... ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS, No. VII.-WEBSTER.* THE traditions of the frame sanglant which had been inaugurated by Marlowe and Kyd, and had been carried on by Marston, were maintained with the force and concentration of superior genius by Webster. Webster did not write much, but what he wrote is of solid and enduring value. His characters are as definite and real as those of Shakspeare, though it ...

... * JUST as we shall soon be inundated with lives of King Theodore and histories and maps of Abyssinia, so this year we have been plentifully supplied with books on the working-classes. Like King Theodore, dlie working classes have recently brought themselves prominently forward, and- are now deemed worthy of serious consideration, and people are an.UOUS to know something about them and their ...

... THE representations of King John and Macbeth at Drury Lane Theatre, although they cannot be expected to arouse enthusiasm, inasmuch as they comprise no display of histrionic genius of a high class, are yet creditable enough to the management, and deserving of public support. Mr. Chatterton's company is by no means strong, but the stage manage- ment is carefully regarded, and in special ...

... THEA TRICALS IN GERMAN7Y. [SECOND ARTICLE.] IN the previous article I touched upon the peculiar excellence of the German stage, as that of humourous realism--or the presentation of Chlaracter in its individual traits, with just that amount of accentuation which suffices to make it incisive and laughable, yet restrains it from running over into extravagance and unreality. The performance at ...

... A CHRONOLOGICAL PSALTTER.* TEE best educated Englishmen have been mostly accustomed to a coura- geously desultory course of classical reading, and may be tardy in appreciating either in profane or sacred literature the obvious advantages of a steady chronological method. Our canonical books, and the con- stituent parts of some of them, are far from being easily laid hold of in order of time by ...

... A GIRL'S ROMANCE., THis book might have been called a romance without romance, for it is singularly destitute of the contrasts, the brilliance, and the passion which sometimes make at any rate for a brief moment romance in this life some- thing dearer than the most comfortable of prosaic realities. The story is natural and probable it is carefully written and wholly unobjection- able, but ...

... THEA TRICALS IN GERMALANY. [FIRST ARTICLE.] THE Drama is everywhere in Europe and America rapidly passing from an Art into an Amusement; just as of old it passed from a religious ceremony into an Art. Those who love the Drama cannot but regret the change, but all must see it to be inevitable when they reflect that the stage is no longer the amusement of the cultured few, but the amusement of ...

... THE EDUCA TION OF THE MUSCLES.* CCGe/eis jar/bits, a man who can perform the ' grasshopper jump, which is a peculiar sort of jump, in which we start from the squatting position, stretch the body during the leap, and come down again into the squatting position, is of course by so much the superior of a man who cannot. But' there are not many professions or trades in which advance- ment or ...

... A FATHER melancholy view of British dominion in Asia is presented in an ill-printed little pamphlet of twenty-two pages which lies before us. This unwelcome production bears no publisher's imprint. It is entitled, Papers relative to the proposed Establishment of Licensed Public Gambling Houses. Printed by De Souza and Co. Elsewhere we gather that it was published in Hong Kong, and was ...

... THE PRINCESS'S THEA TRE. MR. VIN'ING, advertising the revival of the popular Irish drama of Arral- na-Pogue, records with pardonable pride that it has been represented in Paris and throughout the French provinces, the United States, California, and Australia, carrying with it a measure of delight unequalled by any drama in modern times excepting its twin sister, the 'Colleen Bawn.' ...

... NVEW BOOK'S AND NVEW EDITIONS. The Grecian Maid, and other Poems. By Ckarles L. D. Cumming. (London: Griffith and Farran.) Although a large portion of this little book is- the fruit cf ti'e suthoi's poetical studies prior to attaining his majority, Mr. Cumming makes it an express stipulation with his critics that his poems shall be judged entirely upon their own merits, irrespective ...

... FOR L O VE. IN his new play, entitled For Love, produced at the Holborn Theatre on Saturday night, Mr. Robertson would seem to have set himself the task of expanding a plot suitable to a comedietta into the subject of a long melodrama in three acts. The story of For Love is of the slightest and simplest kind. One John Wyse, a young physician, is deeply attached, and has been almost ...