noe, and seized his bow and an arrow. He stood upright, his half-nude body swaying to the motion of the boat. For a moment he steadied himself; then, fixing his keen eyes on the bird, he drew with such power that the great muscles on his dark arms writhed into big kinks, and the tough timber of the bow seemed strained ready to break. When he let go, the arrow fairly screamed through the air. I could not follow its flight, but I saw a puff of snowy feathers as the hawk whirled over, and came slowly tumbling down, impaled on the shaft!

That night we slept on a mere tuft of an island, in full view of the open ocean, and had the bad luck to be caught in an awful gale, which flung the spume of the hungry white-caps to the highest point we could find, coming very nearly washing our boat away in spite of us. The worst was over, however, in less than three hours, and then what a sweet sleep I had on the cool sand, washed as clean as any sheet by the ebb and flow of the water in the pulse of the storm! I remember that when I awoke the sun was above the eastern limit of the ocean-plain, and Tommy was sitting close down by the surf-line, smoking his pipe, and looking not unlike a giant bull-frog. Far away I saw a white sail. Some ship had been driven out of its course by the storm. In a short time it had dipped below the horizon.

When we returned to our lodge, lo! it was gone on the wings of the storm, blown entirely away. No great loss, however, for Tommy erected a new one, larger and better, in less than two hours. For the remainder of the day we lounged on the stiff wire-grass, smoking and dreaming our dreams with a heaven blue as turquoise above us, and the wind, like a cool stream, washing us from head to foot. I had adopted, in the main, Tommy's fashion of dress, and with it I had received a new insight into freedom. Savage liberty is indeed something for poets to be fond of. There is no other liberty. Free limbs give free thought. A fashionable coat knocks all the poetry out of the soul-a pair of patent-leather boots can ruin a deal of philosophy. Let in the wind and sun to your skin, and you will absorb and assimilate the very essence of healthful Nature, after which it will well from your heart in song as true and grand as that of the sea.

killed a beautiful white heron on the wing, | I did not know, a sort of stilt, I should say.

no doubt an accidental shot; but Tommy, who witnessed the performance, praised me roundly, nevertheless. Our leading adventure, however, was with a huge alligator, which came near ending me most ignobly by a twirl of its tail. We had headed the big fellow off from the marsh he was making for. He seemed stupid and slow, as if something had but half aroused him from his winter torpor. An arrow or two that bounded

ease.

They could dodge an arrow with surprising We dwelt on a tussock of this marsh for a week, shooting till our limbs ached, then resting and smoking to surfeit, bothered very little with insects, intensely happy, and careless of the morrow. We bathed in shoal water, rolling and tumbling in the freedom of nakedness, just out of the reach of great sharks that now and then lifted a swordlike fin above the green surface of the sea, from his flinty hide served to somewhat enli- | swimming round and round, sniffing the fraven him. He raised his head and gaped at us. grance of our clean flesh, no doubt, and longSimultaneously Tommy and I let him swal-ing to munch us. Ah, what a lover salt sealow a couple of broad-headed arrows. What contortions! He came tumbling toward me, and in my hurry to avoid him I tripped on a bunch of saw-palmetto, and fell full-length on the ground. The next moment the giant saurian's caudal weapon just grazed my body, a blow that would have bowled over an ox! He escaped very easily, plunging into the mud-slush of the marsh. This was as much alligator-fun as I could stand.

Day by day the fascination of savage life wound its silver snare-threads closer and tighter upon me. Its sweetest part was the idling time at noon and night, when, stretched under the pavilion of a palmetto-tree, or lying on the white sand of the beach, I felt time drift by me, like a fragrant tide, every moment a bubble, and every hour a warm, foamy wave of quiet joy. Sometimes, too, while floating at the will of the tide in Tommy's little canoe, a breath would fall upon me, as if fresh from God's lips, and I would suddenly become, in truth, a living soul. To and fro-to and fro, the little cradle swayed, rocked by the shining finger of the sea, lull ing me to sleep, with the wind above and the water below me. How refreshing and yet how quieting those

"Infinis bercements du loisir embaumé!"

water is! It embraces one all over, and thrills him through a thousand nerves to his remotest marrow. If there were no sharks I should be delighted to undertake to swim from the Florida coast to the Queen of the Antilles!

