necessity lose their credibility. Where all is false, a breath of reality destroys a just impression; and the drama, which should present, not represent, is peculiarly sensitive to the encroachments of such hard facts as heavy furniture and inapposite archæology. But we have a convinced faith in the logic and refinement of the Théâtre Français. Other actors and actresses will take the places of those who after years of loyal service hang their harps upon the wall. The fashion of elaborate decoration will pass away with other foolish modes, and the first theatre of Europe will keep the place which it has held for centuries. Of course young France will dub it vieux jeu with contempt, because it does not care to be in the movement. But the vieux jeu is ever green, and will survive, as it has survived, a hundred short-lived schools.

Meanwhile, France has but one desire-not to interrupt the performances of its theatre. Within a few months the injury wreaked by the fire will be repaired, and France will have shown once more her infinite power of recovery. What is ruined is ruined, and Paris looks forward with a brisk cheerfulness to the new theatre, which will welcome her visitors long before the Exhibition closes its doors. For this enterprise and persistence we have a genuine admiration; and we can but the more deeply regret the spirit of restlessness which drives a great country from the practice of its arts to the per

petual backbiting of its neighbours. A French man of letters discovered recently that English was not a literary language, that Shakespeare had no talent, and that Shakespeare's country had never produced a writer. In the making of this discovery he was aided by a hasty love of the Boers, of whom possibly he had never heard six months ago. Perhaps by this he is learning the Taal, a few lessons in which may urge him to a new opinion. But these follies are the fruit of an over-active brain, and it is pleasant to forget them, and to remember that the Théâtre Français is an imperishable monument, our admiration of which will never be obscured by political sympathy.

Dr Knapp, whose 'Life of George Borrow' was as miscellaneous a ragbag as ever masqueraded as a book, has thrown away another golden chance. He had already warned us that he was preparing a new edition of Lavengro' and 'The Romany Rye,' and we own that we looked forward to the result with something like confidence. The work of editing is scientific rather than artistic: an enforced accuracy prevents excursions into Carlylese, and checks the display of personal views. All that we expected from Dr Knapp was a plain account of Borrow's manuscript, and a clear analysis of the differences which separate the manuscript from the printed copy. Then, if the editor had resolved to print some of the suppressed passages and to

withhold others, we had a right to demand an explanation of his choice. But Dr Knapp, as he was over-bold in his former enterprise, is over-timid in the edition of 'Lavengro.'1 He has He has given us some suppressed episodes," but there is no word of what remains unprinted, no ray of light upon Borrow's criticism of his own work. The pity is the greater, because it is only possible to justify the resurrection of pages which an author deliberately designed for death, by the skilful performance of a delicate rite. It may easily be argued that no man should take upon himself to rescue that which so whimsical a writer as Borrow cast away. But had Dr Knapp given us a critical account of his author's suppressions, and taken us completely into his confidence, we could have forgiven him. 'Lavengro' is half a century old, and might already have been treated as a classic.

However, Dr Knapp is now all modesty, and even makes a boast of self-effacement. "Any one who takes up this edition," he says, "will discover no visible name, or preface, or introduction, save only those of George Borrow, from the title to the close." This is not strictly accurate, and there is no conspicuous merit in withholding a preface when the work demands it. For in

stance, Dr Knapp cites two suppressed passages in his 'Life,' and says no word of them in his edition. Have other forgotten episodes shared the fate of these two? We know not; but we can only conclude that this latest edition of Lavengro' represents neither the princeps nor the manuscript: it represents, in brief, nothing more than the whim or discretion of Dr Knapp himself.

What, then, are the suppressed episodes? Do they add to or detract from the excellence of the book? They leave the book very much where it was, since a picaresque novel, not being composed upon a rigid plan, cannot be thrown out of shape by interpolation. The episodes fall into their place without disturbing what precedes or follows, and they must be admired or condemned upon their merits. their merits. Our first feeling is a feeling of disappointment. The inedited pages do not show us the best of Borrow. Not one of them contains a hint of "the wind on the heath," that blows superbly through the great chapters of 'Lavengro.' Not one of them sounds the trumpet of battle, as it blares when the hero meets the Flaming Tinman. None the less all are appropriate, and none disturbs the narrative. The best of them are sketches of eccentric characters of the Poet Par

point of the argument they throw a vivid light they are one and all demonstrably autobiographical. The sharking Irishman, O'Donahue, was so real a person that even after his scrap with Borrow he subscribed for five copies of the 'Romantic Ballads,' as Dr Knapp duly declares; and Parkinson was so real a poet that his works, as we have seen, exist unto this day. But we cannot take leave of Dr Knapp without complimenting him upon his notes, which have the double virtue of clearness and brevity. Their object is to prove the inherent truth of Lavengro,' an object which they easily attain. And, apart from Dr Knapp's observations and additions, it

is pleasant at last to find a clean text of 'Lavengro,' whose pages are not cut up into double columns. For the rest, we could wish that Dr Knapp had cultivated more earnestly that habit of modesty which obtrudes itself here and there in this edition. After five hundred pages of self-suppression he can restrain himself no longer. Wherefore he refers with pride to his 'Life of George Borrow,' which, says he, "of itself furnishes a sufficient and unalterable exhibition of the facts concerning the man and his work." The exhibition is neither sufficient nor unalterable, and no certificate, signed even by Dr Knapp himself, will compel approval of an ill-considered biography.

It is two o'clock in the afternoon, and a blaze of scorching sunlight is beating down on the cracked yellow plaster walls of the hotel. The brown leaves of the vine that clambers over the lattice - like roofing of dried reeds which shades the stone terrace below are crisp and brittle with the heat. The little blue waves are lapping softly against the red of jutting rocks and the sharp white line of the landing-place belonging to the opposite villa. It seems though the landscape, in a fit of that frothy French patriotism of which we hear so much, has turned itself red, white, and blue, like the dingy old flag which hangs at the door of the café.

as

The dingy old flag is not there to-day, and the café is deserted. A few skinny fowls scratch about among the stones and hard - baked earth. A dragon-fly darts like a green flame across the sunshine, and down towards the peacock-blue bay.

Do you want to know why the eternal tricolour has been taken from the café door? I will tell you.

My story begins years ago, on a bare hillside blotched here and there by a few crimson vine-leaves clinging still to the stakes which had held up the grapes. It was as desolate a spot as one could very well see, though the sky which hung

above it was blue, and the bright Mediterranean waves glittered below. People talk of the gaiety of this southern land

people who walk in their best clothes on the Promenade des Anglais or the Boulevard de la Croisette. They are mistaken. They have never seen the South in all its sadness, in all its unutterable desolation-the South, silent and deserted, with its tracks of fertile land left unplanted, sacred to the hymn of that monotonous little sunworshipper, the cicala.

Here, on the hillside, beyond the dead belt of the vines, some one had built a queer little shanty built it of broken stones, of split bricks, of all kinds of odds and ends of rubbish. It had been erected very long ago, for there were holes in the walls, into which had been thrust bunches of dried reeds the tall reeds whose feathery heads wave over the little river below, like the crests of ghostly knights and paladins in some old forgotten romance. Here was no snug garden-plot, gay with yellow marigolds and nasturtiums, and fenced round with a hedge of scented privet, such as we see before the door of a country cottage in England. The earth was all baked and beaten down before the door, and a little yellow grass showed in sickly patches upon the burnt soil, from which the cicalas sprang up in clouds at