ticed that the nurse stooped with her weight. | past of Europe they have in common with The little imp shut her eyes and did ingenue us. But their own records, brief as they as if she had been bred to the stage, and as are, are already splendid; and of these a baby in arms she was successfully carried they have exclusive possession. They into Paris, the seminarist leading the way through the wicket, book in hand and eyes on the floor. The women that played that trick, nevertheless, watched over that child as none but the best English servants would have done, would have thought nothing of losing their own dinners to gratify any whims she might express at table. -hold the gorgeous West in fee. European writers will never do full justice to the America of the past. It requires, indeed, a mind very well informed and free from prejudice to do justice to the America of the present. Records of New England life form the Does travelling benefit young children? most picturesque portion of American an We cannot say, for we have never watched nals. The use of these for purposes of Art English children under the ordeal; but we has been abundantly proved by Hawthorne suspect not. They are injuriously fed, and other writers. That stern, cold Calkeep late hours, and enjoy far too much ex- vinism which the Puritan carried with him citement for their mental health. The con- over sea had such opportunity for developstant change of scene is a strain upon the ment as had not elsewhere been afforded mind for which they obtain little or no com- it. After a "terrible childbed " and a youth pensation, and which accounts for the weary, soured and hardened by persecution, the half blasé look they wear on their return. Puritan found himself the possessor of auThey become querulous as the journey ad- thority. He could visit upon others the vances, the waiters' habit of non-resistance sufferings he had long endured; and nothtempts them to new demands, and they end ing in the religion he professed restrained not infrequently by making themselves nui- him from so natural, if so illogical, a retalsances around. The new faces be- iation. Hence the persecution of the wilder them, the new scenes overfill their witches and that of the Quakers, of which minds, and the new diet gives them a per- Cotton Mather has left us so strange and manent dyspepsia. Change is as good for children as for grown-up people, but it should neither be rapid nor frequent, and for any English girl or boy under twelve we should deprecate Continental travel, and above all, Continental life in hotels. From The Athenæum. The New England Tragedies. By Henry full a record, were unexampled. The time when Puritan government was at its height in New England has been chosen by Mr. Longfellow for illustration. Of the two dramas to which he has given the title of The New England Tragedies,' one is occupied with the persecution of the Quakers, the other with that of witches. In both the scene is laid in Boston. Both dramas are to a certain extent experiments in metre. They are written in blank verse, smooth and flexible in structure; and no prose is employed. The most comic, or realistic, utterances are all in verse, and One is almost dismayed at being asked to accept as poetry such phrases as In his original works Mr. Longfellow shows a growing disposition to forsake the very realistic some of them are. history of Europe for that of his own country. Mediævalism was his first love, and her influence is still felt; but American history is the choice of his manhood. For a long time the poet seemed to waver in his affection, giving us, on the one hand, The Spanish Student' and 'The Golden Legend,' or , and, on the other, 'Evangeline, The If you want fiddling, you must go elsewhere Courtship of Miles Standish, and Hiawa- To the Green Dragon, and the Admiral Vernon, tha.' At last, however, his choice seems And to other such disreputable places; declared, and we may now regard all hom or age to the former mistress as an infidelity to the present. The gradually increasing taste of Transatlantic writers, those especially of highest GOLDSMITH. Hard lines. What for? mark, for subjects taken from American KEMPTHORN. Ralph, I am under bonds for a hundred pound. history is satisfactory to contemplate. The In passages of serious interest, however, Mr. Longfellow's blank verse is very happy; |cott, the son of the Governor, is moved to full of melody and strength. 'Endicott, the first of the two dramas, is ushered in by a prologue in verse. This is partly explanatory and partly apologetic, as may be seen from the following ex tract: May ask, incredulous; "and to what good end? Let us remember, if these words be true, compassion by the sight of Edith's suffer- Four already have been slain; murmur At our severity. He is soon stimulated, however, to such cruelty as brings about the catastrophe. Edith, and subsequently Christison, are brought before the Council. Edith is sentenced to be whipped in public in three towns; Christison is condemned to death. The execution of the former sentence is completed, and Edith, after undergoing it, is thrust forth into the wilderness, whither she is followed by John Endicott. Christison's life is saved by the arrival from Eng Their thoughts in