quite justified in returning the book to its | mendous affair that was. He replied: owner without waiting for a more direct "Oh, it is just three big Greek words put invitation." all together; but it serves the purpose In a certain benighted part of the coun- well; the unknown is always dreadful." try may be seen, on the outside of a hum- At a market town in Rutlandshire, the ble cottage, the following inscription in following placard is affixed to the shutters large gilt letters: "A seminary for young of a watchmaker, who had decamped, leavladies." This was perhaps too abstruse ing his creditors minus: "Wound up, and for the villagers, as immediately under- the mainspring broke." As pithy and neath there is added, in rude characters: curious was the notice lately stuck up on "Notey beney-allso, a galls skool." the window of a London coffee-house: More comprehensive was the curious in- "This coffee-room removed up-stairs till scription at one time to be seen over a repaired." door in a village in Somersetshire: "Petticoats mended; children taught reading, writing, and dancing; grown-up people taught to spin; roses distilled, and made into a proper resistance with water; also old shoes bought and sold." In a respectable luncheon bar in Westminster, the writer was once amused by seeing a placard announcing the arrival of fresh "muscles." After this, he was not surprised to see a street hawker in Cheapside bearing a card which informed the A foreign paper describes a board hung public that bird "worblers," as he called up in front of a house with these words on his whistles, were only one penny each. it:"Room to let on the first floor at six There are many curious signs and busidollars a month. Lowest price four dol-ness announcements to be found in Lonlars." Another tells us that the following don, of which a few are: "Sick dogs announcement is in an hotel at Algiers: medically attended by the week or month. "Customers are politely requested not to Birds to board. Ladies' and gentlemen's kick the hall porters." This is as good feet and hands professionally treated by as the notice put up in an American hotel: the job or season. Round-shouldered per"Customers are requested not to go to sons made straight. Babies or children bed with their boots on;" and also re- hired or exchanged. False noses as good minds us of a notice over the piano in a as new, and warranted to fit. Black eyes mining camp "free-and-easy: "Please painted very neatly." don't shoot the player - he is doing his best." In a parlor window of a certain house, a bill was displayed with, "To let, a small sitting-room and bedroom, with a superb view of an immense garden, much frequented, planted with large trees, brilliant with flowers, and decorated with numerous statues and other works of art." The garden in question was a cemetery. We are told that a placard posted up throughout the town of Dundee once announced the "opening of the Theatre Royal under the management of Miss Goddard, newly decorated and painted." Politeness could not be carried further than it is at a certain coal-mine in Dudley, where a notice warns all and sundry in these terms: "Please do not fall down the shaft." That "please" is excellent. All business men who hold with Lord Bacon that "friends are robbers of our time," will fail to see any harshness in the notice which was posted conspicuously in an office: "Shut the door; and as soon as you have done talking on business, serve your mouth in the same way." A gentleman put up the following at his gatehouse: "A terrifikokaiblondomenoi kept here." A friend asked him what tre In the extreme West, we hear of a shanty which bears the sign: "Here's where you get a meal like your mother used to give you." A kind of witty contest has sometimes been carried on between sign proprietors. For instance, we are told that Mr. Isaac Came, a rich shoemaker of Manchester, who left his property to public charities, opened his first shop opposite to the building where he had been a servant, and put up a sign which read: "I. Camefrom over the way." Somewhat like this was the sign of a tavern-keeper named Danger, near Cambridge, who, having been driven out of his house, built another opposite and inscribed it: "Dangerfrom over the way." The successor retorted by putting up a new inscription: "There is no danger here now." But in alluring business announcements, few can match those in the flowery language of the Celestials. The traveller must have been amused who saw in Pekin scores of curiously worded signboards, of which these are a few specimens: "Shop of Heaven-sent Luck," "Mutton Shop of Morning Twilight," "The Nine Felicities Prolonged," Flowers rise to the Milky way." "The Honest Pen Shop of Li" would seem a reflection on his rivals. A charcoal shop calls itself "The Fountain of Beauty;" and a place for the sale of coals indulges in the title of "Heavenly Embroidery;" and "The Thrice Righteous" is a pretension one would scarcely expect from an opium shop. the cart An old farmer employed a son of Erin to work for him on his farm. Pat was constantly misplacing the end boards in the front board behind and the tail board in front, which made the old gentleman very irritable. To prevent Blunders, he resolved to distinguish each board by some sign or notice thereon. Accordingly, he painted on both boards a large "B" then, calling Pat to him, and showing him the boards, he said: "Now, you blockhead, you need make no mistake, as they are both marked. This"-point ing to one board. "is 'B' for before; and that"-indicating the tail board "is 'B' for behind;" whereupon the old gentleman marched off with great dignity. A German paper relates that during the absence of his son Louis, who had gone on a distant journey, Prince Ferdinand of Prussia, who then resided at the palace of Belle Vue, near Berlin, caused some alterations to be made in the park by the introduction of artificial hills, lakes, and grottos, in order to gratify the young prince's love of the romantic when he returned from his foreign tour. Soon after his arrival, Prince Louis was shown round the park by his proud father, who did not fail to point out to him all the beauties of the scenery. An hour later, a placard, placed by some wag, was discovered on the outer gate with the following inscription: "Visitors are requested to be careful not to crush the hills flat by stepping on them. No dogs allowed, as they might drink up the lakes. No one is permitted to pocket any of the rocks that are lying about. By Order." A swimming-school in Frankfort-onthe-Main announces in English: "Swimming instructions given by a teacher of both sexes." An allusion to swimming reminds us that at Dieppe, that famous bathing-place, there are police established whose duty it is to rescue persons from danger. This notice is said to have been recently issued to them: "The bathing police are requested, when a lady is in danger of drowning, to seize her by the dress, and not by the hair, which oftentimes