The most interesting of Prof. Adams's efforts imagination are a conjectural plan, section, and inte sketch of the Globe Theatre of 1599. Though pa founded on Mr Godfrey's design (accepting, for insta the oblique position of the entrance doors and the ridor Rear Stage, which were Mr Godfrey's chief tributions to the theory of the subject), Mr Ada drawings present two or three original and interes features. De Witt's sketch of the Swan is enti thrown overboard. Instead of a markedly sloj

Te

The curtains to the rear stage are open; the curtains to the upper st are closed; the music rooms,' occupied by the playhouse orches are represented as above the upper stage; the 'painted heavens' the stage are adorned with stars, moon, and clouds; the ' 'huts supported by the columns resting on the stage.

E

There

pent-house roof, the 'shadow' is figured as a practica horizontal ceiling, on the level of the top gallery, resti on two enormously high pillars, and having a mo stars, and clouds painted on its lower surface. evidence that the heavens' were, in some cases at

cont

e, thus decorated; and it is difficult to see how, if the f had any considerable slope, the decorations could be ble to any but a mere fraction of the audience. On other hand, the very lofty and flat heavens' figured Mr Adams would but ill serve their primary purpose protecting the players from rain and snow. Again, Adams makes the curious hutch, which we see in all temporary drawings of the exterior of Elizabethan atres, extend to the very front of the 'heavens' and t upon the two elongated pillars. One or two of the wings aforesaid give some colour to this idea; but ir whole proportions are so manifestly impossible at no detail can safely be deduced from them. Mr lams does not follow Mr Godfrey in carrying the per Stage round the whole compass of the stageilding, but makes its width identical with that of the ar Stage. There is no decisive evidence for or against conception; but the odd little railing, not more than inches high, which Mr Adams places in front of Upper Stage, is manifestly insufficient, for reasons fore stated. Finally, Mr Adams places open 'music oms' above the Upper Stage on the level of the third allery. This is ingenious and quite possible, the precise tuation of the 'music rooms' being a puzzle for which e have no clear solution. But if there had been an open cond story to the stage-building, such as is here prented, it is hard to believe that playwrights would not ow and then have displaced the musicians and brought into dramatic use; and of this we have no indication. Simultaneously with Mr Chambers's encyclopædia of le Elizabethan stage, there appears a volume in which r Allardyce Nicoll essays to write almost as fully the History of the Restoration Drama' from 1660 to 1700, Ar Nicoll, too, is a very painstaking student who shrinks om no research. His task, however, is comparatively mple. Almost from the outset, he has only two mpanies to deal with instead of nearly two score; and le vicissitudes of these companies, with their migraons from theatre to theatre, are all clearly ascertained. here are, therefore, few obscurities to be elucidated, w matters of controversy to be discussed. Mr Nicoll's search, however, has thrown a little new light upon e period, and he presents a very useful compendium of Vol. 241.-No. 479.

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its stage-history. On one point he probably convey false impression. Founding upon a few allusion scanty audiences, he makes out that the playhouse the period were entirely supported, not by the ger public, but by the courtiers-or, as we should say the smart set.' This is on the face of it improb and could almost certainly be disproved. It is true the financial conditions of the theatre were diffic but when were they otherwise? They are exceedi difficult to-day. That the well-to-do burgher-class no great playgoers is probable enough. Puritanism still strong among them, and they were justly rep by the whole playhouse atmosphere. But what of Templars? What of the prentices? What of the le middle-classes in general? What of the mere loose raff, who, if the plays may be believed, formed a element in the population? It is inconceivable thi a city of nearly half a million inhabitants one nar class alone should have felt the eternal fascinatio the mimic world. Mr Nicoll is partly misled by initial misconception. He writes (p. 26):

...

'No play, however brilliant, however splendidly produ however popular by means of poetic beauty or of imm suggestion, could count on a run of over a few days. when plays had a slightly longer run than was ordinary find that the management often deemed it advisable to b that run by the insertion of a revival or two.'

Mr Nicoll does not seem to realise that the very of a 'long run' is entirely modern, and that a const alternation of plays was, until well on in the 19th centu an established custom. The almost unprecedented of 'Love for Love' extended to only thirteen perfor ances; but the success of a play was not measu by the number of its initial performances, but by frequency of its later repetitions. That the Court ha deplorable influence on the drama is true enough; bu must not be held solely responsible for the imbecil and bestiality that prevailed in the theatre.

