a rather great English personage, entered leading his daughter of sixteen; pretty, gentle face, but what ignorance of dress! She had dark brown gloves, hair in curls, not glossy, a sort of badly fitting white casaque, and her waist resembled a log in a sack. All the evening she remained silent, like a Cinderella, amidst the splendors and supreme elegances of the dresses and beauties surrounding her. Here, in St. James's Park, at the Exhibition, in the picture-galleries, many young ladies, pretty, well dressed, wore spectacles. I put aside several other traits; but it is clear to me that they possess in a much lesser degree than French women the sentiment which ordains that at every moment, and before every person, a woman stands with shouldered arms, and feels herself on parade. However, naturalness is less restrained, and breaks forth more freely. Recently, at thirty miles from London, we took a long walk with the daughters of the family, and we climbed a rather steep height. Still very young, they are true goats, always leaping, even when ascending, upon the sharp slopes and among the stones. Exuberance and freedom of the circulation, and of the animal forces: nothing feminine; in the carriage, before arriving, their noisy babble, excitedness, their sparkling eyes, above all their energy, the emphasis of their pronunciation, gave the idea of merry English boys during the holidays. The youngest had bright crimson cheeks like a rosy apple; both of them had full jaws and large feet. Miss Charlotte, aged fifteen, told me that she could easily walk twenty miles. They first learned German from a nurse; but they do not know French yet. "Yet you have a French governess?" "Yes, but when one is stupid!" Then an outburst of laughter. Certainly selflove does not constrain them; they never dream of acting a part; tall and developed as we see them, daughters of a nobleman who is wealthy, they are children still; not one of their ideas, not one of their gestures, betrays the woman. Neither precocious nor worldly; these two traits coincide and engender a multitude of others. I can bear the testimony of my eyes to the great freedom which they enjoy ; I see many of them in the morning at Hyde Park who have come to take a turn on horseback, without other companion than a groom. Two days after arriving in the country I was asked to give my arm to a young daughter of the family, in order to escort her to a place a mile off. S-——, who has spent a year here, considers this loyal and free intercourse charming; a gentleman to whom he was introduced said, "Come to my house and I will make you acquainted with my daughters." They are more amiable and honest comrades. One rides with them on horseback, one accompanies them to archery meetings, one chats familiarly with them on all, or nearly all, subjects; one laughs without af ter-thought. It were impossible even for a coxcomb to treat them otherwise than as if they were his sisters. At Manchester two of my French friends went to dine at a house. At eleven in the evening they were requested to escort home two young girls who were there. All the four entered a cab, and rode for half an hour. They chatted gayly, and without any trouble or embarrassment on either side. Thanks to these manners, the man most inured to the harshnesses and villanies of life, must keep a corner of his soul for poetry, for tender sentiments. In this we are deficient. An Englishman who has travelled among us is astonished and scandalized to see men in Paris staring women in the face, not yielding the pavement to them. It is necessary to have lived among foreigners to know how much our manners, our remarks on this subject, are displeasing, and even offensive; they consider us bag-men, fops, and blackguards. The truth is that we feel with difficulty the sentiment of respect; sex, condition, education, do not create as great distinctions among us as among other nations. Moreover, in addition to individuals being more equal among us, they experience the necessity in a higher degree of being sensible of this equality.

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Dined with F. The ladies explained to me the training of young girls. In well-to-do or wealthy families they

all learn French, German, Italian, in general from infancy, through nurses and foreign governesses. Commonly they begin with French; nearly all speak it fluently, and several without any accent; I have cited the sole exception I have encountered. They read Dante, Manzoni, Schiller, and Goethe, our classics, Chateaubriand, and some moderns. Many learn a little Latin; that will be serviceable for the education of their children, or of their young brothers. Several learn natural history, botany, mineralogy, geology; they have a taste for all natural things; and in the country, at the sea-side, in their frequent journeys, they can see minerals, herbs, shells, form collections; besides, that suits the English habit, which consists in storing up facts; thus they are more instructed, and more solidly instructed, than among us. Another motive is, that many of the young girls never marry, and that it is requisite to prepare an occupation for them beforehand. Lady M-cited the case of a family in her neighborhood, where there are five unmarried daughters, all beautiful; the older ones are thirty-five and thirty-six. This is because they have been brought up in luxury, and have scarcely any dowry. Frequently a father only gives his daughter a sum equivalent to the income of his eldest son and heir; and, moreover, he obliges the gentleman who offers himself, to make a settlement on his daughter of two hundred, three hundred, four hundred pounds sterling yearly, whereof she will have the entire control when married, and which will be her pin money. This condition keeps away many suitors; besides, it is granted that one must marry for love, settled liking; now, it often happens that one does not feel this liking, or that one does not inspire it. Hence many girls miss the chance and remain spinsters. There are some in almost every family, the position of aunt being very well filled. They help to rear the children, superintend a part of the household, preserve-making or the linen cupboard, make herbariums, paint in water-colors, read, write, become leaned. Many compose moral romances, and sometimes very good novels: Miss Yonge, Miss Kavanagh, Miss Bronte, the author of "John Halifax," Miss Thackeray, and others, are known; talent is frequent among authoresses, there are some of the first class, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Evans, Elizabeth Browning; the two last possess genius. Reckon again the translations: numerous German and French works have been translated — and well translated—

