voice and action, combined with all possible auxiliaries of art, of music, of pantomimic dancing; and the whole carried home to the heart by visible and audible sympathy in excess. This, but in a very inferior form, as regarded the adjuncts of art, and the scale of the theatre, and the mise en scène, was precisely the advantage of Charles I. for appreciating Shakspere.

It was a standing reproach of the Puritans adopted even by Milton, a leaden shaft feathered and made buoyant by his wit, that the king had adopted that stage poet as the companion of his closet retirements. So it would have been a pity if these malignant persecutors of the royal solitude should have been liars as well as fanatics. Doubtless even when king, and in his afflictions, this storm-vexed man did read Shakspere. But that was not the original way in which he acquired his acquaintance with the poet. A Prince of Wales, what between public claims and social claims, finds little time for reading after the period of childhood; that is, at any period when he can comprehend a great poet. And it was as Prince of Wales that Charles prosecuted his studies of Shakspere. He saw continually

at Whitehall, personated by the best actors of the time, illustrated by the stage management, and assisted by the mechanic displays of Inigo Jones, all the principal dramas of Shakspere actually performed. That was publication with an Athenian advantage. A thousand copies of a book may be brought into public libraries, and not one of them opened. But the three thousand copies of a play, which Drury Lane used to publish in one night, were in the most literal sense as well as in spirit read, properly punctuated by the speakers, made intelligible by voice and action endowed with life and emphasis; in short, on each successive performance, a very large edition of a fine tragedy was

published in the most impressive sense of publication; not merely with accuracy, but with a mimic reality that forbade all forgetting, and was liable to no inattention.

Now if Drury Lane published a drama for Shakspere by three thousand copies in one night, the Athenian theatre published ten times that amount for Sophocles. And, this mode of publication in Athens not co-operating (as in modern times) with other modes, but standing out in solitary conspicuous relief, gave an artificial bounty upon that one mode of poetic composition; as the hustings did upon one mode of prose composition. And those two modes, being thus cultivated to the utter exclusion of others which did not benefit by that bounty of publication, gave an unnatural bias to the national, style; determined, in effect, upon too narrow a scale the operative ideal of composition; and finally made the dramatic artist and the mob orator the two sole intellectual professions for Athens. Hence came a great limitation of style in practice; and hence, secondly, for reasons connected with these two modes of composition, a general neglect of style as a didactic theory.

THE DICE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

FOR more than 150 years had the family of Schroll been settled at Taubendorf, and generally respected for knowledge and refinement of manners superior to its station. Its present representative, the bailiff Elias Schroll, had in his youth attached himself to literature, but, later in life, from love to the country, he had returned to his native village, and lived there in great credit and esteem.

During this whole period of 150 years, tradition had recorded only one single Schroll as having borne a doubtful character; he, indeed, as many persons affirmed, had dealt with the devil. Certain it is that there was still preserved in the house a scrutoire fixed in the wall, and containing some mysterious manuscripts attributed to him, and the date of the year, 1630, which was carved upon the front, tallied with his era. The key of this scrutoire had been constantly handed down to the eldest son through five generations, with a solemn charge to take care that no other eye or ear should ever become acquainted with its contents. Every precaution had been taken to guard against accidents or oversights: the lock was so constructed that even with the right key it could not be opened without special instructions; and for still greater security the present probrietor had added a padlock of most elaborate workmanship,

which presented a sufficient obstacle before the main lock could be approached.

In vain did the curiosity of the whole family direct itself to this scrutoire. Nobody had succeeded in discovering any part of its contents, except Rudolph, the only son of the bailiff; he had succeeded, at least his own belief was, that the old folio with gilt edges, and bound in black velvet, which he had one day surprised his father anxiously reading, belonged to the mysterious scrutoire; for the door of the scrutoire, though not open, was unlocked, and Elias had hastily closed the book with great agitation, at the same time ordering his son out of the room in no very gentle tone. At the time of this incident Rudolph was about twelve years of age.

Since that time the young man had sustained two great losses in the deaths of his excellent mother and a sister tenderly beloved. His father also had suffered deeply in health and spirits under these afflictions. Every day he grew more fretful and humoursome; and Rudolph, upon his final return home from school in his eighteenth year, was shocked to find him greatly altered in mind as well as in person. His flesh had fallen away, and he seemed to be consumed by some internal strife of thought. It was evidently his own opinion that he was standing on the edge of the grave, and he employed himself unceasingly in arranging his affairs, and in making his successor acquainted with all such arrangements as regarded his more peculiar interests. One evening as Rudolph came in suddenly from a neighbour's house, and nappened to pass the scrutoire, he found the door wide open, and the inside obviously empty. Looking round he observed his father standing on the hearth close to a great fire, in the midst of which was consuming the old black book.

Elias entreated his son earnestly to withdraw, but Rudolph could not command himself; and he exclaimed, "I doubt, I doubt, sir, that this is the book which belongs to the scrutoire."

His father assented with visible confusion.

"Well, then, allow me to say that I am greatly surprised at your treating in this way an heirloom that for a century and more has always been transmitted to the eldest son.”

"You are in the right, my son," said the father affectionately, taking him by the hand. "You are partly in the right; it is not quite defensible, I admit; and I myself have had many scruples about the course I have taken. Yet still I feel myself glad upon the whole that I have destroyed this accursed book. He that wrote it never prospered, all traditions agree in that; why then leave to one's descendants a miserable legacy of unhallowed mysteries ?"

He

This excuse, however, did not satisfy Rudolph. maintained that his father had made an aggression upon his rights of inheritance; and he argued the point so well, that Elias himself began to see that his son's complaint was not altogether groundless. The whole of the next day they behaved to each other, not unkindly, but yet with some coolness. At night Elias could bear this no longer, and he said, "Dear Rudolph, we have lived long together in harmony and love; let us not begin to show an altered countenance to each other during the few days that I have yet to live."

Rudolph pressed his father's offered hand with a filial warmth; and the latter went on to say, "I purpose now to communicate to you by word of mouth the contents of the book which I have destroyed. I will do this with good faith and without reserve, unless you yourself can be persuaded to forego your own right to such a communication."