d aim at. Miss Arnold was
a most sprightly Maria, and Miss Farmer a dignified Olivia; but as Viola
Mrs. Bewicke was hardly successful. Her manner was too boisterous and
her method too modern. Where there is violence there is no Viola, where
there is no illusion there is no Illyria, and where there is no style
there is no Shakespeare. Mr. Higgins looked the part of Sebastian to
perfection, and some of the minor characters were excellently played by
Mr. Adderley, Mr. King-Harman, Mr. Coningsby Disraeli and Lord Albert
Osborne. On the whole, the performance reflected much credit on the
Dramatic Society; indeed, its excellence was such that I am led to hope
that the University will some day have a theatre of its own, and that
proficiency in scene-painting will be regarded as a necessary
qualification for the Slade Professorship. On the stage, literature
returns to life and archaeology becomes art. A fine theatre is a temple
where all the muses may meet, a second Parnassus, and the dramatic
spirit, though she has long tarried at Cambridge, seems now to be
migrating to Oxford.

Thebes did her green unknowing youth engage;
She chooses Athens in her riper age.

THE LETTERS OF A GREAT WOMAN

(Pall Mall Gazette, March 6, 1886.)

Of the many collections of letters that have appeared in this century
few, if any, can rival for fascination of style and variety of incident
the letters of George Sand which have recently been translated into
English by M. Ledos de Beaufort. They extend over a space of more than
sixty years, from 1812 to 1876, in fact, and comprise the first letters
of Aurore Dupin, a child of eight years old, as well as the last letters
of George Sand, a woman of seventy-two. The very early letters, those of
the child and of the young married woman, possess, of course, merely a
psychological interest; but from 1831, the date of Madame Dudevant's
separation from her husband and her first entry into Paris life, the
interest becomes universal, and the literary and political history of
France is mirrored in every page.

For George Sand was an indefatigable correspondent; she longs in one of
her letters, it is true, for 'a planet where reading and writing are
absolutely unknown,' but still she had a real pleasure in letter-writing.
Her greatest delight was the communication of ideas, and she is always in
the heart of the battle. She discusses pauperism with Louis Napoleon in
his prison at Ham, a