rate is very low, we were a long way behind that

still. It was not so much new laws that were
required as more efficient administration of those
already in existence. The local government of the
country was in a state of arrested development.
Dr. Playfair concluded with an eloquent per-
oration, showing how, in the wonderful scheme of
our existence, death and life rapidly appear in cor-
relation, and past generations of animals, by a
process of dissolution, produce living generations
by a process of evolution.

The address was heard with marked attention
by a crowded audience.

first of Sir George Campbell, and afterwards of
Mr. M'Lagan, M.P., was fully occupied during
the day.

Tuesday.

Sir George Campbell, President of the Economy
and Trade Section, delivered his opening Address.
He alluded to the recent change of thought in
respect to orthodox political economy, whereby a
sort of mixed political economy had supplanted
the purer doctrine. The grand difficulty in estab-
lishing a good social state in these days seemed
to him to consist in this, that up to the present
time all the examples of free states with which
we were acquainted were examples of states in
which real freedom has been confined to a body of
freemen, not comprising the whole population.
But we were now going through a social revolu-
tion, and the vast rise of wages was a portentous
sign. Was this continuous increase to go on in-
definitely? He thought not; both in Hindostan
and China there was an industrious and numerous
population, in which there were great economic
capacities. India was competing with Manchester
in the textile industries, and China was ready to
compete in the labour market all over the world.
The greatest question of modern days, however,
was how to reconcile a great manufacturing system
with prudence; how to give the workman a suffi-
cient interest in the product of his labour, a suffi-
cient incentive to exertion, and a sufficient motive
to economy. We must, if possible, so arrange our
land laws that garden plots in convenient situa-
tions may be easily available to the industrious
mechanic. We must so arrange our associated
labour that the industrious and energetic man may
earn in proportion to his industry and energy.
We must so regulate the laws under which money
is invested in industrial enterprise that the small
holder may be secure of fair treatment, and have
fair expectations of a good return. His conviction
was that the Imperial Parliament, as now consti-
tuted, was not capable of dealing with the many
social problems which continually presented them-
selves. The machine is too large and cumbrous;
he was so far a home ruler that he would like to
see a large portion of our self-government trans-
ferred to local assemblies.

The work of the Sections was various and inter-
esting. In the Law Department, the special
question for discussion was, "Should the testi-
mony of any, and what persons, at present ex-
cluded witnesses, be admissible as evidence in
courts of law?" and papers on the subject were
read by Sheriff Dickson, Serjeant Cox, and Mr.
Mozley, on behalf of Serjeant Pulling, in his un-
avoidable absence. Sir Travers Twiss occupied
the chair. The Repression of Crime Section was
at the same time occupied, after its kind, in the
discussion of criminal matters. Major Brudenal
Rogers read a good paper on the question, "Is it
desirable to extend sentences of police supervision
to other cases than those already provided for?"
and Dr. Yellowlees one on the Criminal Responsi-
bility of the Insane, remarkable for its practical
and suggestive tone. Both papers were followed
by well-sustained discussions. Mr. G. W. Hast-
ings presided. The attention of the Education
Section was occupied principally during the day
in the discussion of the subject of academical
endowments in both England and Scotland respec-
tively. Prof. G. G. Ramsay read a paper on the
subject which may be briefly summarised. He
said that there were two main views of the work
of Universities-first, the practical educational
view; and, second, the scientific view. He wanted
the University to have a closer connexion with the
higher schools of the country. He suggested that
fellowships should be bestowed for a limited period,
independent of all conditions; that a further term
should be granted to all who pursued a definite
course of study, either at the University or else-
where, and as a proof of that course being com-
pleted, took a degree; and, thirdly, that all tutors,
after a certain number of years of good service,
should be allowed to hold their fellowships as
premiums. Mr. C. S. Parker also read a paper on
the same subject, and brought forward for con-
sideration some valuable and pertinent statistics.
Then Miss Dorothea Beal read one on University
Examinations for Girls, and Mr. William Jack on
the Statutory Examinations of Scotch Higher
Schools under the new Education Act. The
Health Section met under the presidency of the
Lord Provost, Sir James Watson. The question
for discussion was, "In what way can healthy
working men's dwellings be erected in lieu of
those removed for carrying out sanitary or muni-
cipal improvements, or for other purposes?"-a
question in which it was understood that the Lord
Provost took a special interest. Papers were read
on the subject by Bailie Morrison and the Rev. R.
C. Simpson. The former was chiefly of an his-
torical and retrospective character, dealing with
the condition of Glasgow before the City Improve
ment Trust commenced its operations, and show-
ing what had been undertaken and accomplished
since. The further changes in progress would
occupy twenty or twenty-five years in completion.
Mr. Simpson, Rector of St. Clement's Danes,
London, treated the matter in a more comprehen-
sive spirit. He held that drunkenness and all ill
habits were stimulated by bad dwellings. The
"religious difficulty was as nothing compared
with the home difficulty. The efforts that had
been made by private and associated enterprise
were insufficient; it was necessary to call in State
aid. The only agency that could effectually carry The last day of the Congress provided a pro-
out the work was municipal government. Mr. gramme of papers that was all but appalling, and
Edwin Chadwick, Mr. Thomas Webster, and Prof. this in addition to an Address from G. W. Hast-
Gairdner took part in the discussion. The Eco-ings, as President of the Repression of Crime Sec-
nomy and Trade Section, under the presidency, tion, at 9:45 A.M., a meeting of the Council at

