marvellously cheap price, within the reach of readers who were at any rate sometimes grateful. I was once travelling to a certain universitytown (the direction and name of which wild horses shall not drag from me) in company with two persons unknown to me, but pretty obviously recognisable as sons, and not very juvenile sons, of that university. The Mermaid Webster had just appeared, and one of the two, to his credit be it spoken, was reading it. But he found great difficulty in acquainting his companion with the subject of his study. "Webster? Do you mean Sir Richard?" said he. But it was explained to him that the then Attorney-General was not responsible for The Devil's Law Case. Whereupon the poor man, having obtained a glimmer that Webster had something to do with the stage, ventured hopefully, "Oh, you mean Benjamin?" He had also, if I remember rightly, heard of Mrs. Augusta Webster; but John was to him unknown. It should be the mission of the "Mermaid Series" to replace this darkness with light; and it has now started afresh with no less a person than Ben Jonson, edited by the late Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, one of the most careful students of texts, and prefaced by Mr. Herford, a Cambridge scholar in English who won his spurs years ago with a very remarkable and interesting study, filling up a gap in all histories of English literature thitherto, of the relations between English and German letters in the sixteenth century. There is plenty of matter for the series still to use, so let it go on and prosper. The Book of Of others must the Muse more briefly sing; yet by no means as Enoch. (Clarendon disdaining them—indeed, as having derived particular delight from all Press.) and sundry. Avez-vous lu Enoch? is at least as reasonable an inquiry as Avez-vous lu Baruch? and even more likely to be answered in the negative. Yet Enoch is a book of the highest interest and of no inconsiderable literary merit, and ought specially to suit a time which, like most ends of centuries, interests itself in things occult and apocryphal. Mr. Charles's translation of an ingeniously constructed text enables those who cannot read Ethiopic (and who, I think, it is not rash to guess are probably the majority in most companies) to read it with pleasure. I wish he, or someone, would give us a corpus, in English or some literary language, of all the extra-apocryphal books, as they may be called; that is to say, those excluded even from the Apocrypha of the English Version. For they are almost always interesting as literature, and have a habit of being written not in Greek or Latin, but in outlandish dialects which a gentleman, unless he is very young and energetic, cannot be expected to learn for himself.

La Mouche.

If (which is possible) Enoch should not suit all tastes, let me recom- (Paris: Korb.) mend (to those whom he does not suit) M. Paul Margueritte, the best of the younger novel-writers of France by many lengths, and bidding fair, I think, to take the place which M. de Maupassant has so unhappily vacated. Two volumes of M. Margueritte's have appeared quite lately, one (La Mouche), a collection of stories in all veins, from Rabelais to Rousseau, another (Ma Grande), a singularly bold and singularly Ma Grande. successful adaptation of the impressionist-naturalist scheme to a perfectly honnête theme. I believe M. Margueritte's father was a general of horse who fell, manful under shield, at Sédan, and there is a "cavalry manner" about the son's style-a habit of taking difficult situations and subjects at a hand-gallop with elegance and certainty, which is extremely agreeable to see.

(Paris: Kerb.

Nor will Mr. Coventry Patmore's new volume of prose exercitations Religio Peeter. (George Bell lack readers who can enjoy it. I perceive that Mr. Patmore's unconquer- and Sons.) able refusal to bow the knee to democratic and other conventions has rather frightened some critics. "So exotic," they murmur timidly. For my part I should say that Mr. Patmore was not so much exotic as cosmopolitan, with the cosmopolitanism of thinkers at all times who have united vigour with delicacy-a mixture which has been nowhere more abundantly and excellently shown than in this Britain, divided as it seems to be to superficial persons from the outer world. At the same time I must admit that Mr. Patmore does sometimes go out of his way to alarm the timid; and then it seems to me that he becomes not indeed exotic, but in the evil sense insular. One or two of his personal appreciations I find not easy to adjust to exact comparative standards of literary estimation; I cannot see why he should be so much disturbed because one estimable periodical finds fault with him for being fastidious, and another for being "savage"; and he has in other ways fits of what our fathers used to call "the whimsicals." But what man who is worthy to write-or indeed to livehas not?

To conclude: inasmuch as it is not the least evil of the often but not Bridget. (Routledge. always wisely abused circulating library system that novels, good, but not much trumpeted, drop out of view after their first appearance, let me note that a new-I believe a fourth-edition has appeared of a book of decided though quiet excellence, Miss Betham Edwards's Bridget.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

THE DRAMA.

THE

HE present visit of the Comédie Française awakens in me reminiscent mood, which I may perhaps be allowed very briefly to indulge. The previous visit of the company, in 1879, happens to be a landmark in my memory, for to it I owe my enrolment in the noble army of London theatrical critics. Therefore I remember with peculiar vividness the condition of the theatrical world at that time, both in France and England; and it is curious, and, I may add, encouraging to "our side," to note the changes which these fourteen years have brought.