But all things have an end, and betimes my savage life drew near its close. I started with a feeling of sudden pain and sorrow-a sort of sore sinking at heart, when, one night, sitting out by the water under the great red stars, I happened to count the days I had been with Tommy. Seventeen days! Three or four more, and then farewell! Tommy was lying near me, smoking away as peacefully as a bit of punk in still weath

er. Good, strong, free Tommy! my model archer! how could I ever leave him and tear myself away from this glorious, careless life by the warm sea? But duty is inexorable. The days leaped past, like fawns in a fright; and one morning we saw, from our door, the white sail of Berkely's schooner shining beyond the creek's mouth. A puff of white smoke from the larboard-bow-a moment, and then, boo-oo-m! a signal from Berkely's heavy fowling-piece. I must get ready. Must I go? I looked at Tommy. His face was inscrutable, but he began to get ready my things to hurry me off. Perhaps the dear fellow was tired enough of me-who knows? I sighed, and swallowed a lump of discontent that seemed ready to choke tears from my eyes.

Again my box lapped over the gunwales of the canoe, again I sat a-squat in the forward part of the frail thing, with my bow and arrows beside me. The green water whispered to me from the flying keel, the wind sang to me and the reefs boomed far eastward, but I felt no shiver of delight leap through me. I was waking from my sweet

No man with a soul can resist them-no man who has once tasted their unique effect can forget it ever. The other extreme of savage life is the wild joy of the chase, the whir of the arrow-the hard, successful shot, the struggle with danger "by field and flood." Then the camp-fire, the deep, sweet sleep and the healthful awakening, the play of strong muscles and taut sinews-ah, what all does enter into it! Running from one limit of this life to the other is the essence of rugged, utter freedom-the freedom of nakedness, if you like; the freedom to run, and leap, and yell; | dream-bidding adieu to my wild life, never to lie down when you list, and get up when you please; to eat freely and drink copiously; to smoke good tobacco without seeing elevated noses and hearing polite impreca

rushes and giant aquatic weeds, many of

But I must hasten with my rambling story. If I stop to reflect, I shall never know where to end. We went from one bright place to another-out of one charming ex

birds.

Tommy and I took turns about paddling the canoe round the edge of the pond, while

Our next trip was down the coast to shoot curlews and marsh-hens on a reach of strong rush-marsh hemmed with a beach of sand

to taste it again. The musical dip and ripple of Tommy's paddle were like a dirge. I pulled my cap over my eyes.

"Hillo! All ready there below?" cried Berkely.

I clutched the rope in a desperate mood, and climbed aboard the schooner. My box and my weapons followed me.

"Good-by, ugh!" said Tommy. "Good-by, dear friend," I replied, and then we flew apart like two sea-birds, and all

was over!:

The only tangible thing I have by which to remember those wild, sweet, savage days, is a stuffed flamingo - skin. The bird was killed by Tommy.

MAURICE THOMPSON.

•

Fortune seemed to favor me. The skipper of the Anna Maria came aboard to bring us some fresh mackerel, and told us he was to start the following morning for home, going, for the first time, by way of the Bras d'Or, which I had long wished to see. He kindly offered me a bunk and a share of grub for myself and dog. I jumped at the proposal, and early the next day sent my traps aboard; we peaked the mainsail, tripped the anchor, and stood out to sea. The Anna Maria was twenty-four years old, forty-one tons burden, and had a small forecastle and a diminutive trunk-cabin aft; five men slept forward, and there were six of us, or seven including a

up with a quantity of fish-barrels and tubs, and the whole vessel was in an unmentionable state of dirtiness, resulting from twelve weeks of fishing.