"

The Education Section was again the principal point of interest in the day's proceedings. Three papers were read on the best modes of extending education by means of the educational clauses of the Factory, Workshop, and similar Acts, and of the Education Act. Both the papers and the discussion which followed were highly discursive, the "religious difficulty," as usual, forcing its way in, to the confusion of the matter immediately in debate and the vast agitation of the clerical element, which was present in great force, as usual. The essayists were, Mr. W. Mitchell, of the Glasgow School Board, the Rev. J. Page Hopps, and Mr. J. F. Moss, Clerk to the Sheffield School Board; and amongst the speakers were, Mr. Cooke-Taylor, Mrs. Lowe, Mr. Kidston, Mr. G. J. Holyoake, Mr. Rowland Hamilton, Mrs. Lewis, and Mr. O'Malley. Mr. Chatfield Clarke also read a paper on School Board work in London, in which he spoke sanguinely of the future of the Education Act in that city. The Health Section was mainly occupied with subjects of local interest. Mr. Sheriff Spens, however, read a paper on a subject of more general interest, namely, the appointment of sanitary inspectors with reference to the Public Health Act, advocating that these appointments should be made more valuable. The Economy and Trade Section listened with interest to a long paper from Mr. Edwin Chadwick, on the subject of a closer union of interests between Great Britain, India, and the Colonies. The Earl of Rosebery, Mr. Macfie, M.P., Sir Coomara Swamy, Prof. Donnell, and others, spoke afterwards.

Wednesday.

1 P.M., and the concluding General Meeting of
Members and Associates at 3 P... Mr. Hastings
has so often addressed the Association in one
capacity or another, and is so favourably known
to all members of it, that he was sure of a large
audience, and obtained one.
We cannot here,
however, follow his valuable and suggestive
remarks, nor, indeed, give anything like an
analysis of the morning's proceedings. Suffice
it to say, then, that the Section which was
best filled was that of Economy and Trade, Sec-
tion B., where Mrs. King sought to lay the founda-
tion of a system of Domestic Economy, based upon
strictly scientific principles, and Mrs. Crawshay
communicated a narrative of her successful experi
ment in employing ladies in the capacity of domes
tic servants at her residence near Merthyr Tydvil.
A paper descriptive of the work of the Ladies'
Sanitary Association was also read in the Health
Department by the Secretary, Miss Rose Adams,
and the great Liquor Question fully discussed
in Section A. of Economy and Trade. The Repres
sion of Crime Section did not sit.

At the meeting of Council, besides the merely formal work, an invitation to hold the next Annual Congress at Brighton was accepted, and a telegram read from the Mayor and Corporation of Liverpool, inviting the Association for 1876. At the concluding meeting the usual votes of thanks were proposed and passed, and the Congress of 1874 came to a close. It has been the most successful one which the Social Science Association has held for the last ten years, as well in point of numbers and monetary result as in the general interest taken in its proceedings. Fourteen years ago the Association had held its most successful meeting in the same city, and it has been a matter of no little congratulation to the permanent members of it that they have met with so cordial a reception on their second visit.

