as,--for the
penurious sovereign, perhaps, the most emphatic expression of approval
possible.

Shall I admit for a moment that our American young folks have less
grace and sensibility than the French girls, and the Oxford youths who
pleased Elizabeth? Your face now, Fastidiosus, wears a frown like
that of Rhadamanthus; but I remember our Hasty-Pudding days, when you
played the part of a queen, and behaved in your disguise like Thor,
in the old saga, when he went to Riesenheim in the garb of Freya, and
honest giants, like Thrym, were frightened back the whole width of the
hall. Well, I do not censure it, and I do not believe you recall it
with a sigh; and the reminiscence emboldens me to ask you whether it
would not be still better if our dear Harvard, say (the steam of the
pudding infects me through twenty years), among the many new wrinkles
she in her old age so appropriately contracts, should devote an
evening of Commencement-time to a performance, by the students,
under the sanction and direction of professors, of some fine old
masterpiece?

At our little Sweetbrier we have young men and young women together,
as at Oberlin, Antioch, and Massachusetts normal schools. I have no
doubt our Hermione, when we gave the _Winter's Tale_, had all the
charm of Mademoiselle de Veillanne, who played Esther at St. Cyr. I
have no doubt our Portia, in the _Merchant of Venice_, in the
trial scene, her fine stature and figure robed in the doctor's long
silk gown, which fell to her feet, and her abundant hair gathered out
of sight into an ample velvet cap, so that she looked like a most wise
and fair young judge, recited

"The quality of mercy is not strained,"

in a voice as thrilling as that in which Mademoiselle de Glapion gave
the part of Mordecai. I am sure Queen Elizabeth would think our young
cavaliers, well-knit and brown from the baseball-field, "right martial
knights, having swart and manly countenances." If she could have seen
our Antoninus, when we gave the act from Massinger's most sweet and
tender tragedy of the _Virgin Martyr_, or the noble Caesar, in
our selections from Beaumont and Fletcher's _False One_, she
would have been as ready with the guineas as she was in the case of
the son of the dean of Christ Church.

Our play at the last Commencement was _Much Ado about Nothing_.
It was selected six months before, and studied with the material
in mind, the students in the literature class, available for the
diff