by women. Others write in magazines, compose small popular treatises, join a society, teach classes of poor children. The constant concern is to find an employment for their faculties, or to acquire a talent which serves as a remedy for weariness. The highest rank is not absolved. Witness the occupations of the Royal Family; the Queen and her daughters send water-colors, engravings, drawings done by themselves, to charity sales; Prince Albert was one of the most cultivated and most active men in the kingdom; each one thus takes up one or two special subjects, labors at some improvement in agriculture, in science, some beneficent work or institution.

sons?"

Thus life is serious, and all, even young girls, know that they must prepare themselves and provide themselves for it. N-, who comes to England every year, visited one of his old friends, wealthy, and the father of a family, who said to him, "I am put out; my daughter Jane is twenty-four, does not marry, frequently shuts herself up in the library, and reads solid works." "What dower will you give her?" "Two thousand pounds sterling." "And your "The eldest will have the estate; the second a mine which yields two thousand pounds." "Give five thousand pounds to Miss Jane." This phrase opened up vistas to the father; he gave her the five thousand pounds. Miss Jane has been married; she was made to be a mother; it would have been a pity to have converted her into a learned, spectacled spinster; if suitors do not offer themselves, it is because the style of the house is too great. As for me, what I admire here is the coolness, the good sense, the courage of the young girl who, seeing herself in a blind alley, alters her course without a murmur, and silently sets herself to study. In none of the houses which I have entered in London or in the

country have I seen a journal of the fashions. One of my English friends who has sojourned in France informs me that here no well-brought-up woman reads such platitudes. On the contrary, a special review, "The English Women's Review," contains in the number of which I am turning over the pages, statements and letters on emigration to Australia, articles on public instruction in France, and other essays equally important; no novels, neither chit-chat about theatres, nor review of fashions, &c. The whole is serious substantial. Witness as a contrast in a provincial mansion among us the journals of fashions with illuminated sketches, patterns of the last style of bonnets, explanations of a piece of embroidery, little sentimental stories, honeyed compliments to female readers, and above all, the correspondence of the directress with her subscribers on the last page, a masterpiece of absurdity and inanity. It is shameful that a human intellect can digest such aliment. A dress badly made is more bearable than an empty head. I copy the titles of some articles, all written by women, in the Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. "Education by Means of Workhouses," by Louisa Twining; "District Schools for the English Poor," by Barbara Collett; "Application of the Principles of Education to Lowerclass Schools," by Mary Carpenter; " Actual State of the Colony of Mettray," by Florence Hill; "Hospital Statistics," by Florence Nightingale; "The Condition of Working-Women in England and France," by Bessie Parkes; "Slavery in America, and its Influence upon Great Britain," by Sarah Redmond; "Improvement of Nurses in Agricul tural Districts," by Mrs. Wiggins; "Report of the Society for Furnishing Employment to Women," by Jane Crowe. Most of these authoresses are not married, several are secretaries of active associations, of which the Review I have just cited is the central organ; one of these associations supplies women with work, another visits the workhouses, another the sick. All these articles are instructive and useful; the custom of keeping classes, of visiting the poor, of conversing with men, discussion, study, personal observation of facts, have yielded their fruits; they know how to observe and reason; they go to the bottom of things, and they comprehend the true principle of all improvement. Mary Carpenter says, "It is necessary above all, and as the first aim, to develop and direct the infant's will, enrol him as the principal soldier, as the most serviceable of all the co-operaters in the education which is given to him." One cannot be corrected, improved, but by one's self; the instinctive personal effort, self-government, are indispensable; the moral rule must not be applied from without, but spring up from within. Whoever has perused English novels knows with what precision and what justice these authoresses depict characters; frequently a person who has lived in the country, in a small set, busied with domestic cares, finds herself obliged to write a novel in order to gain her bread; and one discovers that she understands the human heart better than a professional psychologist. To be instructed, learned, useful, acquire convictions, impart them to others, employ powers and employ them well, that is something; one may laugh if one likes, say that these manners form schoolmistresses, female pedants, blue-stockings, and not women. As you please; but contrast this with our empty provincial idleness, the weariedness of our ladies, the life of an old maid who rears canaries, hawks scandal, does crochet-work, and attends every service. This is the more important because in England all are not female pedants. I know four or five ladies or young girls who write; they continue none the less pleasing and natural. Most of the authoresses whom I have cited, are, on the authority of my friends, domestic ladies of very simple habits. I have named two among them who possess genius; a great French artist whose name I could mention, and who has spent several days with each of them, did not know that they had talent; not once did a hint of authorship, the need of speaking of one's self and of one's books, occur during the twenty-four hours of talk. M, being invited to the country, discovered that the mistress of the house knew much more Greek than himself, apologized, and retired