Let us, as courtesy requires, give our guests the precedence. On looking down the long roll of the company's repertory, what is the fact that strikes us? Why, that the official drama in France, if we may call it so, has stood absolutely still. Not a single dramatist of real note has come to the front during all these years; for even the critics who profess to take a perverse pleasure in a "rampagious" puppet-show like Parle Glaive will scarcely claim for M. Richepin a place in the very front rank. The works of permanent interest and importance which have been added to the repertory since 1879 have all been by writers who attained maturity before that date. Their sum total is no more than threeDumas' Denise and Francillon and Pailleron's Le Monde où l'on s'ennuic. We know, of course, that there has been a very marked dramatic movement in France during these years-that a whole new literature has sprung into existence in and around the Théâtre Libre. But the Théâtre-Français, and indeed the paying theatre as a whole, has been entirely outside the movement. The Français took one timid step in the new direction, in reviving La Parisienne of Becque; but the revival did not succeed, and perhaps was not intended to. The Odéon has been less inhospitable to the innovators; but, take it all round, the new literature has had to be content with single performances or the briefest runs, while not one young dramatist has appeared (unless it be M. Henri Lavedan) who has the art of interesting both the many and the few. I cannot hold with some critics that unpopular drama is not properly drama at all. A play which moves and interests one audience of thinkers and artists seems to me to have fulfilled the highest function of drama at least as well as a play which attracts a hundred audiences of

—well, of average playgoers. Thus we cannot say that the period has been one of general decline; but for the Théâtre-Français in particular, which ought to be the home of the national dramatic literature, it has certainly not been a period of healthy activity and progress. Returning to us after fourteen years, the French comedians have practically nothing fresh to present, but are obliged to go over the old stock pieces, such as Le Gendre de Monsieur Poirier, Mlle. de la Seiglière, L'Ami Fritz, and so forth, their most important novelties being plays of the Second Empire such as Un Père Prodigue and Les Effrontés, which happen to have been newly taken down from the shelf. The company, too, can at best be said to have tolerably maintained its standard. Got, Febvre, Worms, Mounet-Sully, Mesdames Baretta and Reichemberg, are still at their posts, while Le Bargy, Paul Mounet, Albert Lambert fils, Leloir, and Berr, Mesdames Bartet, De Marsy, Pierson, Muller, and Jane Hading must be reckoned valuable recruits. But where are Sarah Bernhardt, Croizette, Madeleine Brohan, Jouassain, Jeanne Samary, Delaunay, Coquelin, Thiron, Barré? "Il n'y a pas à dire," the Comédie of to-day, though rich in admirable talents, is a less brilliant constellation than it was fourteen years ago.

What, now, of the English drama of that date? The answer is simple-there was no English drama worth mentioning. I cannot understand, on looking back, what could tempt anyone to regard theatrical criticism as offering a possible career even to the humblest talents. It must have been like snake-hunting in Iceland. Personally I was allured to the "dreadful trade" by an intense, insensate passion for the theatre; but

Without regarding our present position with any overweening complacency, we must admit that the English theatre has made enormous progress during these fourteen years. Who were then the leading playwrights? Mr. Gilbert had already turned his attention almost exclusively to opera, and Mr. Wills had reached a point at which his work was scarcely distinguishable from that of Mr. Calmour. Mr. Albery was doing nothing but an occasional adaptation; managers were competing for the masterpieces of H. J. Byron, and Messrs. Farnie and Reece were in high request as vaudevillists and librettists. Mr. Sydney Grundy had done one or two clever adaptations, but could find no opening

different way. I know nothing of M. Mallarmé personally, but I have known his work for the last five-and-twenty years, and it would have been very interesting to me to see that work considered in its filiation with the French literature of the century. Mr. Gosse has not quite done that. And has he not a little overvalued M. Mallarmé's work on Poe? I took down La Renaissance (how many copies of La Renaissance are there in England? ), and re-read M. Mallarmé's "Annabel Lee" after reading Mr. Gosse's encomium. J'aime mieux “Annabel Lee" in the original.

It is the first half-dozen of the essays which are most directly concerned in Mr. Gosse's title and his vindication. "The Tyranny of the Novel," "The Influence of Democracy in Literature," "Has America Produced a Poet?" "What is a Great Poet?" "Making a Name in Literature," "The Limits of Realism in Fiction," "Is Verse in Danger?" -these suggest to me the medusa parallel. I shall give no opinion on the venture as a book venture; but only say that the essays were very well worth reading and are very well worth re-reading. I only doubt whether, if Mr. Gosse had not been so avowedly "mingling with his audience under the portico," he would have dealt with the everlasting part of these questions quite in the same way. I own myself that I like the everlasting part. For instance, Mr. Gosse glorifies M. Zola greatly, and I observe that he is fond of bringing in the author of The Heir of Redclyffe for a gird. Now, for my part, considering things in an unactual and fossil manner, I have always thought that the author of La Débâcle and the author of Heartsease are much nearer to each other than in the accident of being Y and Z. They are both novelists with a distinct original talent which approaches genius; they have both been rather unwisely prolific; they have both been immensely popular; and they have both contemplated life too much from one side or set of sides and under the influence of too decided "preoccupations." Miss Yonge's subjects and manners bore Mr. Gosse, and do not bore me. M. Zola's subjects and manners do not bore Mr. Gosse, and as a rule bore me to extinction. There is only one novelist of the present day (oddly enough also an English lady, though a very different one from Miss Yonge) who affects me with the same nightmare of boredom that M. Zola knows how to spread. Of course, this is no argument of itself; but it suggests an argument, and I only wish that Mr. Gosse, agreeable as his book is, had taken more heed of suggested arguments of the same kind. "Ecartons l'actuel" should be the modern version of "Ecrasons l'infâme" to all good critics when they write books.