THE VOYAGES OF THE BROTHERS ZENO. British Museum, September 29, 1874. On my return from the Continent, I lose no time in replying to a review in your issue of the 29th of August, of my edition of 'The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the Fourteenth Century, originally edited, in 1558, by their descendant, Niccolò Zeno, junior.

As I claim to have been the first to demonstrate the genuineness of this document by means of new facts and new lines of reasoning, in spite of which your reviewer says that "the verdict of the public will be 'not proven,'" I must request space for my complaint that your reviewer has himself guided his readers to such a verdict by the easy process of suppressing both my facts and my arguments, and by suggesting, and even attributing to me, facts and arguments which are neither mine nor true. The document is worth the trouble; for, although your reviewer makes no allusion whatever to circumstances so important, it is the latest known which treats of the lost colony of Greenland, for the discovery of which the Kings of Denmark have, for three centuries, sent out many unsuccessful expeditions, and it is also the latest which treats of the existence of Europeans in North America before Columbus, i. e., one century before his first voyage across the Atlantic. Although the work has for centuries been a subject of discussion by some of the most distinguished literati in Europe, I am "bold" to say that I am happily able, here and now, to secure from the common-sense of the public a verdict of " proven," and that from passages which your reviewer has himself selected for quotation; and as his comments are appended thereto, the reader will be able to see how the suppressio veri and the suggestio falsi have been resorted to in order to undo what I have done. His first quotation is:—

"The whole story had been written out by Antonio Zeno, but a descendant of his, named Nicolò Zeno, born in 1515, when a boy, not knowing the value of these papers, tore them up,

22

but, some of the letters surviving, he was able from them, subsequently, to compile the narrative and publish it, as we now have it, in the year 1558. He found also in the palace a map, rotten with age, illustrative of the voyages. Of this he made a copy, unluckily supplying from his own reading of the narrative what he thought was requisite for its illustration."

fidelity to truth, to recognize it as hyperbole, neither more nor less, wherever it occurs.

time have brought forth such ridiculously false geography in the map. Had geographical knowledge been sufficiently advanced in 1558 to enable My recognition of this reality, combined with a Venetian to produce good northern geography the historical fact that, in 1391, Henry Sinclair, in his text, it would have served him as well in Earl of Orkney and Caithness, slew, in the Shethis map; and the names of places, moreover, land Islands, Malise Sperre, his Norse rivalwould then have been spelt in their northern claimant to the Earldom, explains the most diffifashion, whereas here they are misspelt as a cult passage in the whole document, and, at the And the reviewer's comment on this passage issoutherner would write them down from the lips same time, brings the dates and history and geo"Thus at the very threshold we have sufficient of northmen. Is it not clear then that the accu-graphy of the story into perfect harmony. Yet to excite suspicion; first the admission of the rate text truly comes, as he himself tells us, from this Henry Sinclair, whose doings, as Earl of destruction of the original and the compilation his ancestors, and that in his endeavour to make Orkney and Caithness, have a most important from such letters as were not destroyed, then what he calls a copy of the old map, so "rotten bearing on the authenticity of the Zeno document, Nicolo's additions to the map from his own with age" that he is but too glad to succeed toler- is never once mentioned by your critic even by reading of the narrative' (which had been de-ably well, he reverts to the text for assistance, stroyed), and this 160 or 170 years after the events misinterprets both the spelling and the bearings, had taken place." and so introduces the blunders in question? Then if so, we have a genuine document, and my case is "proven."

I wonder whether any one else but your reviewer, with my own words before his eyes, could have written that parenthesis ("which had been destroyed"). If the reader will look back, he will see that what I call the narrative (in two places underlined) from which Niccolò made his unlucky additions to the map, was compiled from the surviving letters, and so published. How then could the narrative derived from these letters have been "destroyed"? Thus an effort is made to render the Zeno document and my advocacy of it ridiculous by means of an absurdity invented by your critic himself. It is a suggestion of what is neither mine nor true.

