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There, in a broad dark oaken-panelled room

Rich with black carvings and great gleaming cups
Of silver, sirs, and massy halpace built

Half over Red Rose Lane, Fitzwarren sat;
And, at his side, O, like an old romance
That suddenly comes true and fills the world
With April colours, two bronzed seamen stood,
Tattered and scarred, and stained with sun and brine.
'Flos Mercatorum,' Hugh Fitzwarren cried,
Holding both hands out to the pale-faced boy,
'The prentice wins the prize! Why, Whittington,
Thy cat hath caught the biggest mouse of all!'
And, on to the table, tilting a heavy sack,
One of the seamen poured a glittering stream
Of rubies, emeralds, opals, amethysts,
That turned the room to an Aladdin's cave,
Or magic goblet brimmed with dusky wine
Where clustering rainbow-coloured bubbles clung
And sparkled, in the halls of Prester John.

'And that,' said Hugh Fitzwarren, 'is the price
Paid for your cat in Barbary, by a king

Whose house was rich in gems, but sorely plagued
With rats and mice. Gather it up, my lad,
And praise your master for his honesty ;

For, though my cargo prospered, yours out-shines
The best of it. Take it, my lad, and go;
You're a rich man; and, if you use it well,
Riches will make you richer, and the world
Will prosper in your own prosperity.
The miser, like the cold and barren moon,
Shines with a fruitless light. The spendthrift fool
Flits like a Jack-o-Lent o'er quags and fens;
But he that's wisely rich gathers his gold
Into a fruitful and unwasting sun

That spends its glory on a thousand fields
And blesses all the world. Take it and go.'

Blankly, as in a dream, Whittington stared.
'How should I take it, sir? The ship was yours,
And . . .'

'Ay, the ship was mine; but in that ship Your stake was richer than we knew. 'Tis yours.'

'Then,' answered Whittington, if this wealth be mine,

Who but an hour ago was all so poor,

I know one way to make me richer still.'

He gathered up the glittering sack of gems,

Turned to the halpace, where his green-gowned maid

Stood in the glory of the coloured panes.

He thrust the splendid load into her arms,
Muttering Take it, lady! Let me be poor!
But rich, at least, in that you not despise

The waif you saved.'

-Despise you, Whittington'—

'O, no, not in the sight of God! But I
Grow tired of waiting for the Judgment Day!
I am but a man. I am a scullion now;
But I would like, only for half an hour,
To stand upright and say "I am a king!"
Take it!'

And, as they stood, a little apart,
Their eyes were married in one swift level look,
Silent, but all that souls could say was said.

And

'I know a way,' said the Bell of St Martin's.

'Tell it, and be quick,' laughed the prentices below! 'Whittington shall marry her, marry her, marry her! Peal for a wedding,' said the big Bell of Bow.

Ay, for he must take his wealth, and cast it on the sea again;
He shall have his caravels to traffic for him now;
He shall see his royal sails rolling up from Araby,
And the crest-a honey-bee-golden at the prow.

!—

Whittington Whittington! The world is all a fairy tale !-
Even so we sang for him.-But O, the tale is true!
Whittington he married her, and on his merry marriage-day,
O, we sang, we sang for him, like lavrocks in the blue.

Far away from London, these happy prentice lovers
Wandered through the summer to his western home again,
Down by deep Dorset to the wooded isle of Purbeck,
Round to little Kimmeridge, by many a lover's lane.

There did they abide as in a dove-cote hidden

Deep in happy woods until the bells of duty rang; Then they rode the way he went, a barefoot boy to London, Round by Hampshire forest-roads, but as they rode he sang :

Kimmeridge in Dorset is the happiest of places!

All the little homesteads are thatched with beauty there! All the old ploughmen, there, have happy smiling faces, Christmas roses in their cheeks, and crowns of silver hair.

Blue as are the eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow,
Gleam the little rooms in the homestead that I know:
Death, I think, has lost the way to Kimmeridge in Dorset ;
Sorrow never knew it, or forgot it, long ago!

Kimmeridge in Dorset, Kimmeridge in Dorset,

Though I may not see you more thro' all the years to be, Yet will I remember the little happy homestead

Hidden in that Paradise where God was good to me.

So they turned to London, and with mind and soul he laboured,
Flos Mercatorum, for the mighty years to be,
Fashioning, for profit-to the years that should forget him!-
This, our sacred City that must shine upon the sea.

Flos Mercatorum! Can a good thing come of Nazareth?
Ay! Above the darkness, where our duller senses drown,
Lifts the splendid Vision of a City, built on merchandize,
Fairer than that City of Light that wore the violet crown,

Lifts the sacred vision of a far-resplendent City,

Flashing, like the heart of heaven, its messages afar,

Trafficking, as God Himself, through all His interchanging worlds,
Holding up the scales of law, weighing star by star,

Stern as Justice, in one hand the sword of Truth and Righteousness; Blind as Justice, in one hand the everlasting scales,

Lifts the sacred Vision of that City from the darkness,

Whence the thoughts of men break out, like blossoms, or like sails!