from the field: then, out of pleasantry, she wrote down his English sentence in Greek. Note that this female Hellenist is a woman of the world, and even stylish. Moreover, she has nine daughters, two nurses, two governesses, servants in proportion, a large, well-appointed house, frequent and numerous visitors; throughout all this, perfect order; never noise or fuss; the machine appears to move of its own accord. These are gatherings of faculties and of contrasts which might make us reflect. In France we believe too readily that if a woman ceases to be a doll she ceases to be

a woman.

THE ARTIST.

THE religion of Art is served as promiscuously as some Hindoo shrine by the Ganges. From the holy Brahmin who communes closely with his deity, through the infinite orders of a tolerably respectable priesthood, the suite of his godship shades away to the tag-rag and bob-tail, who practise orgies for rites in the outer courts, and whose inborn idleness counsels them their vocation. So in the painters' guild you have the rare masters of the brotherhood, whom genius welcomes to the inner sanctuary; who leave the world evidence of their inspiration in handiwork that glows with the reflection of the flame they tend. Unfortunately, there are dismal breaks in the order of their succession, and for generation after generation conscientious but commonplace mortals go on masquerading in their robes. Then comes the honest company of artists who occasionally catch a faint flush of inspiration, who educate themselves to reproduce humble ideals they gradually stereotype, and sometimes narrowly touch originality before use and habit have blunted their sensibility. Next you have the unmitigated mannerists and plodding copyists who see the substance and miss the soul; finally the mixed multitude who take to art as they might to house-painting, or make it the pretext for abjuring regular habits and honest work: while flitting about among them all goes the erratic genius whose gleams of the Promethean fire stifle in his feebleness of purpose as lights die down under an exhausted receiver. The more interesting he, that he has come so near being born to other things than his inevitable destiny. You may see the sad memorials he has left hanging upon the walls of every gallery in Europe. There is "the" picture, pregnant in its every line and touch with the promise of an immortal reputation; power and poetry only needing to be mellowed by time and judgment. And there are its successors living in the false reflection of that first great flash of fame, each marking a step of the downward descent as plainly as if you saw the painter take it in conscience-stricken sorrow. At last he has lost his footing altogether. There is his fatal glissade over works where prepossession itself can find no solitary merit to rest upon, and he vanishes from your knowledge in the gloom of meaningless crudities.

its

We have him among us still, and we like and pity and lament him. The life of such as he is likely to be as brief as the art he might have honored is proverbially long. A nervous frame and sensitive temperament fret themselves swiftly out when regrets and disappointments react on the fever of dissipation. The eccentric genius naturally makes Rome his head-quarters.

O Rome, my country, city of the soul!
The prodigals of art must turn to thee.

Every one who has wintered in the Eternal City must be familiar with Septimus Vanike: you can see him now, as he comes sauntering down the Corso in brigand hat and brown velveteen shooting-jacket. The hat removed, he leaves a general impression of jetty beard and great hazel eyes, with jack-o'-lantern lights flitting about their surface. So long as you are in talk with him, these eyes of his fascinate you. You go on trying to fathom their depths, when once you have realized how clear they are, evoking from them all manner of horoscopes and possibilities, like an Egyptian magician with his saucerfuls of enchanted water. Yet, whatever Vanike might have been had he made himself the

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