Great Fire. The part of London destroyed was that in which the wits and gallants were wont to congregate. If the flames spared the Devil Tavern where Ben Jonson throned it and delivered his oracles in the "Apollo" chamber, the Mermaid, with its no less close associations with Jonson, and its added links with Shakespeare and Beaumont, and other spots of interest only less keen, yielded to their fury. It is possible to conjure up the scene of plucking the red and white roses which Shakespeare has put in the Temple Garden, and many a melancholy procession to the Tower, the stake, or the scaffold, may pass before the mind's eye. Intimate knowledge, however, of the life of our predecessors begins after the Fire. Pepys even had lived half a century or so earlier, what vitality it might have given to our knowledge of Shakespearean London! Here is an entry in Pepys under 1 May, 1667: "To Westminster; in the way meeting many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly (Gwynne) standing at her lodging's door in Drury Lane in her smock-sleeves and bodice looking upon one; she seemed a mighty pretty creature." If only Shakespeare could have found a Boswell, or even a Pepys ! DURING THE EARLY AMERICAN STAGE. URING its early development, the American stage was naturally a mere reflex of our own, and performances at Philadelphia, Annapolis, and New York in the middle of the last century had much less interest and importance than those at a similar date in Bristol or Norwich. When the Revolutionary crisis even was reached, the stage and the drama were apparently uninfluenced by it, except that representations were suspended, and the principal acting company went to Jamaica. Now, however, that Mr. George O. Seilhamer has issued, in Philadelphia, two handsome and privately printed volumes, the opening portion of what bids fair to be a complete history of the American stage, it is amusing to contemplate the difficulties which Puritan rule imposed on the establishment of theatres. In some of the eastern cities the representation of stage plays was entirely prohibited. In place of being petted, as in this country he has been, the actor was apparently outside the pale of respectable society. I hope to recur to this subject, but for the present must content myself by saying that in Providence the theatre was christened the school-house, and that performances were given gratis, though a charge was made to the accompanying concert. SYLVANUS URBAN. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY 1890. SUB ROSA. BY GEORGE HOLMES, AUTHOR OF "FARMER JOHN." CHAPTER V. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, BROWNING: In Three Days. "Wir sind nie entfernter von unseren Wünschen, als wenn wir uns einbilden, das Gewünschte zu besitzen." "Säen ist nicht so beschwerlich als ernten." IT was indeed true. IT GOETHE: Wahlverwandtschaften. As securely as the law of the land and the rites of the Church could bind their fates in one, Carey Maybanke and Blanche Gressell were man and wife. The event had been accomplished without much difficulty. Carey having already taken out a special licence, had gone up to town soon. after Blanche left the Priory. On the Wednesday morning, before Lady Packville's household had assembled for their late breakfast, Blanche and he had met, by appointment, and driven to a distant City church where the ceremony immediately took place. Blanche, hurrying back in a hansom, was not even late for breakfast in Montagu VOL. CCLXVIII. NO. 1910. I Gardens; and her wedding day passed without any other incident to mark it. Carey returned to Ladywood, and Thursday and Friday dragged their slow course along. On Saturday afternoon Blanche was expected back, and he was rehearsing a hundred times a day the scene of their next meeting. Would he be able to restrain himself from rushing forward and clasping her to his heart, and so revealing the whole truth to his astonished parents? Or would he remember his part, and with an indifferent smile ask how she had enjoyed her visit-what she had done while she was in London? He had prepared the very words of his greeting, which must be kind and brotherly, as in the old days, but without a spark of the emotion that made his face crimson whenever he now thought of Banny. Yet, carefully as he had schooled and trained himself, his heart leaped into his mouth, and he fancied that Platten must have heard its thumping, when the pony-carriage drove briskly up to the door, and his mother and Blanche alighted. How lovely she looked: her eyes bright and dancing, and a vivid colour in her cheeks as he sprang forward to meet her! To his inner dismay, his first mad impulse had been to cry, "My darling wife! My darling little Banny!"—and to cover with kisses the hand which she held out to him. But a certain dignity in Blanche's demeanour, and her quiet, unembarrassed air did much towards restoring his self-control. Murmuring some trivial commonplace about her journey, he suffered Mrs. Maybanke to take her upstairs, and turned back into the garden without another word. Would the future struggle prove indeed beyond his strength, if the mere sight of Banny's face had almost sufficed to upset his carefully formed plan of conduct? How would he be able to bear the strain of keeping up this false indifference, when he would be seeing her all day, and every day, for weeks, perhaps months on end? Then he dismissed these torturing thoughts. At present it was surely enough for him that she was here, that they were no longer separated; it would be easy to snatch a few loving