idea and made many charming tiles, especially in red lustre, though he could not acquire a complete mastery of the difficult process. Several English firms followed his example. Fifteen or twenty years ago Mr. William Burton worked out the scientific theory of lustre, and produced many remarkably beautiful vases and dishes in silver and copper, and Mr. Bernard Moore made other fine things. Good lustre, too, was made at the close of the last century at Cannes. It is a pity that this large book should not contain more than a cursory reference to these modern lustre wares, which illustrate the successful application of science to the ancient craft of the potter. We are none the less grateful to Lady Evans for her book on a too long neglected subject.

Mr. Gosse's Birthday

ON Tuesday, November 9, Mr. Balfour, on behalf of numerous subscribers, presented to Mr. Edmund Gosse, in honor of his seventieth birthday, a bronze bust of himself by Sir William Goscombe John, R.A. In making the presentation Mr. Balfour expressed the opinion that the most valuable portion of Mr. Gosse's work was the long series of his literary studies. For ourselves, we think it is as the author of Father and Son that Mr. Gosse will be chiefly remembered.

G. B. S. in Vienna MR. BERNARD SHAW's comedy Heartbreak House is soon to be produced at the Vienna Burg theatre. This is the first production of the play on any continental stage, and it is being looked forward to with intense interest.

A New Novel by Anatole France THE House of Mornay of Paris announce the coming publication of a new novel by M. France, entitled Le Comte Morin, Député.

Mme. Réjane's Last Film

It was a happy inspiration on the part of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt to suggest that the film of Richepin's Miarka, la Fille à l'Ourse, in which Mme. Réjane played the last part in her long and honored career, should be presented for the first time in England to a special gathering of her brothers and sisters of the theatrical profession. The Empire Theatre, where the film was shown first, was as full of stage and society celebrities as it would have been for a dramatic 'first night.'

Miarka is always an intensely interesting film, even though it is not a great one. Inevitably its chief attraction lies in the acting of Mme. Réjane, and it will certainly give posterity some idea of her unique powers. For three quarters of the film the part which she plays could be filled by any actress of ability. Then, suddenly, one gets five minutes of drama and gripping intensity which only a great actress could have carried through.

It is a story of an old gypsy woman and her granddaughter, whom she shelters from the trials and temptations of the world, because it has been ordained that one day her hand will be sought in marriage by the Romany prince who will come out of the unknown to claim his bride. The gist of the story may be imagined. She falls in love with a young man, who is supposed to be the nephew of the squire who has protected the gypsies. The old woman tries by every means in her power to dissuade her, only to discover, after much trial and tribulation, that the boy is really a foundling and the missing prince. The grandmother, ill to the point of death, manages to summon up sufficient strength to drag herself to the altar to burn a candle in honor of her saints, and, having accomplished her mission, dies with a smile on her face.

And here it is that we get the last example of Mme. Réjane's art that the world will see. Nobody but a really great actress could have held the attention of the audience for so long. It is almost painful to watch the efforts of the dying woman to perform her task. Step by step she crawls and falls toward the altar, clutching at any support that will help her on. The look of supreme content when she has reached her goal and offered her thanks is a thing of haunting beauty, though it is surpassed in dramatic force a moment later when, with her last strength, she crosses herself and falls dead. It is a great piece of work, however painful it may be, to watch the actress, herself a dying woman, playing her part with such grim fidelity.

News from Sicily

WORK is going on at Syracuse with a view to preparing a series of spectacles of Greek tragedy, to be given in the beautiful Greek theatre which lies just on the edge of the modern city. It is hoped that the representations will surpass those of 1914, which enjoyed no little success. The series will commence with a tragedy of Eschylus in the translation of Professor Ettore Romagnoli, who will also be director of the performances. The Roman artist, Duilio Cambellotti, will be responsible for scenic effects and the designing of the costumes.

It is the intention of the organizers of the performances to create in Syracuse a permanent institute for the antique Greek theatre, which, in addition to staging plays from the repertory of the ancient tragedians and comedians, will also publish books relating to the subject, and editions of the Greek classics. Syracuse, saturated as it is with the Hellenic tradition, is an ideal site for the scheme. Its fame as a wintering place will help largely to provide the cultured audience to which spectacles of this nature are most likely to appeal.