why insurance premiums are doubled after ❘ dog, in the cuddy. The deck was lumbered October sets in on all vessels sailing for that inhospitable coast. It took all day to beat up the long, narrow entrance to Sydney harbor, and we passed a steamer which had gone on the bar in a gale two days before. The prospect was rendered still more cheerful by a crowd of damaged vessels which had been wholly or partially wrecked in the appalling hurricane of the previous August. Of Sydney little can be said that is inviting. The lay of the land is very much that of our own New England, but vegetation is more sparse, and the general appearance of the landscape more sad and sear. The bay is spacious and well protected, affording several excellent harbors for ordinary weather, but

the town presents a singular blending of squalor and thrift, the former being the first feature to impress the stranger on landing. Shanties and groggeries, disreputable to a degree, abound, and lead one to think he has fallen on some maritime Laramie or Cheyenne, while to the westward new houses, glorying in the tawdriness of white paint, green shutters, and flimsy verandas, indicate that the place is not altogether going to the dogs. Coal is the chief stock in trade, and the supply is apparently inexhaustible; the whole island is, in fact, intersected by seams of the black mineral. The veins run under the harbor at Sydney, and are worked to a considerable depth. The population is, consequently, mining, combined with a large floating class of fishermen and seamen, ever ready to "splice the main-brace" and chuck the rosy girls of Cape Breton under the chin. It must be added that they do not always stop there, and street brawls, as may be easily imagined, are not uncommon. It is difficult to fancy any one lying awake o' nights sighing for Sydney.

This port has of late years become a great resort for our mackerel-fishermen. It is not

There are two entrances to the remarkable sea-lake called the Bras d'Or, which separates Cape Breton Island into two nearly equal portions. Within a short time a canal, scarcely half a mile long, has been cut through the isthmus, permitting the passage of vessels of small burden. It is about sixty miles from the two eastern straits or entrances to the canal. The southern entrance is impassable except for steamers and boats. We struck for the northern passage called the Great Bras d'Or, having a leading wind, without which it is impossible for a sailingvessel to pass in. The navigable channel is very narrow, the tide runs through it like a mill-race, and, for the first few miles, any vessel getting ashore there is exposed to the full sweep of easterly gales.

There were seven schooners in company with us, all keeping so closely together that the bowsprit of one would almost overhang the taffrail of the next one; sometimes one would becalm another, and thus shoot by. Finally, one of the schooners got slewed aside on a bank, and had to be left behind to get off as she could. Happily for the rest, a pilot appeared at this juncture in a dory, and agreed to pilot the little fleet. He carried us as far as Kelly's Cove, when, fog and twilight both coming on, we all dropped anchor, and the pilot proceeded to levy toll before leaving us for the night. He was a curious specimen of the genus Bretoniensis. Keeping his eyes always down, while he hung on to the side of the vessel, he rattled away with great volubility, which was evidently increased by the bad whiskey he had taken before coming off to us. "I don't care for any bluidy silver. A little bluidy pork or beef, a little bluidy

far from Cape North, one of the fishing-salt or bluidy jigs, you don't want any more,

grounds, and the fish are also found toward the close of the season off the harbor. Seventy of our schooners made Sydney a rendezvous during the previous summer, and it is indeed a stirring and beautiful spectacle to see the graceful little craft dodging up and down the long entrance to the harbor, or darting hither and thither in white groups, like sea-fowl, in search of schools of mackerel. So fascinated was I by the sight of these schooners that, on finding my bark was not going to return to Boston, I at once decided to get passage in one of the schooners,

my hearties, or any other bluidy thing will do me just exactly as well. I should be only too glad to take such a pretty schooner through them narrows for nothink, but don't ye sees we can't do nothink for nothink in Cape Breton no more than nowheres else. And that's the truth. That'll do, that'll do. I don't want ye to rob yourselves. Fish-bait? no, got enough of the bluidy thing. There's no need of my coming off to ye the mornin', all ye've got to do is just to keep that p'int close aboard, and ye'll be all right; and remimber them two spar-buoys on the star

ain't no other bluidy thing in the channel that the likes o' ye need to be afeard of; and I'm very much obleeged to ye, gintlemen, and I wish ye a pleasant v'yage," and off he went to repeat the farce at the next schooner.