words when they two were alone together. As yet he tried not to ask himself how it would all end. When he went up to the little boudoir for tea with his mother and Banny he was very pale; but he talked with the utmost gaiety on every sort of subject-stealing only at rare intervals a glance at Blanche when Mrs. Maybanke's eyes were bent on her work. Just after dinner he contrived to linger with her on the staircase; but scarcely had his arm drawn her near him, and his eyes begun to scan each feature of her face with all a lover's fond anxiety, when Mrs. Maybanke's voice called to Blanche from the drawing-room above, to come and sing one of the squire's favourite ballads. With a frightened whisper she hurriedly released herself and darted away; and during the evening he had not a chance of speaking alone with her again. As the days went on his position became at times unbearable. Everyone, save himself (to whom she of right belonged), seemed to have the command of Blanche's society, Blanche's conversation. Mrs. Maybanke, as though to render the happier this last holidaytime, seldom took a drive or a walk without having Banny for her companion. Even the squire seemed to take a fresh delight in her reading and her singing ;-or perhaps it was that the hours which she spent in the library seemed never-ending to Carey's restless impatience. One Sunday, the Rev. Whymper Burroughs, who had been dining at the Priory, spent the whole evening hanging over Blanche's chair, to Carey's infinite disgust. The curate, as became a man of taste, was not without a decided preference for pretty young girls-the younger, the better. On this particular occasion Banny had really fascinated him; and his long, solitary walk home to Lampton was devoted to thoughts of her. Indeed, Mr. Burroughs experienced all the glow and excitement of a tender mood. And he was not naturally romantic. What a pity it was that "she had not a penny to bless herself with!" (The expression was of his own choosing.) Had that been otherwise, she would indeed have made a charming little wife; and although she came of no family in particular, she had had great advantages in being almost brought up by Mrs. Maybanke-a person of undoubtedly high breeding, of "unquestionable gentility"— and in mixing in "thoroughly high-class" society. A gentle and brotherly flirtation with her would certainly add a new charm to his visits to the Priory, and do no harm either. . . . What pretty, fine hair the little maid had, to be sure. Mr. Burroughs, rendered by his sweet musings almost poetic, mentally compared Banny's fair head with the shorn cornfields around him, lying pale and golden in the harvest moonlight! And meanwhile Carey, who had been watching him from a distance the whole evening, was suffering all the senseless torment of a tumult of stifled jealousy. One minute he had longed to turn the curate ignominiously from the house; the next, he had vainly tried to counsel himself that it was no use fuming, that he had no outward right to interfere." But, when I once have her all to myself, we'll soon settle Master Parson !"-he muttered between his teeth. Again, sometimes, poor Carey was the prey of a depression that was even more cruel than jealousy. Had not matters been on a pleasanter footing before that final step had been taken? he would repeat dejectedly. Not that he had begun to regret it; no, no. He often thought, with a sparkle of triumph in his eyes as they rested. on her, that not all the world could rob him of Banny now! In her complete ignorance of all that this great change in her relations with Carey implied, Blanche suffered far less than he did, if, indeed, she suffered at all. Their daily intercourse required no constant effort of self-control on her part. She merely felt that Carey and she were engaged-solemnly engaged it might be-but the situation for her was the same as it had been before the ceremony in London. Sometimes, indeed, she wondered if it had not been all a dream-the long drive with Carey in the cool, morning air; the damp dark church, and the solemn words which she had repeated. And, again, sometimes it came over her with a sensation of fear: What was this strange and dreadful thing that she had done? What had happened? Was she really a "married lady, " like Mrs. Maybanke or Lady Packville? She did not wear a wedding-ring, for the very good reason that Carey kept hers in his waistcoat pocket. It did not strike Banny as being a very safe place for it, especially as he had a dangerous habit of drawing it from its hiding-place near his heart, and putting it to his lips, while they knelt, side by side, at prayers of an evening. One afternoon, while Mrs. Maybanke and she were walking armin-arm together in the garden, the gentle exhilaration of sun, birds, flowers, and her kind friend's society had well-nigh scattered Banny's hitherto ably sustained caution. Carey's repeated injunctions and warnings were forgotten in the sudden mad and happy impulse to reveal everything! Could any heart contain bitterness when hers was singing for joy? Pressing Mrs. Maybanke's arm with eagerness, and both hands, she began in a quick, excited tone, "Oh, Mrs. Maybanke, what do you think? I-" She stopped, just as the confession of her marriage with Carey was hovering on her lips. "Well, my dear?" Mrs. Maybanke said quietly. Banny's impulsive ways had never diminished the elder and more reserved woman's somewhat undemonstrative tenderness for the friendless girl; and "Don't be too excitable, my dear," was her only gentle suggestion at such times. |