THE American film Earthbound, now meeting with a great popular success in London, has, nevertheless, been handled none too gently by the professional critics. The following lines are from the latest Spectator.

"There is no tawdry sentiment. The lettering of the titles shown on the screen is admirable. There is a very beautiful and well-behaved dog. The actors and actresses look and dress quite as people of the social position of the story would look and dress. But inoffensiveness, a dog, good lettering, and rational deportment. are no substitute for sensibility, fire, and imagination.

審

"The author and producers do not seem to understand that in Earthbound they have embarked upon a theme as vast, as tremendous as Milton's when he undertook to justify the ways of God to Man. If we are not to have majestic grandeur, we must have passion, pity, and terror. We are mortal creatures; we know that we must die; we look forward to that necessary event with dread, with resignation, or with rapture. Whichever our emotion, our souls are troubled because of it. It is one of the mysteries of great art that, like religion, though it cannot explain the mystery of our fate, it can calm and illuminate that troubling of the spirit, J can give form and even a majestic outline to the tossing chaos of conjecture. And that is why we desire to hear a great artist on this theme. But we emphatically do not want to hear it discussed at lunch, and that is what, it seems to me, the authors of Earthbound have done. In cold blood, without inspiration, however crude, without any particular knowledge, either of the human heart or of the history of religion, they have sat down to portray the life after death in such a way that it shall, above all, offend nobody.

'If it were not all rather pretentious it would be pathetic. We can all excuse the wildness or the crudities of a young art or a young artist. In all primitive art, or even in "juvenilia," there is a freshness or an ambitious daring which compensates for lack of perspective or bombast. Perfectly correct, perfectly insipid, Earthbound, without even a squib or a cracker of the divine fire, the

highbrow cinema play, is at a most painful stage in its evolution.'

The First Aviation Opera

THE first aviation opera, which is a work of Futurist character, has been staged at Lugo. It is called Airman Drò and is by Signor Pratella, a Futurist composer and great friend of Marinetti. The music, however, is not unduly eccentric, and the critics are agreed in allowing it considerable worth. The critic of the Corriere della Sera speaks of it as 'a noble work.' Touches of futurist theory introduce sometimes, however, the ridiculous element. The noise of the aeroplane's engines (represented by a motor bicycle in the wings) is made to form a kind of additional new instrument for the orchestra in the last act, and in the fortissimo passages is allowed to 'race' wildly.

Airman Drò is a man who wishes to free himself from the tyranny of the senses and to purify a life of ease and luxury by some heroic action. He stakes his entire fortune with a friend, loses, and sets out to face a life of struggle. In aviation he finds the kind of action and danger his spirit had been seeking. In the end he meets death in the skies, and consummates his wish for an heroic last hour.

Smith and the Pharaohs

SIR RIDER HAGGARD'S last volume* is made up of six stories; and among them they provide fare for all Haggardians.

*Smith and the Pharaohs (Arrowsmith, 7s. 6d. net).

THE sunlight fell in a long shaft down the splendid Italian room. His lordship locked the door, turning the great key carefully in the finely worked lock.

"This will delay them,' he remarked.

His lordship was a hunted man. A posse of people, got together by the local surgeon, Mr. Francis, was in pursuit of him. But it was a respectful pursuit, egad! They were creeping after him, reverentially, room by room, and they had been puzzled and put off the trail more than once.

Deliberately Lord Sadler turned and looked at the sunlight down the long chamber. His thoughts were exceedingly clear, and with something of the delight of an artist in a new sensation he reflected that this luminosity had often produced in him a sense of ennui during the long afternoons of the past, whereas, now, it was striking him quite differently. Everything was different and the same, that morning. There, for instance, on that great cabinet lay his Kitty's tambour-work. He went up and fingered it. Ah, poor child! It had no business there, to be sure. Kitty Clinton had been at the bottom of it all, perhaps. Her ladyship would say so! Other people would say other things. Nobody would understand, except, perhaps, Kitty!

