Of course, a man such as Robert Elsmere came to be ought not to be a clergyman of the Anglican Church. The priest is still, and will, we think, remain, one of the necessary types of humanity; and he is untrue to his type, unless, with whatever inevitable doubts in this doubting age, he feels, on the whole, the preponderance in it of those influences which make for faith. It is his triumph to achieve as much faith as possible in an age of negation. Doubtless, it is part of the ideal of the Anglican Church that, under certain safeguards, it should find room for latitudinarians even among its clergy. Still, with these, as [67] with all other genuine priests, it is the positive not the negative result that justifies the position. We have little patience with those liberal clergy who dwell on nothing else than the difficulties of faith and the propriety of concession to the opposite force. Yes! Robert Elsmere was certainly right in ceasing to be a clergyman. But it strikes us as a blot on his philosophical pretensions that he should have been both so late in perceiving the difficulty, and then so sudden and trenchant in dealing with so great and complex a question. Had he possessed a perfectly philosophic or scientific temper he would have hesitated. This is not the place to discuss in detail the theological position very ably and seriously argued by Mrs. Ward. All we can say is that, one by one, Elsmere's objections may be met by considerations of the same genus, and not less equal weight, relatively to a world so obscure, in its origin and issues, as that in which we live.

Robert Elsmere was a type of a large class of minds which cannot be sure that the sacred story is true. It is philosophical, doubtless, and a duty to the intellect to recognize our doubts, [68] to locate them, perhaps to give them practical effect. It may be also a moral duty to do this. But then there is also a large class of minds which cannot be sure it is false—minds of very various degrees of conscientiousness and intellectual power, up to the highest. They will think those who are quite sure it is false unphilosophical through lack of doubt. For their part, they make allowance in their scheme of life for a great possibility, and with some of them that bare concession of possibility (the subject of it being what it is) becomes the most important fact in the world.

The recognition of it straightway opens wide the door to hope and love; and such persons are, as we fancy they always will be, the nucleus of a Church. Their particular phase of doubt, of philosophic uncertainty, has been the secret of millions of good Christians, multitudes of worthy priests. They knit themselves to believers, in various degrees, of all ages. As against the purely negative action of the scientific spirit, the high-pitched Grey, the theistic Elsmere, the "ritualistic priest," the quaint Methodist Fleming, both so admirably sketched, present [69] perhaps no unconquerable differences. The question of the day is not between one and another of these, but in another sort of opposition, well defined by Mrs. Ward herself, between—

"Two estimates of life—the estimate which is the offspring of the scientific spirit, and which is for ever making the visible world fairer and more desirable in mortal eyes; and the estimate of Saint Augustine."

To us, the belief in God, in goodness at all, in the story of Bethlehem, does not rest on evidence so diverse in character and force as Mrs. Ward supposes. At his death Elsmere has started what to us would be a most unattractive place of worship, where he preaches an admirable sermon on the purely human aspect of the life of Christ. But we think there would be very few such sermons in the new church or chapel, for the interest of that life could hardly be very varied, when all such sayings as that "though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor" have ceased to be applicable to it. It is the infinite nature of Christ which has led to such diversities of genius in preaching as St. Francis, and Taylor, and Wesley.

[70] And after all we fear we have been unjust to Mrs. Ward's work. If so, we should read once more, and advise our readers to read, the profoundly thought and delicately felt chapter—chapter forty-three in her third volume—in which she describes the final spiritual reunion, on a basis of honestly diverse opinion, of the husband and wife. Her view, we think, could hardly have been presented more attractively. For ourselves we can only thank her for pleasure and profit in the reading of her book, which has refreshed actually the first and deepest springs of feeling, while it has charmed the literary sense.

28th March 1888

V. THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS

Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean. By Dr. Doran, F.S.A. Edited and revised by Robert W. Lowe. John C. Nimmo.

[73] THOSE who care for the history of the drama as a branch of literature, or for the history of that general development of human manners of which the stage has been always an element and a very lively measure or index, will be grateful to Mr. Lowe for this revised and charmingly illustrated edition of Dr. Doran's pleasant old book. Three hundred years and more of a singularly varied and vivacious sort of history!—it was a bold thing to undertake; and Dr. Doran did his work well—did it with adequate "love." These Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund [74] Kean, are full of the colours of life in their most emphatic and motley contrasts, as is natural in proportion as the stage itself concentrates and artificially intensifies the character and conditions of ordinary life. The long story of "Their Majesties' Servants," treated thus, becomes from age to age an agreeable addition to those personal memoirs—Evelyn's, and the like—which bring the influence and charm of a visible countenance to the dry tenour of ordinary history, and the critic's work upon it naturally becomes, in the first place, a mere gathering of some of the flowers which lie so abundantly scattered here and there.

A history of the English stage must necessarily be in part a history of one of the most delightful of subjects—old London, of which from time to time we catch extraordinary glimpses in Dr. Doran's pages. From 1682 to 1695, as if the Restoration had not come, there was but one theatre in London. In Charles I.'s time Shoreditch was the dramatic quarter of London par excellence.—

"The popular taste was not only there directed towards the stage, but it was a district [75] wherein many actors dwelt, and consequently died. The baptismal register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, contains Christian names which appear to have been chosen with reference to the heroines of Shakespeare; and the record of burials bears the name of many an old actor of mark whose remains now lie within the churchyard."

Earlier and later, the Surrey side of the Thames was the favourite locality for play-houses. The Globe was there, and the Bear-garden, represented in Mr. Lowe's luxurious new edition by delightful woodcuts. For this new edition adds to the original merits of the work the very substantial charm of abundant illustrations, first-rate in subject and execution, and of three kinds—copper-plate likenesses of actors and other personages connected with theatrical history; a series of delicate, picturesque, highly detailed woodcuts of theatrical topography, chiefly the little old theatres; and, by way of tail-pieces to the chapters, a second series of woodcuts of a vigour and reality of information, within very limited compass, which make one think of Callot and the German [76] "little masters," depicting Garrick and other famous actors in their favourite scenes.

In the vignettes of the Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, is very