Now the real position of the case is this. We have a text and a map, both published by Niccolò Zeno junior in 1558 as derived from his ancestors of more than a century and a half before. The countries they treat of are, the Faroe Islands, under the name of Frislanda (the Færöisland of the Danes); the Shetlands, under the name of Estlanda on the map, and Estlanda, Eslanda, and Islande in the text; the Orkneys, under the name of Porlanda; Greenland, under the name of Engronelanda; and parts of North America, under the name of Estotilanda and Drogeo. Now of the island groups here referred to we have at the present day very minute and accurate surveys; and when the Zeno text is brought into comparison with these, its geography is found to be quite correct; and this is the basis of my demonstration. All these countries are also represented on the Zeno map. With the one exception of Greenland, which is wonderfully well delineated, they are, it is true, roughly put in (and no wonder in a map 500 years old), the island groups being drawn respectively in an irregular round line, as if each were a simple island, but yet they are in their approximately right positions geographically, and in respect of each other. Thus far we have the text and maps agreeing with each other, and exhibiting knowledge of the country, however rudely delineated on the latter. But what I have here specially to call attention to is, that in addition to these, certain places in these islands mentioned in the text are, from misinterpretation of names or of bearings, transported into most absurd localities on the map, so as to occur in duplicate. Thus, while Shetland stands in its proper position, as originally rudely drawn by the old voyager, places in the Shetlands mentioned in the text are, from a pardonable misinterpretation of the name "Islande," converted into islands on the east coast of Iceland. For want of space, I only give this ludicrous example, but it is enough. These blunders only occur in connexion with places named in the text, and nothing is easier than to trace from the text itself how by misinterpretation each has arisen. Where then are we to look for the author of these blunders, except to the restorer of the map, who had no personal knowledge to save him from making them? Now I appeal to your readers to decide whether it is possible that the fourteenth-century Venetian travellers could have produced perfectly good detailed northern geography in their letters without writing from local knowledge, or whether their descendant, a century and a half later, could have dishonestly concocted such correct detailed northern geography in the text, and at the same

The line of reasoning, however, by which I have led to this important conclusion, is entirely suppressed by your critic; and the reader shall now see how, instead of it, the puzzling incongruities of the case are dragged crudely into light, and my deductions misrepresented. These are the reviewer's words :

"Of the map Mr. Major writes: 'Let us turn and see what absurd blunders it exhibits in the misplacement of localities,'-'they are all of the most preposterous character,'-and well may he say so when the Shetlands are moved up to the north-east coast of Iceland, and the Orkneys to the south-east coast, while there is a second Shetland in its proper place; and to this Mr. Major says, 'In this fact we have a proof that Nicolò Zeno junior, the restorer of the map, is the cause of all the perplexity. But while this is a proof of his ignorance of the geography, it is the greatest proof that could be desired that he could not possibly have been the ingenious concoctor of a narrative, the demonstrable truth of which, when checked by modern geography, he could thus ignorantly distort upon the face of a map.' The force of this argument is hardly 'so conclusive that it could not be invalidated,' the inference drawn being that because the map is wrong, the narrative is right, and this map professes to be a copy. Certainly when Mr. Major makes these admissions, it is difficult to allow that all doubt has been removed."

The reader can now judge whether I have “admitted" such an absurd "inference" or such a forced meaning of the word "copy": here, again, is a suggestion of what is neither mine nor true. In spite of the clearest evidence, your critic, in order to sap my argument, will have it that a copy" must be a "copy" without additions, but the awkward fact remains that there they are, even though Niccolò did not in so many words say that he had made them. But as Niccolò himself said that he had made a "copy of the chart, and "although it is rotten with age, I have succeeded with it tolerably well," your critic says, "In common justice we must take him at his word, and, if it be a copy, the genuineness of the narrative is by no means clear." I not only take Niccolò at his word, but at his deed; but I want to know why your critic is so anxious to take Niccolò Zeno at his word, not only au pied de la lettre, but jusqu'aux ongles du pied, when it suits his purpose, for the sake of upsetting what I have demonstrated by a score of converging facts and arguments in the course of my book (all which he suppresses), and yet refuses to take him at his word on any other point. I ask for nothing more than that he should be taken at his word; and, if only that be done, we have in what he has given us a very precious document. One of the drawbacks to its value has been the use of hyperbole, common to the natives of the South of Europe; but, as it occurs in descriptions of local movements which are proved to be fundamentally true by the accuracy of the geography, it remains that the hyperbole is but the husk of a sound kernel. Your critic says, "The hyperbole is either ridiculous or false." It is, in all cases, both; but it is not, as he sneeringly calls it, "charity," but

name.

