Who thither was by witchcraft forced

to err :

Whose face the bird hid that loves humans best

That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,

And is the yellow autumn's nightingale."

These beautiful lines might well describe the forest of those dramatists: it is not Shakespeare's Arden, but Banville's verger du Roi Louis, where the fruits are hanged men swinging from the boughs.

In his "Bussy d'Ambois" Chapman could write poetry like this speech of Dumas' Dame de Monsoreau as she waits for le brave Bussy, her

lover :

See, see a vault is opening that was

never

Known to my lord and husband, nor to any

But him that brings the man I love, and me;

How shall I look on him? how shall I live,

And not consume in blushes? I will in,

And cast myself off, as I ne'er had been."

Yet Chapman could make the husband of Tamyra (so he

names the Dame de Mon

soreau) stab her again and again on the stage, and have her tortured by his servants on the stage, till she consents to write, in her blood, a letter summoning Bussy to a fatal tryst, where murderers await him. The go-between in the amour is a friar, and when he dies, his ghost, Umbra Friar, trots to Bussy with a message. In the sequel, "The Revenge,' when Monsoreau is slain, the ghosts of Bussy, Chatillon, and the Duke and Cardinal de Guise dance about his dead body, to unspeakable terror and amazement of the

the

Existence

(The Maker's treasury) now not seem

to be,

To all but my approaching friends and

me.

They come, alas! they come; fear, fear and hope

Of one thing, at one instant fight in me; I love what most I loathe, and cannot live

Unless I compass that which holds my death:

For life's mere death, loving one that loathes me,

And he I love, will loathe me, when he

sees

I fly my sex, my virtue, my renown, To run so madly on a man unknown. [The vault opens.

Cardinal are supposed to be in perfect health. As a matter of fact, both have just been assassinated; as the Rev. James Melville writes,-"God was pleased to glorify Himself greatly by the sticking of the Duke of Guise."

Even Chapman was rather too free with his horrors and his ghosts. Dryden found, in his "Bussy d'Ambois,"

"the sense of one line expanded prodigiously into ten; and, to sum up all, incorrect English, and a hideous

mingle of false poetry and true nonsense or at best a scantling of wit, which lay gasping for life, and groaning beneath a heap of rubbish. A famous modern poet used to sacrifice every year a Statius to Virgil's manes; and I have indignation enough to burn a d'Ambois annually to the

memory of Jonson."

painted in the hues of life; but the painter, an exiled king, uses subtle poisons which do for that bad Tyrant; while the ghost of the dead lady comes and goes, and finally, like the Egyptian Ka, attends the corpse back to the

the nightmare's brood; but here is one of many poetic passages, and many another has doubtless perished in the fifty plays at least which Mrs offered up to Shakespeare's shade :—

Barnes

V.

I HAVE recorded how, as the result of a prolonged struggle, and at the cost of dismissing two of its members, the great see-saw Government of the eighties adopted a new Irish policy one Tuesday afternoon, and how a chance incident which occurred upon the following Saturday led to a complete reversal of that deliberate and grave decision. During the eighty years that had elapsed since the Union, Westminster had been content to draw upon the old Irish enactments framed in College Green, whenever the Irish got out of hand and needed special legislation to restrain them. But now a new Coercion Act was devised, such as even the Irish Home Rule Parliament had never dreamed of. And special measures were adopted to administer it. An "Under Secretaryship for Police and Crime" was established at Dublin Dublin

Castle, and Colonel (now General Sir Henry) Brackenbury was appointed to the office. In due course he appealed to me to represent his department in London. I twice refused in the most definite way to accept his overtures; but at last, under pressure from Sir William Harcourt, I had to comply. My

position was a delicate one, for, being in the public service, I could not well make my private engagements a ground for refusing to undertake public duties. The remuneration offered me was liberal, and it was a pleasure to work with him. But his tenure of the post was brief; for when Lord Wolseley's Egyptian expedition was launched, a longing for military duty took possession of him, and he left the Castle.

The story of the eventful years that followed is matter of history, and I am not writing history. ing history. I have special reasons, moreover, for dealing lightly with that story. This much I would say, that while the principal events of the Fenian dynamite campaign of a quarter of a century ago are known, even to the generation that has grown up since then, very few people appreciate the labours by which that campaign was crushed and its emissaries brought to justice. There is but one way by which crime can be suppressed, and that is by coercion, for every criminal statute is a "Coercion Act." And while in dealing with crime in Ireland the Legislature allows itself to be fooled by sentimental objections and claptrap, no drivel of that

A glance at my old diaries reminds me of many an arduous and anxious day's work. But I am not so egotistical as to suppose the details would be of interest to others. I will give one day's engagements, however, as a specimen. On coming out of church one Sunday morning (18th February 1883) I found a police constable in uniform, with a hansom cab, awaiting me. He had been sent to fetch me to a conference at Sir William Harcourt's house. That gentleman should be arrested on leaving church on a Sunday morning and driven to the lock-up in a hansom is a rare event, and this was evidently the view taken by those of the onlookers who did not know who I was.

a

The Irish Government had called for the arrest of the wife of Frank Byrne, the League official who had provided the knives for the murderers of Cavendish and Burke; and Sir William, as was his wont, summoned every one who could say anything bearing on the case. The Under Secretary of State, Howard Vincent, and myself were caught, and responded. After our consultation, Vincent and I drove down to Westminster and made the needed arrangements. Later in the

moned to Scotland Yard, the woman and her sister-in-law having been brought in. Then, after tea at the Savile Club, I made for Chelsea, where I had promised to address a meeting. After supper that evening I felt that I had done a fair day's work, and I sat down to enjoy my arm-chair till bedtime. But about half-past eleven o'clock one of my satellites arrived to tell me that another of the League women had come from Dublin, with money from the League Treasurer to enable the fugitive criminals of the League, who were then in France, to escape to America. I drove to Grosvenor Square, and having knocked up Howard Vincent I put the case in his hands. But he coaxed me into relieving him of the job, and letting him go back to bed. So on I went to Scotland Yard, empowered to represent him for the night.

Coursing hares or shooting birds is fool's-play compared with work of this sort, and I was so keen that I went out with the officers whom I entrusted with the case. But when I got home again at 3 A.M. I had taken nothing except the most uncommon catarrh I ever had in my life. As I afterwards ascertained, my information was perfectly accurate. The woman was in the house we were watching. But she slept there, instead of returning to her hotel as she had intended to do. Had she come out during the night, we should have seized that money.