sued the same method, and the influence of those authors is distinctly evident in Mr. Parker's pleasing fabric of contrasted characters, ordinary incidents, odd little dilemmas, ludicrous situations, and ambling colloquy, a colloquy touched with quizzical, lambent humor and with a delicate feeling that is sympathetic with the ardor of youth and neither ignorant nor regardless of the sensibility of age. It is not possible to tell a dramatic story without portraying character: it is possible to portray character without telling a dramatic story; and that is what, essentially, Mr. Parker has done in "Pomander Walk." The element of character,-perhaps the most vitally interesting single element observable in either life or art,is its chief merit, and the author has contrived to make contrast and suggestion wonderfully effective. Lord Otford is a widower. Madame Lachesnais is a widow. They are in the autumn of life. In its springtime they were lovers, but the imperious father of the youth compelled him to discard the girl, and so they were alienated. After many years and much experience they meet again, in Pomander Walk, strangely drawn together by the fortuitous circumstance that the son of the man and the daughter of the woman have met, loved, and plighted their troth. The old love has lasted, and it springs up from its embers and glows again into the vital beauty of a sweet, tranquil affection. The old lovers, finally, are united, and the young lovers, at first thwarted,-are made happy by parental sanction, and so all perplexity is dispelled. A sweet, simple story, all the better and all the more attractive for its sweetness and simplicity! One of the six houses in Pomander Walk is occupied by a retired naval officer, a bluff, breezy, vehement, vociferous old man, who would befriend the young lovers, and who is pursued and ultimately captured, in matrimony, by his next-door neighbor, an elderly widow. Another of those houses is tenanted by a retired butler who possesses a sentimental, jealous, ailing wife, and who,-being, in reality, employed as a paid toastmaster at a city club,-makes himself ridiculous by bedizening his fat person with fantastic fine raiment, and pretending to be a man of fashion, an exquisite dandy and a crony of Sheridan, Fox, and the Prince Regent. A bashful violinist lodges, with two maiden ladies, in a fourth of those habitations and is enamored of one of them, to whom he dares not declare his passion till prompted by a parrot which has been taught by the lady to interject into its customarily profane discourse an admonition which, presently, is vociferously delivered to the violinist: "Burn your lungs and liver! Tell Barbara you love her!" Another denizen of the Walk is a mild, seedy old clergyman, brimful of antiquarian lore, heraldic and other, whom the youth, Lieutenant Sayle, son of Lord Otford, presses into his service, in the winning of his sweetheart, the daughter of Madame Lachesnais. The Lone Fisherman of the burlesque of "Evangeline" reappears, in the person of a silent angler, in the last stages of shabbiness, who is called The Eyesore, and whose only business is to fish in the Thames River, which flows past the end of Pomander Walk, and never get a bite. The whimsical display of persons, eighteen in number, some notable, others insignificant, -meeting, talking, parting, misunderstanding one another, but at last coming into harmony,-constitutes whatever drama can be found in "Pomander Walk." Viewed abstractly as a play, "Pomander Walk" is gossamer contrasted with such modern examples of drama as "The Middleman," "Wealth," "Judah," "The Princess and the Butterfly," "Jim the Penman," "Diplomacy," "Alabama," "Leah Kleschna," "The Thief," "The Witching Hour," and "The Thunderbolt." It ranks in the category of less substantial but more delicate fabrics of lace-like mechanism, plays round which many happy memories are twined, such as "Sweet Lavender," "Rosemary," "The Professor's Love Story," and "A Royal Family." The sources of some of the characters and some of the "business" might be named; but the jolly tar who throws open his window in order to join in a chorus and then slams it shut again is not less funny because he comes, originally, from the street where Captain Cuttle dwelt with Mrs. McStinger. Admiral Antrobus and his faithful old sea dog are not less interesting because they were once called Admiral Bertram and old Mazey and dwelt at St. Crux in the Marsh. The humbug Brook-Hoskyns is not less a comic absurdity because he has long abounded in Thackeray's sketches. Judgment is thankful that the worth of the piece is so much and the defect of it so little. The presence of such a play on our Stage at any time is nothing less than a public benefaction. LEAVES FROM MY JOURNAL. THE WAKE OF MRS. WARREN. March 31, 1907:-The wake of Sister Warren, conducted by Sister Shaw at the Manhattan Theatre, has lasted three weeks. The mourning was concluded there last night. It began on March 9, and the services over Brother Shaw's odoriferous heroine, besides enlisting the services of Sister Shaw, have implicated the rites that are appropriate to such solemnities. The deceased was becomingly decorated and the mourners, particularly Sister Shaw and the Chevalier Ratcliffe, poured a liberal spirit into their lamentations, and enjoyed, to the fullest extent, "the luxury of woe." Mrs. Warren, it is remembered, was knocked on the head, about a year ago, by a policeman's club, and she died in consequence. The cadaver has been in cold storage ever since, awaiting the arrival of bereaved friends. The weepers have been somewhat slow in |