remains in their grasp.' A country paper in a notice of a lecture given by a phrenologist, said: "Behind the platform is a large gallery of life-size portraits twelve feet high.' This odd notice reminds us of the handbill put forth at Exeter which was headed: "Wanted, a few healthy members to complete a a Sick Society." Obituary notices have not always the solemnity about their composition which is thought desirable. A country sculptor was ordered to engrave on a tombstone the following words: "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." The stone, however, being small, he engraved on it: "A virtuous woman is 5s. to her husband." Scarcely so ingenious, but equally absurd, is the Hibernian notice said to be seen over the entrance gate to a French burying-ground: "Only the dead who live in this parish are buried here." A New York stone-cutter is said to have received this epitaph from a German, to be cut upon the tombstone of his wife: "Mine vite Susan is dead. If she had lived till next Friday she'd been dead shust two veeks. As a tree fall so must it stand.'' ENTIRE ARMOR PLATING. The Journal de la Marine of last week contains an article on explosive projectiles in the navy, from the pen of Lieutenant Weyl. The writer begins by observing that, after having to a certain measure, "uncuirassed" vessels of war, the question now arises whether it will not be necessary to cuirass them from top to bottom to protect them from the terrible effects of projectiles filled with gun-cotton, dynamite, mélinite, etc. Lieutenant Weyl then continues thus: 66 Every one knows the result of the experiments undertaken by the artillery of the army; they are so far advanced that we can declare that before long the French army will possess siege guns whose power of destruction will be incomparable. The naval artillery is also engaged in making experiments, which, however, are kept secret." Referring to the terrible effects of the bursting of a mélinite shell inside a vessel, the writer argues that it is indispensable to provide means for making such projectiles burst outside, and that conse quently all the œuvres vives, or portions of a vessel out of water, must be armored. The armoring of the water-line will no longer be sufficient for armorclads, and we shall be obliged, perhaps, to plate even our rapid cruisers all over." } No. 2235.- April 23, 1887. CONTENTS. I. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DR. FAUSTUS, Contemporary Review, CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THOUGHT IN Murray's Magazine, Contemporary Review, 195 203 220 V. FRENCH AGGRESSION IN MADAGASCAR, POETRY. 194 MARCH BLOSSOMS, TO-MORROW, ON THE BELFRY TOWER, TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register lette.. when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. TO-MORROW. "WE will gather flowers to-morrow, When the mist of rain is o'er, When the air is warm and sunny, And the tempest howls no more." "We will climb the hills to-morrow, "We will lend an ear to-morrow Still with weary feet they stray, "We will leave our work to-morrow, And with eager hands and strong, We will lead the little children Far away from paths of wrong." "We will raise our eyes to-morrow BROWN ROBIN. Then, over roof and chimney-stack, With straggling, wind-clipped trees, and so "There," said the rector, "from the town "Such is the story. Shall we go? AUSTIN DOBSON. From The Contemporary Review. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DR. FAUSTUS, Not long ago a Saturday Reviewer commented upon the new popularity given to "Faust" by Mr. Irving, stating that since the first performance of the play at the Lyceum hundreds and thousands of copies of the English translation of Goethe's poem have been sold. Faust is again as well known by name as he was in the sixteenth century. For years remembered only by scholars and men and women of supposed culture, he has now been taken back by the common people, from whom ages ago he had birth. In has been made of the old legend in mod- To borrow ideas and legends from past generations is no new thing. Savages and barbarians alone have any claims to It would not be a difficult task to trace originality as creators. But in the uncon- his descent from animistic ancestors, and scious process of borrowing, beliefs and to find for him as many cousins in India, legends are modified and changed, thus Greece, and Rome as Goethe's Mephisreflecting the mental and moral charac- topheles met in the Pharsalian Fields. But teristics of the borrowers. Adaptations his genealogy is a study apart. The point are usually of no less, and often of more, here is not whence he sprang, but what importance than the original. The beau- he was when he achieved distinct individtiful and terrible and indecent myths of uality as Faust. Nor is it worth while to Greeks and Romans hold as indispensable prove or disprove the actual existence of a place in the history of the world's faiths a man of this name, though the discussion as primitive animism. The accordeons is as dear to the specialist as the Baconand tambourines of the Salvation Army Shakespeare controversy. Just as the are as significant outcomes of emotional merit of the plays would be the same if religion as the timbrels of Miriam or the Stratford-on-Avon ceased to be a place of music of the mænads. Unfortunately, as pilgrimage, so the importance of the chapthe world grows older, men not only lose book and puppet-stage hero would not be the power of creating, but become less vig- lessened were it definitely known that a orous in adapting. Instead of breathing real Dr. Faustus never took liberties with new life into old forms, they give them the pope, or went about the world accombut a show of animation, such as the pup-panied by a dog which was the devil. As pet manager gives to his Punch and Judy. This very lifelessness, however, is not without vital meaning. Negative as well as positive qualities have their value. While it is interesting to know that Mr. Irving's "Faust" has met with so much appreciation that the Lyceum is crowded night after night; that the play is widely read, as it may safely be said it never was before; that the general public has received the old hero with a cordiality undreamed of by the Saturday Reviewer; it is even more interesting to do that which I do not believe has yet been done -to pause a moment, and consider what has often happened, the creature of the imagination has lived, while the creature of real life has been all but forgotten. Of the former it is certain that it was in the sixteenth century he first appeared under that name, and with modifications of character which gave him a personality apart from that of his immediate predecessors. If the age of the Reformation accomplished anything, it was the confirmation of Satan's power as an article of belief. In the sixteenth century the devil seemed no less real and visible an evil than the pope in Rome or the reformers in Germany and England. Men were then as |