The following is another suggestion of your critic's which is neither mine nor true :-"If the narrative," he says, "is to be relied on, Antonio Zeno was as far as ever from being the discoverer of the western world, for, twenty-six years before he sailed on his voyage, four fishing boats had reached Estotiland (North America), and they arrived only to discover that others had preceded them." In the whole of my book there is not a word to the effect that Antonio Zeno was ever supposed to have discovered the western world, and such a reference as the above to the important subject of the colonization of America by the Northmen at the beginning of this millennium, which gives so peculiar an interest to the Zeno volume, simply leaves me in amazement.

Another suggestion of what is not true is answered by the fact that the younger Niccolo's family attached no special importance to those papers, as they had no reason to connect them with America, for the lands alluded to therein had up to their time been only regarded as a continuation of Europe. Again, Niccolò junior, so far from having concocted this story out of jealousy of Columbus, made no claim whatever even to the lands referred to being in America; another suggestion of what is neither mine nor true. I have adduced at length the "sailing directions" and "chorography of Greenland" left by Ivar Bardsen, a Greenlander of high authority, a few years anterior to the visit of Niccolò Zeno senior to that country in 1392, and the two accounts corroborate each other in the most marvellous manner, and fix the site of the lost colony, but both Ivar Bardsen's name and his evidence are entirely suppressed by the reviewer. I need, therefore, say nothing about his Greenlandic criticisms.

I do not see what fair chance there is for any cause, however just, momentous, or even sacred it might be, when the statement of the case, the production of the evidence, and the issue of the verdict, all lie in the hands of one anonymous antagonist. How much less when the same individual constitutes himself the judge, and exhibits, as qualifications for the office, such samples as we have just seen of the suppressio veri and the gestio falsi! R. H. MAJOR.

sug

** Mr. Major is angry with us because we do not agree with him; but we are quite willing to leave the decision of the matter to our readers, having no fear that they will accuse us either of a suppressio veri or a suggestio falsi. We examined the internal evidence for the authenticity of the work, and, in our opinion, it does not stand examination. Mr. Major admits "hyperbole," "inflation of language," "grandiloquence and bombast," in the narrative; all these may be considered excess of truth, "the husk of the sound kernel"; he also admits that the map has been added to; in all this he and we agree, it is only in the size of the sound kernel and the extent of the additions that we and he differ. We maintain that the truth of the narrative is not substantiated. The other considerations introduced by Mr. Major are beside the question. When it can be proved that a fleet, even of row-boats, could remain at Lille Dimon to refresh the crews or furnish them with necessaries, more credit will be accorded to the narrative which Mr. Major defends with more energy than judgment.

IT has been stated that Mr. Brock was to have the entire charge of the completion of the works left by Mr. Foley; but we are informed that by the provisions of Mr. Foley's will the work is to be jointly undertaken by Messrs. Brock, Dewick, and Birch.

EVERY one will be glad to know that Mr. Alma

Tadema and his wife were from home when last week's explosion took place almost immediately in front of their house, at North Gate, Regent's Park. The house is, however, a sad wreck: the windows are utterly destroyed, the fittings of the rooms, especially those on the front and side of the residence, are thoroughly ravaged; door-cases and

M. LECOMPTE, at a recent Séance of the Academy have been completely blown away,nd partition

amount of illustration it affords of the play of Shakspeare or the growth of the drama. Like the previous work Mr. Cosens introduced to the knowledge of the English public, 'Los Bandos de Verona' is a tragi-comedy. Its serious interest is, indeed, grimly developed. The heroine first drinks poison to release herself from the hands of her father, then recovers from its effects to see her life attempted by his dagger, while her lover punishes these attacks on his mistress by firing cannon from the stage upon the castle of Capelete and making a breach in its walls.

Portions only of the story are translated in the flowing and easy metre adopted by Mr. Cosens in the previous work. A prose analysis of the play is given, those passages being rendered into English verse which are more elevated in language or more dramatic in action. There is little attempt on the part of the dramatist to follow closely the action of the story, and the resemblance to Shakspeare scarcely extends beyond the names of the characters.

her life, when he finds she is still in the flesh
and still recalcitrant. A good deal of playing
at hide-and-seek follows, the gracioso who is
the servant of Romeo acting the part of
chorus, and supplying the audience with a
knowledge of what is supposed to take place
behind their backs. In the end, Julia is
confined in the fortress of the Capelete,
which is duly besieged by Romeo. When
further resistance is shown to be unavailing,

Capelete surrenders, and consents to the
match, while Paris agrees to take back the

half-divorced Elena.

