Betterton, and Wills's Coffee-House are dragged in rather a propos de
bottes, still the picture of the time is well painted. Joyce, the little
Puritan maiden, is an exquisite creation, and Hugo Wharncliffe, her
lover, makes a fine hero. The sketch of Algernon Sidney is rather
colourless, but Charles II. is well drawn. It seems to be a novel with a
high purpose and a noble meaning. Yet it is never dull.

Mrs. Macquoid's Louisa is modern and the scene is in Italy. Italy, we
fear, has been a good deal overdone in fiction. A little more Piccadilly
and a little less Perugia would be a relief. However, the story is
interesting. A young English girl marries an Italian nobleman and, after
some time, being bored with picturesqueness, falls in love with an
Englishman. The story is told with a great deal of power and ends
properly and pleasantly. It can safely be recommended to young persons.

(1) In the Golden Days. By Edna Lyall, Author of We Two, Donovan, etc.
(Hurst and Blackett.)

(2) Louisa. By Katherine S. Macquoid. (Bentley and Son.)

HENRY THE FOURTH AT OXFORD

(Dramatic Review, May 23, 1885.)

I have been told that the ambition of every Dramatic Club is to act Henry
IV. I am not surprised. The spirit of comedy is as fervent in this play
as is the spirit of chivalry; it is an heroic pageant as well as an
heroic poem, and like most of Shakespeare's historical dramas it contains
an extraordinary number of thoroughly good acting parts, each of which is
absolutely individual in character, and each of which contributes to the
evolution of the plot.

Rumour, from time to time, has brought in tidings of a proposed
production by the banks of the Cam, but it seems at the last moment Box
and Cox has always had to be substituted in the bill.

To Oxford belongs the honour of having been the first to present on the
stage this noble play, and the production which I saw last week was in
every way worthy of that lovely town, that mother of sweetness and of
light. For, in spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and
the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of
Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still
remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life
and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one. Indeed, in most
other towns art has often to present herself in the form of a reaction
against the sordid uglines