Unfortunately Mr Nicoll is not, like Mr Chambe purely an antiquary-historian; he is also a very insist æsthetician. In all Mr Chambers's four volumes ther not a word to indicate that any one play of the perio better or worse than any other; whereas Mr Nic

ntensely concerned to classify, to appraise, and even range in order of merit, all the dramatic productions ich come within his ken. It is a terrible task that he undertaken: one before which the stoutest heart ght quail. Sir,' said Dr Johnson, in a phrase that Ight serve as the first axiom in a code of critical mmon sense, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of ecedency between a louse and a flea.' This is precisely effort to which Mr Nicoll devotes himself through any laborious pages; with the result that his work fords an extreme example of the barrenness of criticism hich never attempts to go to fundamentals, and deals clusively in personal judgments.

It is not for a moment suggested that the whole drama f the Restoration is indistinguishably contemptible. ar from it: a critical history of the period is urgently eeded, in which (the mere insects being ignored) the en of real capacity and power should be studied in the ght of the sane technical and spiritual principles which pply to drama as a whole. But Mr Nicoll makes no ach endeavour. He is wholly unconcerned about echnique: he makes no attempt to relate the rhetorical rama of the period to any rational ideal of tragedy; nd in his dealings with comedy he is constantly oscilating between a preconceived, conventional enthusiasm nd the sensations of disgust which now and then overnaster him. For Mr Nicoll is not one of your true Restoration-galvanisers who declare decency to be a ›uerile affectation and frankly glory in a modish nostalgie le la boue. On the contrary, he accepts the moral and anitary standards of to-day, enlarging, for instance, with somewhat unnecessary emphasis, on the personal lelinquencies of Nell Gwyn, Moll Davis, Mrs Barry, and their sisterhood. He even undertakes to establish legrees of comparison in filth, and to discriminate niceties of nastiness. The result is an amazing series of exercises in the art of facing both ways. In his account of Wycherley, for example, we find on two opposite ages these remarkable judgments:

(P. 226) "The Country Wife" is a bright and glorious arce, in which the innuendo so successfully employed in "The Gentleman Dancing-Master" is brought to a stage of utmost erfection. The famous "China" scene of Horner is probably

unrivalled in our literature, and, much as it has been c demned by moralists, can be nothing but admired for sheer cleverness and for its swift biting humour.'

(P. 227) 'On women, fops, wits and lawyers indiscrimina the satire [of "The Plain Dealer"] falls, intermixed v that loathsome description of passion which only men Shadwell and Wycherley among the Restoration dramat could give us. Wycherley, says Congreve, was sent "to! the crying Age," but he has lashed its sores into more fuls aspects, until we have nought to do but turn away our in misery and disgust.'

What are we to say of the criticism which can be fectly happy with 'The Country Wife,' that bright glorious' work of genius, and is merely afflicted by " Plain Dealer'? It is hard to see why any one who enjoy the company of Horner should be made misersby Manly. They are surely equal and incompara masterpieces in what Mr Nicoll calls the 'displayal lewdity.' Such unaccountable alternations of ecst. and abhorrence meet us on almost every page of Nicoll's work. He is always feeling something strongly that one begins to doubt whether he rea feels anything at all.

...

Now and then, however, he strikes a personal no as where he lays it down that 'Mirabell and Millama are not complete figures: they are mere autom devised as mouthpieces for the poet.' This of the t living and ever-living human beings in the whole Com rout of the Restoration! Again, he startles us whe he avers that 'by 1676 the age was moving steadily the direction of sentimentalism, pure intellect was bei banished by feeling; emotion was taking the place wit.' The ill-omened word 'sentimentalism' has oft played havoc with critical common sense, but few ha yielded so tamely as Mr Nicoll to its mischievous i fluence. It is surely time that a stand should be ma against the cant which glorifies as 'intellectual' all sor of brutal cynicism, and despises as sentimental' ever thing which betrays the smallest touch of human feelin This is a jargon invented for the sole behoof and benef of Restoration Comedy.

WILLIAM ARCHER.