their own language, strong land of a royal despatch, depriving the and bold: He only asks of you to do the like; Governor of power further to molest or punish the Quakers. The play ends with the death of all those who had taken part in the persecution. Their speedy death, and, to a certain extent, its manner, had been foretold by Christison. There is very little that is dramatic in 'Endicott' besides the form. It is, of The drama follows the fate of Wenlock Christison and his daughter Edith. Penal enactments were in the year of the play, 1665, in force against the Quakers. Christison had already been banished from the course, altogether unsuited for representacity under penalty of death. Moved, how-tion. In one or two scenes a measure of ever, by irresistible impulse, he returns at dramatic force is given to the dialogue. In the moment when the fanatic zeal of Nor- the trial scene of Christison the old man's ton, a preacher, has inflamed to violence responses to his judges are very fine and the weak governor Endicott. All who are spirited. The characterization is generally concerned with government, whether of good. Scarcely one of the dramatis perChurch or State, participate in persecutions sonæ but stands before us visible and of the Quakers, and the people, though recognizable, yet all are painted with few they mutter discontent, are not ready for action in their behalf. Very simple is the plot of the drama, its entire interest being concentrated in the sufferings meekly borne by Edith and the portentous warnings uttered by her father. Scarcely any commonplace or sentimental interest is attempted. Mr. Longfellow has seen that love passages would scarcely blend with the horrors he has to chronicle. In one of his dramas, accordingly, there is no suggestion of love; and in that before us, though John Endi touches. Governor Endicott is the most elaborately-painted portrait. He is by no means the most successful. Giles Corey of the Salem Farms' is a stronger and far more tragical story than Endicott.' It tells how, upon the testimony of the "afflicted children," those of highest position incurred charges of witchcraft. Some art is shown in the manner whereby the reader's mind is prepared for the catastrophe of the play. Cotton Mather, the historian of the persecutions, is one of the dramatis personæ, acting in | dren," form together a scene of great power part as Chorus. As yet, the persecutions and pathos. have touched those only whose age and help- These dramas are worthy of Mr. Longless condition render them peculiarly liable to fellow's reputation, to which, however, they the charge of witchcraft. But emboldened can hardly add much. The excellence of by success, the "afflicted children" assail the poet's art detracts, to a certain extent, others higher in condition. Goodwife Bishop from their interest. Puritanical forms of is first tried, and her condemnation is the speech are not altogether suited to the purdoleful precursor to that of Goodwife Co- poses of the drama. Gospel phrases in the rey. Corey himself is a prosperous man, mouths of Quakers are less effective than and a firm believer in witchcraft. When Old-Testament illustrations in the mouth first discovered he is soliloquizing, while he nails a horseshoe over his door: The birds sing blithely on the trees around me, [Nails down the horseshoe. of a Jew. Hence the dramas want colour. Come back! ye friendships long departed! We cannot but fancy that the long study of Dante which preceded Mr. Longfellow's translation has influenced his style and his thoughts. We seem to trace this influence, not only in his individual images or ideas, but in the style of illustration he employs. Compare, for instance, the six following lines, and the image they contain, with the illustration of the lark, "Qual allodetta, che in aere si spazia," in the twentieth canto of the 'Paradiso': This flight of the cattle is the commencement of his misfortunes. His wife is arrested and tried før witchcraft. So given And as the flowing of the ocean fills to brooding upon the subject are men's Each creek and branch thereof, and then retires, minds, that their conversation, serious and Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor; frivolous, is full of allusions to the terrible So doth the virtue and the life of God theme. When Corey is in the witness-box, speaking the truth as a conscientious, Godfearing man, he finds words harmlessly spoken wrested till they receive most harmful and dolorous significance. His wife is found guilty of witchcraft, his own evidence being largely conducive to her conviction. He is himself tried for the same offence. Conscious how his words may be misinterpreted, he refuses to speak. For his contumacy he is sentenced to be pressed to death. With the carrying out of this sentence, and the utterance of some vaticinations by Cotton Mather, the play ends. It is more dramatic than its predecessor. The scene in which Martha Corey is tried is strong and well wrought. Corey's protestations, Martha's denunciations of the system by which she is to suffer, and the ravings of Mary, one of the "afflicted chil Flow evermore into the hearts of those Whom he hath made partakers of his nature. The lines in the 'Paradiso' are thus translated by