We found ourselves anchored for the night in Kelly's Cove, under Kelly's Mountain, the highest land on the Bras d'Or. It is an isolated ridge, which I estimated to be about twelve hundred feet high, but so bold as to resemble a wall, and give an impression of greater height. Evidences of the tremendous hurricane of the previous September were everywhere visible. The wind had felled the largest forest-trees in ranks mile after mile, or where the squalls had been most violent had cut swathes through the woods as the scythe of the mower lays the grass. This was the case all through the Bras d'Or. Many houses and barns were felled or injured; at Arichat sixty houses were blown down. Vessels were everywhere destroyed; all through the trip we came across wrecks on shore.

The boat was lowered, and skipper and I went ashore on a foraging expedition among the farm-houses. We found the people generally were "Heelanders," as they called themselves, among whom Gaelic is still the vernacular; some actually being unable to converse in English. They were mostly Roman Catholics. We finally brought up at a small house, where we spent a couple of hours chatting before an old-fashioned ingleside, over whose bright blaze the kettle was singing. A dance at a farm-house farther on was proposed, and skipper offered to bring off the schooner's fiddler to stimulate the heels and quicken the hearts of the lads and lassies; but, owing to the lateness of the hour, the plan unfortunately fell through. A brace of geese and a pail of milk were the re sults of our expedition; it was so dark that the buxom hostess snatched a brand from the hearth, and gave it to us by way of lantern, and we thus reached the boat without spilling the milk.

We were again under weigh the next morning, but the wind was so light we made but little progress. The good weather was improved to clear the deck and clean the vessel. We passed some plaster-cliffs, which furnish material for many of the best ceilings in our cities, and add a striking feature to the scenery. We also had a fine view up the Little Bras d'Or, and left the shire town of Baddeck on our right, at the bottom of a deep bay. At night we again anchored, at Grand Narrows, and skipper and I repeated our foraging expedition. We were lucky enough to come across some very nice people, bearing the famous names of McNiel and McDonald, Roman Catholics, but well-informed, and familiar with the best writers of the day. They entertained us so hospitably that I was moved to send them a little Madeira the next morning, and, in consequence, just after we were under weigh, a boat overtook us, bringing a supply of milk and eggs, which very materially added to the slender stock of pork, beans, and molasses, which constituted the commissariat of the Anna Maria. But generally the people are a pretty and drinking. When we were going aboard at night we came across three sturdy fellows, well braced with gin, and altogether too willing to fire off the guns they carried to make them pleasant companions.

After leaving Grand Narrows the passage widened into a broad lake some twenty miles across at the widest, deeply indented with bays and studded with large islands. Fish and game abound here, we were informed. At sundown the fleet was becalmed in the middle of the lake, which was glowing and magnificent beyond description under the splendor of a sunset of extraordinary beauty and variety of tint and hue. As I gazed entranced on that spectacle. I did not wonder that they called that sea-strait, so rarely combining lake and river, the Bras d'Or. Golden were its shores, golden its waters, and golden the tranquil sky which overhung and imparted to it half its wealth of beauty.

The shooting-stars and the night-breeze came together, and we watched the one and fanned gently along before the other, until at midnight we again neared dangerous navigation, and came to an anchor. On the following day we passed a noted Indian settlement, where there is a large church with some wigwams. The Indians of this region assemble in spring and summer on their island, and attempt to keep up the dances and other ceremonies peculiar to their ancestors.

