THE summer lull is at hand; the painters have all fled to Brittany and only a stray play or two reminds the town of the muses. There is, nevertheless, one important exhibition of sculpture being held in London, which is of particular interest to Americans

the exhibition of the work of Dr. Tait Mackenzie, late of Philadelphia. It is quite fitting that these fine things, which are well worthy of being ranked with the best works of Hellenistic art, should be shown in an Olympic year. To Londoners weary of the crazy anatomies of the 'isms,' these vigorous and beautiful studies must come as new revelation of that dignity of the body which the lunatic schools have done so much to destroy. Yet Dr. Mackenzie is no servile recreator of the idealized Greek, but a realist eager to reveal, in the words of Sir Philip Gibbs, 'the beauty of physical energy as it is seen in our playing fields and training camps.' We print the following notes from Sir Philip's article.

It seems to me, and to many who have been to see the exhibition by Dr. Tait Mackenzie at the Fine Art Galleries in New Bond Street, that here is something new and something good in the art of sculpture. New, but not ugly, or violent, or wild, like so much modern work which attempts desperately to break with the old traditions.

What arrests one's imagination instantly in this exhibition is the astonishing sense of movement in some of these figures and groups. They are not static, but dynamic in their effect upon

one's sense, like the best of the old Greek sculpture, of wrestlers and discoboli. They are in action. It is so with a group of fellows in the 'scrum' of an American football game. Each figure is putting all his weight into the struggle, shoving, panting, straining, and it is done with absolute realism, yet the composition and general line of this mass of youth is as beautiful as a big wave breaking.

In 'The Joy of Effort,' now set in the wall of the Stockholm Stadium, three young athletes leaping for a high jump have the breath of life as near as art can give it. The poise of their bodies has the power of a long-bow stretched to the arrow-tip. It is a flying leap. So with other figures, 'putting the weight,' diving, getting off the tape for the sprint race, with muscles taut for an effort or relaxed after the great fatigue.

It is physical energy, not as idealized by a loosely working imagination, but as studied with a profound knowledge of anatomy, with a surgeon's eye, and a scientist's intimacy with muscular actions and reactions more remarkable therefore because in spite of realism it is beautiful and rhythmic, like a fine melody of life.

Dr. Tait Mackenzie is not afraid of modern clothes, of mud, of a fellow in an old leather coat, of a football crowd. He is a realist, to the last button, to the attitude of a big toe, to the sinews of a horny hand, but he is a realist who does not search for ugliness, who does not get emphasis by exaggeration, and who sees the spirit that goes

to youthful effort and the supreme endurance of fatigue for the game's sake. That is how I read his purpose and how I see the work he has achieved.

FROM the columns of the London Times comes these notes on life in Stratford-on-Avon during the first real tourist summer after the war.

The poet of Shropshire has given his high metrical authority to the statement that the quietest places under the sun are in that county; but he refers to places only, and obviously is not thinking of towns, of which the quietest under the sun is surely Stratford-on-Avon. It assimilates its visitors without noise, much as Shakespeare himself comprehends the heights and depths of human life easily as to the manner born.

There are plenty of strangers here to-day; there have been quite a satisfactory number all the summer, but they do not make a crowd, and their voices are not lifted in hilarity. Perhaps they are under the softening spell of genius. The nearest approach to merriment I have yet noticed, however, was in front of the birthplace. It was already full of sightseers, and a little throng awaited entrance on the pavement. Among them was not one in the learned way,' as Boswell puts it, but the whole company bore the plain, sturdy, bucolic stamp. Dressed in their customary Sunday suits of solemn black, they revered the Immortal Memory Memory with with contrasted

cheerfulness.

In the train from London a Frenchman on holiday asked me for advice on motor traveling between Stratford and Leamington. Having just four hours to spend in Stratford, he was proposing to see all the sights, to attend the Summer Festival matinée of As You

Like It, in the Memorial Theatre, and to catch a glimpse of Warwick on his way back to the railway. Evidently Americans are not the only folk who can hustle. He might have been reassured on the motor question. Such is the enterprise in this direction that it is calculated that sixty chars-àbancs and the like stay in Stratford every day. They take their passengers to the many delightful towns and villages in the neighborhood and bring in the inhabitants of spots which would otherwise be remote.

