experience of Mr. Giles had provided for them in a due locality, and whiled away the pleasant hours, in expectation a little feverish of the impending fireworks, which, there was a rumor, were to be on a scale and in a style of which neither Grandchester nor the county had any tradition.

"I remember your words at Blenheim," said Lothair to Theodora. "You cannot say the present party is founded on the principle of exclusion."

In the mean time, about six o'clock, Lothair dined in his great hall with his two hundred guests at a banquet where all the resources of nature and art seemed called upon to contribute to its luxury and splendor. The ladies who had never before dined at a public dinner were particularly delighted. They were delighted by the speeches, though they had very few; they were delighted by the national anthem, all rising; particularly they were delighted by "three times three and one cheer more," and "hip, hip." It seemed to their unpractised ears like a great naval battle, or the end of the world, or anything else of unimaginable excitement, tumult, and confusion.

The Lord Lieutenant proposed Lothair's health, and dexterously made his comparative ignorance of the subject the cause of his attempting a sketch of what he hoped might be the character of the person whose health he proposed. Every one intuitively felt the resemblance was just and even complete, and Lothair confirmed their kind and sanguine anticipations by his terse and well-considered reply. His proposition of the ladies' healths was a signal that the carriages were ready to take them, as arranged, to Muriel Mere.

The sun had set in glory over the broad expanse of waters still glowing in the dying beam; the people were assembled in thousands on the borders of the lake, in the centre of which was an island with a pavilion. Fanciful barges and gondolas of various shapes and colors were waiting for Lothair and his party, to carry them over to the pavilion, where they found a repast which became the hour and the scene: coffee and ices and whimsical drinks, which sultanas would sip in Arabian tales. No sooner were they seated than the sound of music was heard, distant, but now nearer, till there came floating on the lake, until it rested before the pavilion, a gigantic shell, larger than the building itself, but holding in its golden and opal seats Signor Mardoni and all his orchestra.

Then came a concert rare in itself, and ravishing in the

rosy twilight; and in about half an hour, when the rosy twilight had subsided into a violet eve, and when the white moon that had only gleamed began to glitter, the colossal shell again moved on, and Lothair and his companions embarking once more in their gondolas, followed it in procession about the lake. He carried in his own bark the Duchess, Theodora, and the Lord Lieutenant, and was rowed by a crew in Venetian dresses. As he handed Theodora to her seat the impulse was irresistible he pressed her hand to his lips.

Suddenly a rocket rose with a hissing rush from the pavilion. It was instantly responded to from every quarter of the lake. Then the island seemed on fire, and the scene of their late festivity became a brilliant palace, with pediments and columns and statues, bright in the blaze of colored flame. For half an hour the sky seemed covered with blue lights and the bursting forms of many-colored stars; golden fountains, like the eruption of a marine volcano, rose from different parts of the water; the statued palace on the island changed and be came a forest glowing with green light; and finally a temple of cerulean tint, on which appeared in huge letters of prismatic color the name of Lothair.

The people cheered, but even the voice of the people was overcome by troops of rockets rising from every quarter of the lake, and by the thunder of artillery. When the noise and the smoke had both subsided, the name of Lothair still legible on the temple but the letters quite white, it was perceived that on every height for fifty miles round they had fired a beacon.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS, an English poet and dramatist; born at Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, 1584; died March 6, 1616. He was of a distinguished family; studied at Oxford and became a member of the Inner Temple, London, but seems to have paid little attention to the study of law, being the heir to a large estate. He died at the age of thirty, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His name and that of John Fletcher (1579-1625), son of the Bishop of Bristol, are inseparably connected in literary partnership. There are fifty-two dramas ascribed to them; but competent critics are of opinion that Beaumont had no considerable part in more than onethird of these, and it is not now possible to assign to each writer his respective share in any of these dramas. Their differences are best appreciated by comparing Beaumont's "Triumph of Love" with Fletcher's "Triumph of Death," included in "Four Plays or Moral Representations in One" (1647). Their plays written together include: "Philaster;" "The Maid's Tragedy;" "King and No King; " "The Scornful Lady;" "The Knight of the Burning Pestle; ""Cupid's Revenge; " and "The Coxcomb." Their first collected edition, "Comedies and Tragedies," appeared in 1647; more complete in 1679.

JOHN FLETCHER was born in Rye, Sussex, in December, 1579; died in London during the plague, in August, 1625. Fletcher survived his friend nine years, during which he produced many plays with and without collaborators; the latter include Massinger, Middleton, Rowley, Shirley, and others. It is certain that he wrote. alone "The Faithful Shepherdess," "Bonduca," "Valentinian," "The Wild Goose Chase," and "Monsieur Thomas," his greatest works; "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife;" The "Loyal Subject; " "Wit Without Money;" "A Wife for a Month; ""The Chances; "The Mad Lover;" and "The Humorous Lieutenant." Bullen, the most authoritative critic of Elizabethan literature, says he had Massinger's aid in "The Knight of Malta," "Thierry and Theodoret," "The Little French Lawyer," "The Beggar's Bush," "The Spanish Curate," "The False One," and "A Very Woman." The same authority gives "The Queen of Corinth" with Massinger, Rowley, and Middleton; "The Jeweller of Amsterdam" with Massinger