The scenery now became exceedingly romantic and beautiful, often resembling, the Thousand Islands, and the region is so little inhabited as scarcely to seem a country that has been settled for two hundred years. Islands of all sizes, sometimes mere knolls tufted with birches and pines, divide the lake into numerous winding channels for a long distance. The ship-channel is often so narrow and tortuous that it was with great difficulty that even our short schooners, capable of turning within their own lengths, could be worked without going ashore. One of them here ran her nose into a mud-bank, on which we also touched, and so firmly that she lay there several days.

Just before evening the Anna Maria, heading the fleet, reached the canal at St. Peter's. In an hour she was again on the Atlantic, but so difficult is the way out into the harbor that we touched on a rock in a dangerous situation.

While we were getting her off, a party of Indians landed close under our lee, and in a very few minutes they had put up several bark wigwams, and the dusky shades of evening were rendered picturesque by the smoky gleams of their fires. The little cove where we were lying, the forests on one side and the wigwams and strange forms moving before the light and reflected in the water, the last lingering rays of sunset on the other, vividly outlining the rakish spars of the pinks rock

ing in the port; the splash and swing of

warps in the water; the quick movement of

St. Peter's by Madame Island. The threatening character of the weather inclined us to go into Arichat, but a land-breeze sprang up after sunset. All night we flew before it under press of sail, and next morning had run one hundred and forty miles, and were abreast of Halifax. On the following day our good weather came to an end. A gale was coming on, and, after pounding with a heavy sea several hours and starting a leak, we were just able to work into Shelburne, where we lay three days. Shelburne possesses the finest harbor in Nova Scotia. What is also in its favor is that it is easy of access, and is often made a harbor of refuge. The settlement is, however, but a wretched makeshift for a town, like most places in the eastern provinces, but has considerable shipbuilding, which gives it some appearance of thrift. It also abounds with herring, which are eaten in such quantities by the Bluenoses that it is said of them they cannot pull off their shirts in spring because of the fish-bones sticking through their skin! The weather was still dubious when we put to sea in company with fifteen sail, all bound to the westward, but we hoped the easterly wind would hold to take us across the Bay of Fundy, the worst bit of navigation, owing to its fogs, rips, reefs, tides, and currents, to be found anywhere on the coast of North America. But, in fact, nowhere does a close inspection of the ledges along the Nova Scotia shore inspire one with pleasing sensations, nor are such names as Ironbound or Ragged Harbor pleasingly suggestive. I never can pass that forbidding coast without thinking of some grim monster showing his teeth ready to crunch the bones of hapless victims. The vigor with which the new Dominion has assumed the reins of government is nowhere more evident than in the increased attention bestowed on light-houses, which have hitherto been infamously scarce, considering the character of the coast, and have been badly kept and lighted.

went on without intermission fore-and-aft, and I gained new ideas of the constant and almost incredible perils to which our fishermen are exposed, especially on the Georges and off the Magdalen Islands. The most amusing circumstance was to see how through it all these hardy fellows managed to retain characteristics purely human; for example, the habit of croaking, and of finding fault with those on whom the responsibility devolved. Did the skipper carry sail hard, they said he did not know when to take it in; did he prudently seek to spare the only suit we had, or avoid running on the land in the fog, they said, "The worst fault a master of a ship can have is to take sail in too soon." Like unwhipped school-boys, they thought they knew every thing, and, like sailors in general, exercised very little foresight or prevision for contingencies. Of course on a vessel where all sailed on shares, any regular discipline was out of the question, the authority of the skipper being nearly nominal, the man making it rather than receiving it from the office.

Our skipper was a man of the most imperturbable good-humor, but a good seaman, shrewdly adapting himself to the unruly spirits he had to deal with, and generally exercising control without appearing to do so. "Come on, bullies, let's take a turn on the main sheet," was the usual form of an order; or, "Keep her off a little mite, Uncle Mike!"