Unlike as all this is to 'Romeo and Juliet,' it is not so utterly below the level of Shakspeare as is the language of the Spanish dramatist.

No scene or line stirs for a moment the pulse by depicting the struggle of youth and love against destiny, no flowerladen breath of poetry such as exhales from the early scenes of 'Romeo and Juliet' for one moment fans the cheek. A speech of the gracioso, in the last act of the three into which the play is divided, bears a resemblance

the same name at the Surrey Theatre. The story, intended to expose the manner in which sailors are sent to sea in rotten ships, abounds in startling rassed rather than aided by some elaborate scenery, situations and dramatic surprises. It is embar a shipwreck scene being introduced in one act, and a view of the destruction of the Liverpool landing-stage in another. Some compression of the dialogue, which is a little tedious, is to be recommended. When acted with more closeness of most of its scenic accessories, it will be a good and more moderation of style, and when divested work of its class. Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Forrester, Mr. Nelson, and Mr. Fawn, were included in the cast. The piece achieved, so far as the audience was concerned, a complete triumph.

Bramatic Gossip.

MADAME CELESTE has re-appeared at the Adelphi, in the inevitable 'Green Bushes.'

MR. HALLIDAY writes to us, affirming that one scene of 'Richard Coeur de Lion' and a portion of a second are new, and partly written in blank verse. He complains of being attacked in our notice on the score of bad grammar. He will see on reference no such charge is brought against him.

CROYDON Theatre, now under the management of

Alejandro Romeo sees Julia Capelete in to the utterances of Falstaff concerning honour, Mr. Charles Kelly, an actor who made recently

stronger than that of any passage to Romeo
and Juliet.' This speech, like other utterances
of the gracioso, is in rhymed verse. It is
vigorous, humorous, and dramatic. Julia's
words, depicting the wooing of Romeo, ap-
proach nearer to poetry than any other
portion of the play, without, it must be
confessed, getting very close to the mark.-

some reputation in London, has re-opened, with a new drama by Mr. Tom Taylor, entitled 'The White Cockade.' This is a Jacobite piece, and intended, apparently, as a companion picture to 'Clancarty.' The scene of the principal action is Edinburgh after the battle of Sherifmuir. A comedy by Messrs. Savile Clarke and Du Terreaux, entitled 'Love Wins,' will be given on Monday next.

the house of her father, which he has entered, not with a festive purpose, as in Shakspeare, but with most sanguinary intent. He has slain a servant, and he is following in pursuit of the master, when he encounters Julia, against whom he immediately directs his sword. Love, prompt and passionate in those southern climes, seizes both while the sword is lifted, and the heat of the former quarrel is surpassed by that of the all-absorbing affection on the moment begotten. Two claimants for the hand of Julia divide her father's support. Her cousin, Andrés Capelete, is first in the field, but is soon distanced by El Conde Paris. The worthy last named is married to Elena, the sister of Romeo. His experience of her has been, apparently, unfavourable, since he makes the quarrel between the two houses, which has subsequently broken out, a reason for divorcing her and espousing Juliet. What follows belongs to the characteristically Spanish drama of intrigue. Julia having, to escape a marriage with Paris, taken the poison her father has offered her, is buried in the family bear some faint resemblance to those of his Judic, and others of equal reputation, appeared as

vault. Romeo, who had previously made
an appointment with her, to which her
sister Elena was to accompany her, hears
the news of her death, and, in his despair,
visits her in the vault. This is conve-
niently left open, as a Spanish public would
doubtless object to see on the stage the
violation of a sepulchre.
The audience,
meanwhile, made aware that what was sup-
posed to be a poison, is, in fact, a sleeping
draught, is not surprised to see the heroine
awake and receive her lover with rapture.
Romeo quits the tomb, groping his way in
the darkness, while Julia holds to the skirt

of his cloak. For a moment she quits her
hold, then by mistake seizes upon the cloak
of Andrés, who also has come to the vault.
As Elena, who has entered upon the scene,
takes unconsciously the place of Julia, Romeo
goes forward, suspecting nothing, to the coach
he has provided. When his error is detected,
the lovers are completely sundered. Julia
escapes into the woods, and is seen by her
father, who takes her for a ghost, and ex-
presses his penitence for his former action.
His compunctious visitings are not strong
enough to prevent him from attempting again