A large proportion of the audiences at the Summer Festival are villagers, who have learned to rely on the motor as a means of conveyance, and they do, I am assured, really appreciate Shakespeare, having his tradition in their blood. Not only that, but they possess an inborn aptitude for Old English dances and pageantry. The stories one hears of Maypole and Morris dancing in some of the villages suggest either that Shakespeare's England has never died, or has been revived by the agencies that aim at resuscitating the drama in the countryside. But it should not be concluded that these village festivals are manufactured by artistic labor. On the contrary, they are described as the spontaneous sports of the young in which the old are not afraid to join.

Stratford itself has more than one open place to which a Maypole would seem no alien addition. From time to time much has been said and written of its commercialization. With some, the memory of Shakespeare may have become a trade, like aluminium or anything else. Others have shown how little they fear the intrusion of a factory. Yet the town remains a very passable vestige of that in which Shakespeare was born. The spirit of the Elizabethan village still broods over its timbered houses and spacious

streets, and the business in mementoes has not succeeded in destroying their meaning. No town can get peace for the asking, and it is peace which Stratford has secured by some semi-divine right, and retains in spite of every provocation to barter the possession.

The Warwickshire meadows are as smooth and green as ever, while the river glides at its own sweet will with the placidity of other streams but none of their dullness. One wonders whether it is only for Shakespeare that the whole world comes to Stratford, or whether some part of the compulsion is not that desire for retreat which he has expressed in many a remembered passage.

Be the attraction what it may, the visitors this very year form a kind of conspectus of Stratford's universal attraction. It need hardly be said that there has been a small party of Americans. From various registers may be gathered an idea of their representative character, for Denver follows Boston and New York is next door to Colorado in those undeniable pages. South America is there too. Australia stands high in the list of Dominion visitors, and after Australia comes South Africa.

Names that would not have been so confidently expected are those of Japanese, of whom there have been these last few months a remarkable number. Even if one believes that English literature continues to make good progress over the globe, it is uncommonly pleasant to find that Shakespeare or Stratford, or both in alliance, can draw the Oriental tourist to a town so intimately English as this. That the French are once more discovering our dramatist would appear from the frequency with which their tongue is overheard in the streets. In the short journey from Leamington I encountered separately three French people,

including the hustler. The latest important body of visitors have just left. They were American professors of the English language, who naturally could not return after their London conferences without a call at Stratford.

A WEEK ago it was announced that Mr. Joseph Benson and Mr. José Levy had acquired a lease of the Little Theatre, and that they hoped to establish there a new and interesting form of entertainment which should be specially adapted to the requirements of a small playhouse. It may now be stated that the proposal is to give London a Grand Guignol theatre of its own, which will be modeled in every way on the theatre in Paris which has achieved such remarkable popularity. London's Grand Guignol will begin operations early in the autumn, and the new lessees of the Little Theatre are gathering round them a band of young players who will be willing to play any kind of part which is allotted to them.

The original Grand Guignol company have visited London on various occasions, but they have never been seen under the best conditions in view of the fact that they have had to do their work in a much larger theatre than that for which the plays they present were originally intended. The Little Theatre is much the same size as the Grand Guignol Theatre, and as Mr. Benson and Mr. Levy have secured the John-Street playhouse for a considerable period, they hope gradually to build up a reputation for a kind of entertainment which cannot be found in any other London theatre.

An option has already been obtained on some of the most thrilling of the French short plays, but every effort is to be made to persuade the British playwrights to devote their energies to this kind of work as well. All the

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plays will be presented in English, and it should be clearly understood that there is no intention whatever of merely producing gruesome plays. Any kind of work will be considered, whether it be farce, satire, comedy, or drama; the only stipulation being that there shall be originality in the dialogue and in the method of treatment. Four or five plays will be produced in each programme, and efforts will be made to keep the comedy and tragedy carefully balanced, though Mr. Levy explains that when there is a thrill to be provided no attempt will be made to spare the feelings of the audience. If they are to be harrowed they will be harrowed on the approved Grand Guignol principle.

