"old woman" Mrs.
Vernon. She was a worthy mate of those worthies, he will exclaim. She
could be the sweet and loving mother, gentle and affectionate; the
stately lady, representative of rank and proud of it and true to it; and
the most eccentric of ludicrous old fools. She was the ideal Mrs.
Malaprop, and she surpassed all competitors in the character of Mrs.
Hardcastle. Mary Gannon was her stage-companion and her foil, he will
add--the merriest, most mischievous, most bewitching player of her time,
in her peculiar line of art. As Hester, in _To Marry or Not to Marry_,
and as Sophia, in _The Road to Ruin_, she was the incarnation of girlish
grace and delicious ingenuousness, and also of crisp, well-flavoured
mirth. No taint of tameness marred her acting in those kindred
characters, and no air of effort made it artificial. Nor was Fanny
Morant less remarkable for the glitter of comedy and for an almost
matchless precision of method. So will our friend of the future prose
on, in a vein that will be tedious enough to matter-of-fact people; but
not tedious to gentle spirits who love the stage, and sympathise with
its votaries, and keep alive its traditions--knowing that this mimic
world is as real and earnest as the strife that roars and surges around
it; that there as everywhere else humanity plays out its drama, whereof
the moral is always the same--that whether on the stage or in the mart,
on the monarch's throne or in the peasant's cot,

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

THE END.

THE WORKS OF

WILLIAM WINTER.

SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND. 18MO, CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

GRAY DAYS AND GOLD. 18MO, CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

SHADOWS OF THE STAGE. 18MO, CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

SHADOWS OF THE STAGE. Second Series. 18MO, CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

OLD SHRINES AND IVY. 18MO, CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

Also a Small Limited LARGE PAPER EDITION. 4 Vols. Uniform. $8.00.

WANDERERS: A Collection of Poems. NEW EDITION. WITH A PORTRAIT. 18MO,
CLOTH, 75 CENTS.

"The supreme need of this age in America is a practical conviction that
progress does not consist in material prosperity, but in spiritual
advancement. Utility has long been exclusively worshipped. The welfare
of the future lies in the worship of beauty. To that worship these pages
are devoted, with all that implies of sympathy with the higher
instincts, and faith in the divine destiny of the human race."--_From
t