Mr. Longfellow: Like as a lark that in the air expatiates, We do not know whether this passage is enough to justify us, in the reader's opinion, in attributing an influence upon Mr. Longfellow's style to his study of Dante. We could point in this work to many other instances of slight, but not insignificant, resemblance to the method of the great poet he has translated. PLAYING AT PLEASURE. From Belgravia. | being pleased. Croquet may be taken as a representative thing in this respect. Everybody can't like the game, yet everybody must play at it or affect an interest in it. And what is true of this is true of much more important matters. Let us take music, for example. Now, what an enormous proportion of the lives of people in society is taken up in listening to music! They Th might be born for nothing else. There are "Do these people enjoy this?" The question startled me, coming as it did like an echo of the thought in my own mind. Perhaps also because it was out of tone or keeping with the scene; for we were on the croquet-lawn, at sunset, the young and pretty players looking younger and still more charming in the rosy light, and those the operas which, of course, must be attendwatching the game strolling about in groups ed. It would be Bœotian indeed not to or resting on the rustic seats, chatting and know how Kellogg gave the "Ciascum lo laughing pleasantly. The calmness and se- disce" in the Figlia on Tuesday, or to be renity of the summer evening conduced to ignorant of the fact that Mario was hardly pleasurable emotions, and we were pleased. so crisp as usual on Thursday week. BeWe persuaded ourselves of that. We told sides, there is always a débutante, or a newone another so, for fear there should be any ly-discovered tenor, if not some fresh feamistake about it; and yet - well, the least ture in the répertoire, to be sat in judgment little yawn was now and then perceptible in upon. So the opera is inevitable. Then a fair face, and a furtive glance at a watch there are the great concerts at the houses of from time to time was suggestive that the the nobility, which, as being invariably hot, sound of the dinner-bell would not be crowded, and uncomfortable, are naturally wholly unwelcome. So I had already begun the most distingué things out. Of the Muto speculate whether young girls are born sical Union, Philharmonic, and other society to croquet as the sparks fly upward; whether concerts there is literally no end. As to one and all find it a source of unalloyed the Crystal Palace, it is simply a reservoir gratification; whether beatitude is necces- of music always on full flow throughout the sarily realised by the looker-on; and so season, and it must be visited again and forth, when the pertinent question set down again. These are a few, and only a few, above was whispered in my ear. of the forms in which music assails us. Happily, an answer was impossible. At Now, a genuine love for music is by no that very moment the bell, so long antici- means universal, especially among the Engpated, rang, and at the very first sound my lish. It must result from a natural taste or querist rose and left me. His example was gift comparatively rare, developed by ascontagious. The players threw down their siduous culture. Knowledge must premallets; the game was left in any state. cede taste, and taste enjoyment. I grant One blushing girl alone lingered, detained that most people like to hear a pretty melby a youth of ardent eyes, and cheek as ody; but pretty melodies are not music. girlish as her own, to settle some technical- A taste for them doesn't qualify one to unity having reference to "spooning." All derstand and enjoy Schubert or to enter the rest went, and in five minutes the with enthusiasm into Wagner's designs on ground was almost deserted. This latter the musical future. So it happens that fact hadi ts significance, I decided, when I half the music people are compelled to sit came to think over the matter after dinner. out must be unintelligible " sound and fury" A game so hastily abandoned could hardly to two-thirds of them. It can inspire no in have had any strong hold on the players or those who saw it played. Certainly it appeared to amuse; but did it? It seemed to afford pleasure; but was that so? After all, isn't croquet, as a rule, one of those make-believe devices by which society tries to cheat itself out of sheer inanity and intolerable ennui? In a word, isn't the pursuit of it half the time simply and honestly a mere playing at pleasure? telligible appreciation, and afford no real enjoyment. The select few who have studied music as a science, and whose talk is of "progressions," "resolutions," "consecutive fifths," and the rest of it, no doubt feel the raptures they express. People of fair musical gifts and decent education may derive a certain degree of satisfaction in listening to a classical composition, the work of a great master, even in that rarefied atmosphere where music impinges on mathe This idea once started soon carried one beyond the limits of the croquet-lawn. It matics; but for the rest, the mass of those was impossible not to reflect on the inflic- who frequent the opera-house and the contions those in society go through, and the cert-room, what gratification can