at rest on this point, will she do him a small favour? Will she be so good as to jump into the mill-stream, and drown herself? With pleasure—and she takes a header! He explains that courtesy forbids him to keep a lady waiting, and follows her example! So both are drowned, and all ends happily!

And this is the plot! And what about the characters? Rebecca is merely a hysterical old maid, who would have been set right, in the time of the Tudors, with a sound ducking; and nowadays, had she consulted a fashionable physician, she would have been probably ordered a sea-voyage, and a diet free from stimulants. The Pastor is a feeble, fickle fool, who seemingly has had but one sensible idea in his life. He has believed his wife to be mad, and, considering that she married him, his faith in the matter rested upon evidence of an entirely convincing nature. The Rector Kroll is a prig and a bore of the first water. When he discovers Rebecca's perfidy, he suggests that she may have inherited her proneness for treachery from her father—and, to her distressed astonishment, he gives the name of a gentleman, not hitherto recognised by her as a parent! The best line in the piece, to my mind—and it certainly "went with a roar"—is a question of the housekeeper—answered in the negative—"Have you ever seen the Pastor laugh?" Laugh! with such surroundings! Pretentious twaddle, that would be repulsively immoral were it less idiotic. And so dull!

As a theatre-goer for more than a quarter of a century, I dislike undue severity, and am consequently glad to find my opinion is shared by others. "SCRUTATOR," the Dramatic Critic of Truth, wrote last week—"The few independent persons who have sat out a play by IBSEN, be it The Doll's House, or The Pillars of Society, or Rosmershölm, have said to themselves. 'Put this stuff before the playgoing public, risk it at an evening theatre, remove your claque, exhaust your attendance of the socialist and the sexless, and then see where your IBSEN will be.' I have never known an audience that cared to pay to be bored, and the over-vaunted Rosmershölm bored even the Ibsenites." I only hope it did, for they deserve their martyrdom! I believe that you personally, my dear Editor, have never seen a dramatic performance of the "Master's" work. I wish I could say as much, and I shall be surprised if you do not appreciate the feeling, after you too have partaken of this truly Lenten fare. Yours sincerely,

ONE WHO LIKES IBSEN—AT A DISTANCE.

STRIKING TIMES.

NEW VERSION OF AN OLD STREET BALLAD.

(By a Labouring Elector.)

WILDE FLOWERS.

Some other fellow, in the P.M.G., has been beforehand with us in spotting "A Preface to Dorian Gray," by our OSCAR WILDE-r than ever, in this month's Fortnightly. Dorian Gray was published some considerable time ago, so it belongs to ancient history, and now, after this lapse of time, out comes the preface. And this "preface" occupies the better part, I use this expression in all courtesy, of two pages; which two pages represent a literary flowerbed, where rows of bright asterisks are planted between lines of brilliant aphorisms. The rule of the arrangement seems to be.—"when in doubt, plant asterisks." Sic itur ad astra. The garden is open to all, let us cull; here one and there one. "To reveal Art and conceal the Artist, is Art's aim." Is there not in this the scent of "Ars est celare artem"? "Art" includes "the Artist," of course. Then "Puris omnia pura" is to be found in two other full-blown aphorisms, if I mistake not. St. PAUL's advice to TIMOTHY is engrafted on to the stalk of another aphorism. "Why lug in TIMOTHY?" Well, to "adapt" Scripture to one's purpose is not to quote it. Vade retro! Do we not recognise something familiar in "When Critics disagree the Artist is in accord with himself?"

But after it is all done, and the little flower-show is over, then arises the despairing cry of our own cherished OSCAR. It is in the Last of the Aphorisms; after which, exhausted, he can only sign his name, fling away the goose-quill, and then sink back in his luxurious arm-chair exhausted with the mental efforts of years concentrated into the work of one short hour. Ah! "La plupart des livres d'à présent ont l'air d'avoir été faits en un jour avec des livres lus de la veille." Ask Messrs. ROCHEFOUCAULD, CHAMFORT, RIVAROL, and JEAN MORLÉ. "Ai! Ai! Papai! Papai! Phillaloo! Murther in Irish!" Let us be natural, or shut up shop. Yet there is a chance,—to be supernatural. The great Pan is dead, so there is a seat vacant among the gods, open to any aspirant for immortality. "All Art is quite useless!" cries OSCAR WILDE-ly. And has it come to this? "Is this the Hend?" Yes, this is his last word—for the present. Pan is dead! Vive Pannikin!