to daily life a more refined species of service. The influence of the Hon. Dick must be felt through the whole household, and Yellow Plush will try to imitate the quiet decorum and the unobtrusive assiduity of the superior artist.

It is well known to every one who has studied life what an immense influence is exerted over every man's daily habits-over his temper, his bearing, and his general behaviour by the class of servants he keeps. In one of Dickens's novels he adverts very skilfully to the terror a butler exercised over an underbred master, and in what fear he lived lest his ignorance of many small details of life should be detected by his servant. This

fact, duly dwelt on, will teach us the incalculable benefits to be derived from my suggestion, and how the decorous manner of the gentleman behind the chair shall impart itself to him who sits in front.

All these, however, are merely accessorial benefits. It is especially to the financial part of my scheme that I desire attention, and to point out the fact that it will be an immense saving when we learn to pocket with our left hand what our right pays forth. The law by which the dew supplies the rainfall will then be renewed in domestic life, and the very excesses of our expenditure will redound in commendable provision for younger children.

It is quite clear that as the world progresses, and the inventive genius of man arrives at a higher development, War will become at last far less a trial of prowess and daring, than of skill in mechanics and chemical compounds. We have already done a good deal in this direction, and by our explosive shells, rockets, and torpedoes have gone far to convince men that individual bravery is one of the very smallest elements in a modern war. There was something eminently characteristic in the French Emperor's invention of an ironclad. It was the type of the mian. The idea of first securing immunity before commencing the attack-of looking before all to safety before any thought of damaging the enemy-this was thoroughly indicative of the inventor, a perfect idée Napoléonienne, if ever there was one. Nor is it less characteristic of the age that the discovery should have been hailed as a grand and wonderful one, and that when this great man of war and battles put on his coat of mail, we all should straightway have gone off to order similar garments for ourselves.

From the time his influence began to be exerted in Europe, the whole character of war underwent an immense change. The whole aim of generalship seemed to be, first of all, safety-safety à tout prix. Soldiers could not, like sailors, move about with six inches of hammered iron and four feet of teak backing in front of them; so the next best thing was to give them an arm which might enable them to fight at a long distance from the enemy, out of his reach if possible, and the Minié rifle did this. As others, however, provided themselves with the long-range weapon, the effect was, who should succeed in obtaining the gun that would kill at the greatest distance that is to say, with least risk to the man that fired it,-a very Napoleonist idea, one must admit, and whose application assuredly he carried into other matters than those of warfare. We now began that wonderful race between attack and defence which has continued ever since. At each new discovery of a more powerful cannon, a more penetrating projectile, we put another inch of iron on the armour-plates, till the great

question arose, how to float the mass, which threatened to go down bodily without any aid from the enemy.

The most costly experiments, the most laborious trials, were instituted to test the question whether our own ships could resist our iron shot, and thence to infer what they might do against the projectiles of people more intently bent on smashing them. So far as mere newspaper records convey, the results would seem pretty much like those of a game of chess played by a gentleman against himself, where he favours red at the expense of black, or vice versa. Where Messrs Tinkerton, Smelton, & Crash of Manchester exhibited plates for trial, it was usual to give them the victory. When the issue was what chilled shot or electrified projectiles could effect, the courtesy was to let them win; so that outside Woolwich I doubt if there was a man in England who could tell how the contest was faring, or if it were to be a matter to bet on, would have known where to lay his money. Perhaps the nearest thing to any precise fact we arrived at, was that there was a gun whose fire would sink any ship that could come against it, if only another ship could be found to carry the gun; and this at once took us away from the battering question, and set us to work to ascertain how big a gun a vessel might carry, and not go down when she fired it.

In the old duelling days of Ireland-days, by the way, not to be so heartily despised in some respects as certain moralists would persuade us-it was no uncommon practice for neighbours to pass a morning in a trial of their respective pistols, so that, if the time of actual conflict should arise-by no means an impossible event-each might have some knowledge of the peculiarities of the weapon the chance of a die might place in his hand; and so they would talk of how M'Haggerty's pistols threw

high, or M'Blake's were hard on the trigger, or Tom Bodkin's were low in the sight, with an acuteness that showed perfect familiarity with the arm.

Now, we are not exactly so generous as these old fire-eaters, but we do suffer enough of the result of our trials to ooze out to let our neighbours know what terrible fellows we are, and what poor fun it will be to fall out with us. Indeed, a Yankee captain went further; for a short time back, on a friendly visit to England, he proposed that the whole Channel Fleet should have twelve hours at him, in return for which he only asked two hours the next day to send them all to the bottom-an amicable and pleasing proceeding, which, for some unaccountable reason, was declined.

