the best actors of our own time; but perhaps it is too much to hope that these contemporary documents may be interpreted to later students of the stage by a critic as gifted as Fleeming Jenkin. Critics of his insight and attainments come as spies and not in batallions.

(August, 1915.)

BRANDER MATTHEWS.

Mrs. Siddons as Lady

W

Macbeth

HEN any great work of art perishes from among us, we not only grieve, but we rebel against the decree of fate. The wars, the traffic, the mechanical arts of old, nay even the men and women, wither into an oblivion which is not painful but kindly. We sigh and smile and acquiesce-better so, for here was nothing fitted to endure for ever.

They had their time, as we have ours, and who would wish that the strife, the bustle, the men of to-day should last for ever? But the destruction of any beautiful thing, whether it be the work of art or nature, fills us, on the contrary, with sickening regret. The temple, statue, picture gone imply a loss of joy to uncounted generations. We suffer real pain when we think of lost tragedies by Sophocles, and our whole classical system of education is a protest that tho kingdoms,