Ordered and harmonious, a City built to music,

Lifting, out of chaos, the shining towers of law,— Ay, a sacred City, and a City built of merchandize, Flos Mercatorum, was the City that he saw."

(To be concluded.)

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SHAKESPEARE'S BAD PLAYS "THE WINTER'S TALE -MR GRANVILLE BARKER'S PRESENTATION-THE POST-IMPRESSIONISTS -M. PICASSO AND HIS WAISTCOAT-BUTTON-M. BRAQUE'S BOX OF BRICKS THE NAÏVETÉ OF M. MATISSE 'THE EPISODES OF VATHEK WHAT WAS THEIR ORIGIN THE 'LETTERS OF GEORGE MEREDITH.'

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WHEN "King Lear" was presented some years ago with excellent art at the Haymarket Theatre, the critics objected that it was a bad play. The fable did not satisfy their sense of dramatic reality. It was contrary to their experience that an old gentleman should make division of his goods before death laid a compelling hand upon him. The conduct of Cordelia wholly baffled them. It is not thus that young ladies behave themselves in the neighbourhood of Lancaster Gate, and Cordelia received, instead of sympathy, the reproach which is always due to rash unworldliness. "The Winter's Tale," lately produced by Mr Granville Barker at the Savoy Theatre, has been assailed in a like spirit of irrelevance. It also is a bad play, we are told on every hand, and when we seek the reason of its badness it is ever the same: a complete failure to conform with the standard of life, as it is lived in the suburbs of London. Such jealousy as Leontes manifests without the slightest excuse is unknown in the respectable tennis clubs which girdle the metropolis, and whose members are the most zealous supporters of dramatic art. A bad play, shout our intelligent suburbans, the episodes of which

transcend the common lot of men. Let us have realism, they insist, something that is "natural," and we will be content to forego beauty of diction and all the pleasures of the imagination.

But for those who will accept the poet's premisses, and permit him to work out his problem in his own way, The Winter's Tale" will always remain a masterpiece. From its first Act to its last, Shakespeare gave a free rein to his fancy. He set his scene in no man's land and in no man's time. It was not for nothing that, following Greene, he gave Bohemia a sea-coast, and in a play of pure romance bade his personages consult Apollo's oracle. His scorn of the unities needs no excuse. Who might do what he would, if not Shakespeare? When Time in the play says

"Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried

Of that wide gap,”

none will object who has been at the pains to understand the freedom of the Elizabethan drama. If "The Winter's Tale" were a tragedy, compact and severe, the intervention of Time might appear intolerable. It is not a tragedy, but rather

a comedy with tragic elements, and in such a case nobody has a right to trammel the poet's ingenuity.

Of the two stories, intricated in the play, we know not which is better told. The jealousy

of Leontes is the more violent for the very reason that it is baseless. That which has been imputed as a fault is one of the virtues of the play. And the character of Leontes is

perfect in dignity and courage. She is "not prone to weeping, as she says, and she accepts her punishment with a brave indignation. She has

"That honourable grief lodged here which burns

Worse than tears drown."

Shakespeare never drew a statelier figure than she shows in the Court of Justice. When the oracle

pronounces her chaste, she accepts the avowal

always in harmony with this of her innocence almost in

initial unreason. He does not confidently defend himself.

silence. She utters but one word. And she descends in

The speeches which he ad- the last Act from the pedestal dresses to Camillo are purposely tortuous and confused. He speaks as one whose thoughts come too rapidly upon him, and who expects all men to see the foul images presented to the eye of his diseased mind. His suspicion breeds cruelty, and still he is inarticulate in justification. And when at last his eyes are opened to the truth, his remorse equals the passion of his hate. Nowhere is the vice of jealousy set forth with a better logic than in "The Winter's Tale." There is here no ancient to whisper words of encouragment in the victim's ear. It is Camillo's role to allay suspicion, to protect the queen against the king's foul charge. Nor does the gallant Paulina soften her harsh words with loyalty. If Leontes knows not the truth, it is not the fault of his friends. But he has dulled the ear of his heart, and obstinately refuses to hear the voice of justice.

of the painted statue only to greet her daughter:

"You gods, look down And from your sacred vials pour your Upon my daughter's head!" graces

Hermione meets her husband's charge with the composure of innocence. She is

Paulina is made of other stuff,
and has not her match in
Shakespeare's plays. Loyalty
to her queen sharpens her
tongue with vituperative elo-
quence. In attacking the king
she knows neither hesitancy
nor fear, and as she is quick to
denounce so she is fiercely set
upon punishment. How should
she act otherwise, when she
owes to Leontes not merely the
ruin of her mistress but the
death of Antigonus, her lord?
"I, an old turtle," says she,
"Will wing me to some wither'd
bough and there

My mate, that's never to be found
again,

Lament till I am lost."

And though she pairs off with the aged Camillo, you know that she does no more than obey the convention of the drama.

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