The watch usually consisted of two men, one at the wheel, and the other acting as lookout, and oscillating between the stove in the cabin and the bows, with a strong gravitation toward the former. The clock forward was half an hour ahead of the one aft; I don't know whether the fact was generally known, but I think it was known to some; I observed that some of the watches were shorter than others.

One night two of the leading fault-finders were directed to tack ship in their watch, there being a heavy sea running at the time. Three times these self-sufficient fellows tried to bring the schooner about; three times they failed, mouthing enormous imprecations, and with such frequent mention of hell that I fancied I could smell brimstone. The skipper, meantime, quietly lay in his bunk, and enjoyed the discomfiture of his desamers. At last he put his head up the companion-way and said, "Your jib is eased off too much;

tom.

"A man must have his life insured who sails on the Anna Maria to-day," said one to me. At noon a violent squall obliged us to take in sail; they jibed the foresail and brought the lively little craft around just in time to get control of her, laying her half under water as she came up to the wind. We ran till night under close-reefed foresail, and then hove to near Cashe's Ledge till morning. Then the wind came howling out of the west, and, as the skipper forcibly ex

right!" They obeyed, and the schooner was off on the other tack at once. He said nothing more, but an hour after went on deck himself, and tacked ship with the ease of a man who knows what he is about. The men

could say not a word.

Another curious trait among sailors, especially noticeable among those so little under discipline as our fishermen, is the way they act in emergencies. The vessel, perhaps, is struck by a squall,

the spars, and the tread of feet on the deck,

as schooner after schooner warped past us in the starry gloom-presented a singular and effective scene.

Early the next morning we worked out of

had but one suit of sails, they were old and worn, and the foresail split and gave us some trouble; our stock of provisions was running low, and there was some reason to fear we should be blown to the eastward again.

a bit of it. The first thing they do is to grumble. "D- the weather! what the devil does he want to hurry a fellow out of his bunk for?" Then they will not stir till they have arranged their oil-suit as if it were a dress-suit for a ball; after that, some of them must fill and light their pipes! If the captain puts his head down and repeats the order, "Come out of there, and don't be all day about it!" They mutter, "D-d if I will before I'm ready!" This does not result from superior courage or recklessness so much as from a species of pigheadedness, for the same men will be as much overcome as other men by danger when they fairly realize it.

We managed in the teeth of a violent wind to beat up as far as Cape Elizabeth, where we found the water a little smoother. But we should have kept on and made a harbor in the Sheepscot River, if the wind had not moderated after sunset, so as to enable us to work down to the Isles of Shoals, which we passed at daybreak. It took us the rest of the day to beat into Gloucester under a press of canvas, with a foot of water in our lee scuppers, and carrying away the maintopmast-staysail as we came abreast of Norman's Woe.

S. G. W. BENJAMIN.

INNOMINATA.

A SWEET and beautiful fancy

I never shall know again,

Once, as I sat in silence,
Sang itself into my brain.

And I said: "I will make a poem, A song for the world to sing, For my thought is fair and lovelyA princely offering.

"I will make a song and bring it And lay it before her feet; She cannot choose but hearken, My song shall be so sweet.

"And my thought's delicious passion Shall make my strain so strong, That the world shall know her always By just that deathless song!"

But, alas! when I came to make it-
My poem I thought so fair-
Lo! rhyme and rhythm and measure
Melted to empty air!

And down in my heart's dim corners,
And up to my lips' shut door,
Just one brief word would echo
And whisper forever more.

I cannot make a poem

Where the rhyme is still the same ; I cannot make a poem With just your darling name!

So the world shall never know you,
Your name shall not go down
Song-borne to the distant ages,
A sweet and pure renown.

And, indeed, for you and for me, dear,
It is all the better part,
That your glory is just Love's only,
And your fame is within my heart!

T

EDITOR'S TABLE.