The first condition, therefore, as we have seen, of modern war, was to insure as much as possible the safety of the combatant. First hide yourself, then shoot at the enemy. And now I am reminded of an incident that I heard related in the county Clare-a very classic land for adventure-I can't say how many years ago. If I mistake not, the story was told me by the old servant himself who was an actor in the drama. A quarrel occurred in the hunting-field between two gentlemen of the county, Mr Vandeleur and Mr Studdert; very hot words passed between them; and though friends interposed, and a sort of truce was accomplished, by ill luck they chanced to be thrown together as they rode homeward, when the altercation was renewed even more angrily than before. At last, just as they reached the gate of Mr Vandeleur's domain, the dispute had passed all bounds of decent discussion, and high insult had been hurled by each at the other.

"Let us settle the business at once," cried Vandeleur; "I have pistols ready in the house."

"Nothing better," said the other; "I'm your man!"

And so they rode side by side up the avenue, Vandeleur's groom alone following. When they arrived at the house it was already dark, and the question was how to proceed without causing any alarm to the family; and it was at length decided that they should fight in the stable-yard, at fifteen paces, each man to hold a lantern as a mark for his antagonist's fire.

I am not certain that I shall be relating events with the most scrupulous adherence to veracity, but, in justice to my informant, I must try to give the rest of the incident in his own words.

"Where are you, you scoundrel?' says my master when they came out into the yard.

"I'm here, you shoeblack!' cried out Studdert.

"Stand out bowld!' says my

master.

"It's what I'm doing,' says the other. 'Give the word, and no more talking.'

"Get behind the pump, yer honour,' says I, pulling my master by the coat. 'Get behind the pump before you fire.'

66

And so he did; and when they blazed, by my conscience, it was Studdert that got it, and it was more than three months before he could sit down again."

And now let me ask, Is there not a good deal of this "getting behind the pump" in these latter days in Europe?

Is not all we are doing in plated ships and ironclad forts very much like "getting behind the pump"? I do not for a moment deny that the object in all war is to damage your enemy as far as possible with as little injury to yourself as you can; but is it not possible also, I would ask, to carry the thought of personal safety too far? Is it not possible, by incessantly directing the mind to measures of defence, that the whole of that heroic spirit which alone elevated war above mere slaughter may come to be merged in mere precautions for

protection, and the man of heart and courage be confounded with the creature without either pluck or endurance? And will it not come to this, that the first nation who will despise these conditions of combat, and who will risk the chances of a bolder tactic, will, at heavy loss doubtless, and some severe disasters, end by mastering the others, and dominate in Europe? The Americans are already building unarmoured vessels of heavy armament and great speed-vessels that unquestionably would be no match for the plated monsters of our late construction, but very ugly customers, indeed, at long range and in rough weather. Is not this a sign that men see that there is something to be done besides "getting behind the pump"?

Tegethoff, too, the other day, did not exactly see the policy of assuring safety; and though there was some "getting behind the pump" at Lissa, they were not the Austrians who went there.

What were all the Garibaldian successes in Sicily and Naples except the results of impetuous dash and daring? What were the brilliant achievments of the Southern armies in the late war in America? What that last Prussian charge at Sadowa? Take from war these and suchlike feats of hazardous enterprise, and it becomes a dreary scene of carnage and bloodshed, and the man who regulates the motion of a guillotine is as much a hero as he who commands an army.

There is no stronger evidence of the decline of manhood in Europe than the facility with which we have, one and all, adopted these idées Napoléoniennes about war. The man of the shirt of mail has inoculated us all; our only thought is not how much injury we can do our enemy, but how long we can resist him without risk, and how ready we shall be to do him a mischief when we are once sure we can "get behind the pump."

THE departure from the world of a man so eminent in his vocation as the late Charles Kean, deserves more notice than the passing eulogy and the brief biographical sketch, which are all that the newspaper press in our busy age can afford to bestow upon the ornaments and benefactors of our time, when death removes them from amongst us. That Mr Kean was an honour to his profession, and by many noble and endearing personal qualities shed a light round the private society in which he moved that he was a great actor-an accomplished gentleman and a blameless citizen in every relation of life, all these facts have been freely admitted wherever his professional and private character has been discussed. But