they exfatigue they sustain, in keeping up a fiction perience? Simply none. They are there of enjoyment, and a ghastly semblance of because it is a right thing to be there. They listen because others listen. They affect to | joyment proper to this form of playing at be critical, or to seem satisfied, just as it pleasure. may happen. But they have really no heart in the matter. They are simply playing at pleasure. Much the same thing happens in respect to picture-galleries. Since the fashion came up, fostered by the late Prince Consort, everybody must affect a taste for art. It is at least indispensable that one should see the Academy Exhibition, and do something in the way of private views, to say nothing of maundering about in Suffolk-street and elsewhere. Very nice, pleasant, even improving to those who really care for this kind of thing, and bring any knowledge, technical or otherwise, to bear upon it. But how many do care or know anything about art? The majority see pictures as a child sees them, and with about as much appreciation of their real claims to excellence. They lack the innate faculty of apprehension, and education has done little or nothing to supply the deficiency. An artist can hardly credit that a good picture can be looked at without an instinctive sense of its beauty. No? But he has to learn that it is so. He is doomed to experience again and again that heartsickness which comes over the poet when his verse falls on dead ears; when his rhythmic cadences charm not, his studied felicities are unmarked, and his most delicate conceits kindle no sympathetic glow of appreciation. The poet has only one advantage. Harsh and rugged stolidity will sometimes admit that it has no taste for the music of Apollo's lute; but every lout believes himself a born art-critic. The truth is, that the power of finding real enjoyment in poetry, in music, and in artistic productions is literally a "gift." There is no other word that expresses it. The coarsest natures are sometimes thus gifted; the most delicate lack the indescribable something which they find others possessing. How far education may sometimes supply the deficiencies of Nature is a point on which I will not enter. Certain it is that it often fails to do so; and what is the result? Pictures surfeit. Good and bad are looked at without discrimination. The familiar has that feeble hold on the mind which consist in vraisemblance. Colour tells as colour in the draper's window tells. The vacuous stare results in the wearied brain. Kaleidoscopic effect culminates in vertigo. So tired, so jaded, so inexpressibly bored, the unsympathetic visitor drags through the purgatory of art; but ever with the set smile of approval, the simper of gratification, the rigid muscular expression of extreme critical appreciativeness and en These examples are sufficient to illustrate my position; they might be multiplied to any extent. What the old French chronicler said of our ancestors, "These English amuse themselves sadly," is strikingly true of the present day. Sadly enough do thousands of us drag through the weary rounds society has marked out for us, nursing the delusion that we are amused, refreshed, gratified, or receive compensation in some form or other. The compensation may only be prospective, as in the case of a friend of mine whom I found playing at whist when he should have been dancing. "What, you like cards!" I remarked. "Like them! he ejaculated with a sneer, no, my boy; but one must cultivate a resource for one's old age." He was provident, for his years numbered only twenty-five! On the general question of the follow-myleader nature of our amusements, it is satisfactory to be able to add that England does not stand alone in this respect. That the French enjoy themselves more than the English there can be little question. They are more sprightly, vivacious, light-hearted, and more easily really pleased. Yet they go through a good deal of wearisome makebelieve enjoyment for all that. A French salon is not always a little heaven below," as the novelists insist on representing it. As to the Americans, they run us very close in these hollow mockeries. They, like ourselves, are bound to enjoy that which it is the proper thing to enjoy. I was speaking to an eminent tragedian the other day on his experience of the States, particularly in respect to high-class drama. Ristori's name was mentioned. "Has she a public 66 in America?" I asked. 66 Certainly: draws crowded houses." "Of the best people, of course? "The very best. The fashionables throng to hear the great Italian." 66 And they sit out the performances ?" "Yes." They enjoy them, then ?" .. I don't know: they sit." Just our English experience in respect to Ristori, repeated of late in the smaller matter of the French plays at the St. James's. In single handto-hand encounters with ennui, in the name of pleasure, the Americans are rather happy. Their national habit of whittling is an example in point. There can be no real pleasure in reducing a stick to chips, but the whittler sets an object before himself, and trifling as that object is, the realisation of it yields him enjoyment. This is the secret of the success of a new American game which is to be all the rage this winter, though a more |