Lord Sadler lingered over a Chinese nest of drawers, a peculiarly fine piece this, with silver handles to the partitions and a design of pudding trees. They were in fruitage dusky red, he observed, and had gold stems. Both

red and gold were broken somewhat and faded. He had always been opposed to furniture polish. He opened a drawer at random. Ah, there was his little sister's hair, a fat, gold lock, tied with thread. He took it out, held it in the palm of his shapely hand. Well, she was dead- had died when he was

a boy at Eton! Why do we keep such mementoes? They are difficult to bestow; they collapse and lose their shape. This was 1760. What would the hair be like in 1860, if it reached that date? And who would then know its history? The hair of a dead child, to whom an Eton boy was devoted a hundred and more years ago! He opened other drawers here and in a table. His mother's miniature - he held it in the light for many moments. It was a stately face too stern, though! Yet, should a man criticize the family type? His noble father His noble father- he would look upon his tall portrait all in good time.

'My lord, my lord, pray open this door!' said a deferential voice without. "Anon, anon, Francis!""

My lord was a student of Shakespeare admired him and Mr. Garrick beyond measure. He stepped to the tall and perfectly proportioned door, his slim figure according well with the lines of its panels as he stood in the half-stooping attitude that men assume when they fumble with difficult locks. He drew a little bolt, of the kind called in Scotland a snib; it went home half-way up the jamb. Then he unlocked, causing the great key to click sharply.

The people outside heard him and grew expectant. They heard his footsteps retiring down the long floor and the opening of a door beyond. Then they respectfully essayed to open their own door, but the bolt stopped them.

'You can force the barrier if you apply your shoulders to it!'

The voice rang clearly toward them. They proceeded to the work of forcing the door: it seemed sacrilegious to do so in that show house, which most of them had only visited once or twice in their lives and then with not a little awestruck admiration. Mr. Francis wiped his forehead and whistled 'Whew!'

'Too fine a place to be hunting a lord in,' said Mr. Stigg, the village tailor, under his breath. 'Seems a shame!'

'Ay, ay, you're right theer,' assented a yeoman.

'I don't like this game at all!' said a timid gamekeeper, who kept my lord's fighting cocks. 'Supposin' us says we noo nowt about it! Supposin' now we goes away and has a quart of old October at Host Spratley's here! And then all 'ull be snug and quiet like!'

But, though several pale faces were composed quite suddenly into an expression of assent though Master Sprately himself alluded with apparent vagueness to the excellence of his ale at that time of year, Mr. Francis, the surgeon, with a vision of a murdered man before his eyes, urged assiduous pursuit.

My lord passed through several rooms rapidly, but in the great gallery of portraits, which, as all travelers in that part of England are aware, is very long and curiously narrow, he took the precaution of locking the tall door. And then he fell to saluting various portraits with various gestures. To the man of Tudor date he kissed his hand; to the Elizabethan warrior and statesman he gave a hearty wave; to the

Cromwellian he made a mock obeisance; to his William the Third ancestor, who had been Cavalier, Parliamentarian, and Trimmer by turns, he made a leg; to his own father he bowed, laying his hand upon his heart-the portrait, at least eight feet high, was one of Kneller's finest.

'Sir, you were too indulgent, as she was too grim!' said my lord in a whisper. 'Goodbye, goodbye.'

He heard the smash and wrench of a broken bolt and lock in the silence of the house. It was time to be gone. He turned abruptly aside, pulled back a lofty portrait of a sombre archbishop, which concealed a little door, shut the door carefully behind him, and ascended a little stair.

"They will not guess where I am now unless the chimney-sweeper is of the hue and cry.'

It so happened that the chimneysweeper was.

My lord passed through his stately library, pausing not to look at the books. He was in his own cabinet now. Yes, this was the place. The bore, the bore, the bore had lain there in death! Well, well!

'One ought to reflect with remorse on an occasion such as this,' said my lord. 'But I have no remorse at all! I caused very little pain. Our interview was polite. The deed I did was instantaneous in its effect there were no outcries, no agonies. Were most men to die as peacefully as that old man, most of us would die happy! And he was a bore!'

He stood riveted to the spot where the shot had been fired only yesterday. He quite forgot his pursuers. He recalled yesterday and much else.

One might, at this point, quote from the Newgate Calendar,* that incom

*I must confess to having taken some liberties with the more squalid parts of the narrative as given in the New Newgate Calendar; or Malefactors' Universal Register, a work not written from the novelist's point of view.