more than this is due to the memory of our lost tragedian. His departure marks an era in dramatic history; and in the interest of that art which he did so much to adorn, we proceed to discuss at somewhat greater length than was at the command of our daily and weekly contemporaries, not alone the biographical incidents of his career, but the general condition of the stage during his time, and the influence which he exercised upon it. This is the more necessary as he has left no successor. Mr Macready "still lives, a prosperous gentleman," but the stage has not known him for nearly twenty years, and will know him no more. Mr Phelps, though it cannot be said of him, that "the veteran lags superfluous on the stage," is at a time of life when he cannot undertake the great Shakespearian characters which make and sustain a reputation in the highest walks of the art; and unless it be Edwin Booth in America, there is no living actor who can claim equality with these, or hope to fill their places. Even

if the material out of which could be evolved a new Garrick, a new Kemble, or a new Kean, existed in the younger ranks of the theatrical profession, there is no demand for his appearance. The taste of the public does not run in the direction of old or new tragedy. The romantic as well as the classic drama is out of date; the melodrama, the farce, the burlesque, and the ballet, carry all before them, to the accompaniment too frequently of beer and tobacco; and although such great actresses still survive as Miss Helen Faucit, Mrs Charles Kean, and Miss Glynn, there is no metropolitan theatre willing to receive them; no actors to support them in such tragedies as Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, or the other masterpieces of Shakespeare; and no public to appreciate them, even if they could obtain a hearing. The great names of Betterton, Macklin, Garrick, Young, Cooke, Booth, the Kembles, Macready, the two Keans, and many others known to our fathers and great-grandfathers, exist on the page of history, or in the voice of tradition, and will be remembered possibly as long as our literature; but they all illustrate a time and a taste that have ceased, and that are not to be renewed in form or spirit.

There has been no generation of Englishmen -and we may extend our survey, and say no generation of Europeans-since the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, in which complaints have not been made of the decline of the drama. People still flourishing among us, who have safely passed the grand climacteric, speak of the days of their youth as the "palmy days" of the stage; and do not remember that when they were boys the old men spoke as themselves speak now, and were never tired of lamenting the dearth

of good acting, and the degeneracy of the public taste. There is no doubt that these complaints, which can be traced through the literature of two hundred years, are to be partially attributed to the keener enjoyment taken in the drama by the young than by the old; and that the pleasures of youth, when they are hoarded in the memory, seem brighter than those which advancing age can offer. The effete, the disappointed, and the cynical are always ready to disparage the present and to exalt the past, and to deplore the melancholy fact that the golden age has been succeeded by an age of base metal. But making due allowance for this tendency -which applies to the depreciation of other things than the stage-it must be admitted by all who bestow any thought upon the subject, that the higher kinds of dramatic representation have no longer the hold upon the public favour which they had in the days of Shakespeare. As far as England is concerned, the only "palmy days of the drama" were those Elizabethan days, when the noblest intellects of the nation devoted their genius to the service of the stage; and when Shakespeare towered high above the heads of the many poetic giants who were his contemporaries or who either preceded or immediately followed him. The stage and the pulpit were the only teachers of the people in that comparatively primitive time. The vulgar and brutal crowd --both rich and poor-sought their diversion in the bear-garden or the cockpit; but the educated, the refined, and the gentle, found instruction combined with amusement in the theatre only. The stage had a virtual monopoly of the public ear. Few books were printed, and these were rather for the scholar and the politician than for the multitude. The ladies, who are now such great -we might say voracious-readers, scarcely permitted themselves to read any book at all, except the Bible; and vast numbers of

them, even of the highest rank, were unable to write or to spell. The publication of a novel or a romance was extremely rare; and the novel or romance was not good for much when it made its appearance, unless it contained a story sufficiently striking to be converted by such a cunning artificer as Shakespeare into a tragedy or a comedy. There were no newspapers to distract attention, and compel everybody to read them. There were no music-halls or concert-rooms. The Italian opera was unknown; and the ballet, that in our day offers infinitely greater attraction to some people than Shakespeare, was uninvented, and perhaps unimagined. The stage had literally nothing to compete with it; and though its appurtenances were of the meanest as regards scenery, dress, and decoration, the good plays and the good acting were sufficient to make amends for all shortcomings, and to provide for the public a highly intellectual gratification. Though a notification to the audience to imagine that the scene was a forest, the sea-shore, a meadow, or the hall of a palace, did all the work now performed by the scene-shifter and the scene - painter; though the sounding of a trumpet three times before the delivery of the prologue was the substitute for the modern orchestra; and though the stage was not graced by the presence and genius of women in any of the parts; and when boys or young men acted the queens and princesses, and other heroines of the tragedy or the comedy (once, as we are informed, a real king had to wait impatiently for the commencement of the play in order to give time for the fictitious queen to be shaved),-the audiences, unaccustomed to anything more perfect or refined, put their hearts into the play; and if that appealed strongly to their pity or their sense of the ludicrous, wept or laughed with a genuine emotion,