A special feature will be made of the foyer, where music will be provided between the plays, and where there will be accommodation for any members of the audience who wish to sit out during า any of the items in the programme which do not appeal to them.

Though this is the first occasion on which a definite attempt to establish a Grand Guignol Theatre in London for a term of years has been made, it is interesting to recall that Mr. José Levy had practically completed his arrangements to take over the Little Theatre from Miss Gertrude Kingston for the same purpose in July, 1914. The outbreak of war, however, stopped the project, and has prevented its revival until the present moment.

THERE is a pleasant story, and one, too, which is perfectly authentic, going round about Dr. T. B. Strong, Dean of Christ Church, who is about to be consecrated Bishop of Ripon. During the war many bodies of colonial troops were stationed, while in training, at Oxford, being billeted at different colleges. Several such bodies had proved themselves very difficult to handle, and serious damage had been done at more than one college. When a particularly rough draft was sent to Christ Church the Dean invited them to meet him the first afternoon in the college hall, took them all round the college, showing them everything, then entertained them to tea in hall, and finally addressed them as follows: 'Gentlemen, what I have shown you this afternoon has been going on without interruption for seven hundred years. Now the men who should be here are in the trenches, and it is for you to take their places for a time and carry on the traditions of the College. I create you honorary Christ Church men for the rest of your lives.' The idea of being honorary members of 'the House,' as the most famous of Oxford colleges is always called, caught the fancy of men from the back blocks, and from that moment discipline was perfect. Indeed, there was only one difficulty. The men wished to attend chapel twice daily, and in all other ways to behave as undergraduates. But just think of what a little tact will do!

On a bleak wet stormy afternoon at the outset of last year's spring, I was in a cottage, all alone, and knowing that I must be all alone till evening. It was a remote cottage, in a remote county, and had been 'let furnished' by its owner. My spirits are easily affected by weather; and I hate solitude; and I dislike to be master of things that are not mine. 'Be careful not to break us,' says the glass and china. 'You'd better not spill ink on me,' growls the carpet. 'None of your dog's-earing, thumb-marking, backbreaking tricks here!' snarl the books.

The books in this cottage looked particularly disagreeable—horrid little upstarts of this and that scarlet or cerulean 'series' of 'standard' 'series' of 'standard' authors. Having gloomily surveyed them, I turned my back on them, and watched the rain streaming down the latticed window, whose panes seemed likely to be shattered at any moment by the wind. I have known men who constantly visit the Central Criminal Court, visit also the scenes where famous crimes were committed, form their theories of those rimes, collect souvenirs of those crimes, and call themselves Criminologists. As for me, my interest in crime is, alas, merely morbid. I did not know, as those others would doubtless have known, that the situation in which I found myself was precisely of the kind most conducive to the darkest deeds. I did but bemoan it, and think of Lear in the hovel on the heath. The wind howled in the chimney, and the rain had begun

to sputter right down it, so that the fire was beginning to hiss in a very sinister manner. Suppose the fire went out! It looked as if it meant to. I snatched the pair of bellows that hung beside it. I plied them vigorously. 'Now mind! 'Now mind! not too vigorously. We are n't yours!' they wheezed. I handled them more gently. But I did not release them till they had secured me a steady blaze.

I sat down before that blaze. Despair had been warded off. Gloom, however, remained; and gloom grew. I felt that I should prefer anyone's thoughts to mine. I rose; I returned to the books. A dozen or so of those which were on the lowest of the three shelves were full-sized, were octavo, looked as though they had been bought to be read. I would exercise my undoubted right to read one of them. Which of them? I gradually decided on a novel by a well-known writer whose works, though I had several times had the honor of meeting her, were known to me only by repute.

I knew nothing of them that was not good. The lady's 'output' had not been at all huge, and it was agreed that her 'level' was high. I had always gathered that the chief characteristic of her work was its great 'vitality.' The book in my hand was a third edition of her latest novel, and at the end of it were numerous press notices, at which I glanced for confirmation. 'Immense vitality,' yes, said one critic. 'Full,' said another, 'of an intense vitality.' 'A book that will live,' said a third.