HE restoration of the drama to something like the place it occupied at the Elizabethan era is considered possible by some ardent and hopeful minds. The Satur. day Review has discussed the question and pointed out the reasons why it thinks that the theatre, however it may be improved, can never again be what it once was. "Our voices change," it says, "as we grow older, and so the voice of literature changes, and the old times cannot be brought back, charm we never so wisely." It asserts that "when one of the chief poets of the day, who had previously written nothing of the kind, appears as a playwright, hope naturally wakes," but then it is of the opinion that the conditions under which the Elizabethan drama throve so splendidly are so wholly different from those of to-day, that it is futile to believe it can be restored, or that there is anywhere the Promethean heat which can its "light relume." The conditions which the Review points out are well known to all students of literature; there was great intellectual activity, with no newspapers or periodicals and very few books, and the theatres, hence, alone responded to the impulses and needs of the time. In regard to the keen mental activity of the period the Saturday Review eloquently says:

"Life in England has never been broader and deeper than it was then. It was morning with us, so to speak. We were waking to a fresh consciousness of ourselves and of the world around us. The old things had passed away; and behold, all things were become new.

'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive;
But to be young was very heaven!'

A strange sense of power thrilled us; and the revelation of unsuspected opportunities for exertion and enterprise transformed our inmost being. The very earth widened around us; and, where but yesterday there rose forbidding barriers, there now spread far away an endless expanse of unexplored regions, mysterious, fascinating, delightful. And, as with material confinements, so it was with spiritual. In the universe of thought the mind wandered free. For good and for evil, it defied the restraints of previous dogmatisms, and stepped boldly within precincts from which it had been rigorously interdicted. Was there ever in England such another age of movement? an age so eager, so fearless, so sanguine, so exultant in its liberty, so swift to do or die ? Never, perhaps, was the national imagination so quickened and so vigorous. Every day produced its poet.

'The isle is full of noises,

The Review then proceeds to show how the drama was the one literature of the day, how, as books are with us of to-day the real thing, the theatre was a real thing to the people then. They believed in it. It was every thing to them - the great centre of English art and thought, drawing to itself the highest. intellects of the time, dealing with the gravest and highest questions, portraying with incomparable power the deepest and intensest passions. "It is true," remarks the Review, "that certain religionists stood aloof from it, but the nation, as a whole, rejoiced in it ardently." In brief, the argument is that

all the circumstances and activities of the

period built up the dazzling glory of the the atre, and that until we can reproduce those conditions and circumstances it is hopeless to look for any genuine reconstruction of the play as a literary power. This would seem to be convincing, but before we abandon all hope in the matter let us see what conditions now exist which may tend to bring back at least a little of the old dramatic spirit.

During recent years there has been a marked revival of medieval tastes. Color has been restored to decoration, interior adornment, and dress; the love of pomp and ceremony appears in ritualism; architecture has broken out into the picturesque; art is fired with new passion for divine tones and tints. There is a rage for old china and old pottery, for old upholstery, for polychromatic walls, for tiles, for inlaid furniture, for all things that have a rich, passional, and æsthetic character. The age, which in one of its phases is eminently scientific, skeptical, and inquisitive, in another phase is eminently imaginative and luxurious, delighting in every art that is stimulating, ideal, or sensuous. Whence this change has come about it is not our present purpose to inquire; but the fact that the change has come may well give us the belief that with this general revival the drama, so kindred to the new feeling in many particulars, is likely, also, to be restored. It scarcely can be doubted that Tennyson's dramatic attempt

is not an idle experiment, but a natural outcome of the æsthetic forces at work, and we may believe that it will stir the latent fires in all his contemporaries.

With this revival of mediæval tastes, there exist other conditions peculiarly favorable for a new era of the drama. Literature is necessarily the result of leisure; it bespeaks

not.'

Nor could it be otherwise. A land so brighthearted could not but break forth into singing. Joy, even as sorrow, must have words given it; the joy 'that does not speak,

tative mind. The age, on the contrary, is full of bustle, movement, and pressure. Esthetic tastes are aroused and active, but æsthetic enjoyment must be snatched amid the hurrying activities of the time. Our