His courtship was so gentle and refined,
So tender, so respectful and restrained,
I could not choose but listen; and anon
He whispered in my ears sweet falsities,
Which we poor women, knowing but too well
What truth they lack, yet cannot, will not doubt.
Nightly he sought my latticed window bars,
Entreats, complains, and almost feigns offence,
While I, alas! gave willing ear to all.
Like to a spoiled child he coaxeth me,
And craves discourse within the bars, while I,
Still doubting, as a maiden should, his vows,
His truth, his honesty, at last consent.
Julia's address to her father is not wanting
in tenderness or in passion. Romeo, robbed
of his mistress, becomes almost as mad as
Orlando. His words on hearing Julia speak
English double :-

'Tis Julia's voice makes music 'mid the trees:
No sounds so sweet, so exquisite as these,
Fall on the listening ear of those who love,
Like echo of an angel's voice above.
A curious illustration of the state of society
in Southern Europe is afforded when a dra-
matist dares present a cavalier, on whose behalf
he endeavours to enlist sympathy, as offering
to kill a young lady because she belongs to the
family of his enemy, or show the castle of a
private family as undergoing a regular siege
from a hostile faction.

The literary merits of Mr. Cosens's book are
not small; the verse, if irregular, is agreeable
and melodious, and the entire production is
scholarly. Like the former volume, it is pri-
vately printed, and like it also it has a bold
and striking illustration by Mr. Du Maurier.
Those fortunate enough to obtain the work
will be able to indulge in a pleasant journey
down one of the least-frequented by-paths of

literature.

SURREY THEATRE.

A VERSION, by Mr. George Roberts, the adapter of 'Lady Audley's Secret,' of Mr. Fenn's story, entitled Ship Ahoy!' has been produced under

sources.

MOST of the principal dramatic artists of Paris took part in the bénéfice to Mdlle. Dejazet, which was, of course, a triumphant success. Upwards of 400 actors stood round the bénéficiaire when she was crowned. No less than 50,000 francs was taken, a sum which, large as it is, will probably be augmented by one half from other The entertainment included, besides musical selections, a performance, by M. Got, M. Delaunay, M. Talbot, Madame Favart, and Madame Provost-Ponsin, of Tartuffe'; 'Les Jurons de Cadillac,' given by M. Landrol and Mdlle. Céline Montaland; and an act of 'Monsieur Garat,' a comedy written by M. Sardou for Mdlle. Dejazet, in which the actress resumed her original role. In this piece, artists like M. Delannoy, M. Laferrière, M. Gil Peres, Mdlle. Schneider, Mille.

supernumeraries.

LA PRINCESSE GEORGE' will shortly be revived at the Gymnase, for the début of a young comé dienne, Mdlle. Taillandier, recommended by M. Dumas fils for the rôle, first played by Madame Desclée. Mesdames Pierson and Angelo, MM. Pradeau and F. Achard, have rôles in the forthcoming comedy of MM. Meilhac and Halévy.

A FOLIE - VAUDEVILLE, by M. Paul Avenel, Marigny, is the only novelty of the past week in entitled 'Mimi-Chiffon,' produced at the Folies

Paris.

A VERSION of the comic opera of M. Lecocq, forthcoming at the Variétés, will be given at the Criterion Theatre immediately after its production in Paris.

THE essay of the Théâtre Scribe in serious comedy has proved disastrous, and the house will be henceforth devoted to those pièces de fantaisie in which its previous success, under its former title, had been obtained.

'LA JEUNESSE DU ROI HENRI' is in rehearsal

at the Théâtre Lyrique et Dramatique, as the Lyrique is now called. M. Desrieux, lent by MM. Offenbach and Sardou, now jointly managing the Gaîté, will resume the part of the King of Navarre, of which he was the creator.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.-S. D. G.-R.-C.-W. B. C.-A. H. -G. H.-J. W. H.-received.