a rival painter, was wounded, and Jacquet nearly lost his life in an unsuccessful but heroic attempt to carry him off the field; and here, on that terrible day, he amused himself by searching among the few straggling vines which had been left by the ball and shell of the contending armies, for what few beans he could find. These he gathered, counted, and strung upon a thread, amidst the whistle of bullets, the smoke and confusion, the fire of musketry, and bursting of shells.

One of the peculiar features of modern

the same regiment. This picture is now in America.

Berne-Bellecour painted a picture of the engagement at Malmaison, with portraits of those who assisted. In this picture was a glimpse of the army in the extreme distance, the figures almost microscopic. It presented a contrast to the old-fashioned groups, with a foreground in which a soldier is just about to run a bayonet through a wounded prisoner, an officer behind in the act of cutting off the former's head, and behind these the contending armies ad

battle-pictures is that but one of the combating armies is visible. Among the painters of this class of subjects who never shows us the enemy, is M. Berne-Bellecour. The painting which made him famous is that, well known through the reproductions, entitled "Le Coup de Cannon." A gun has just been fired, and the battery officers and men are peering through the smoke to see the effect. His Salon picture of 1879 was in rather a different strain-"Sur le Terre." A duel is about to be fought between two soldiers, personal enemies if you will, but of

(E. BERNE-BELLECOUR.)

infinitum. M. Berne-Bellecour is realistic and modern. He finishes to the utmost detail the backgrounds of earth fortifications and barricade, giving to them the resemblance of active service. These accessories are not easy to obtain in times of peace, and in order to give his work the truthfulness of reality, he models and remodels miniature earth-works, from clay, sand, small timbers, and stones, according to hasty pen-and-ink sketches which he made during the war, and with these materials he is able to give an intense reality to his finished pictures.

In the days now departed, and perhaps forever, when every town in this broad land had its theater, with its own stock-company of actors and actresses, the manager was wont now and again to announce, with more or less flourish of trumpets and as though he were doing a most meritorious thing, a series of old-comedy revivals. And the custom still obtains in two or three of the larger cities, notably in New York and Boston. Whenever the announcement was put forth, the regular play-goer retired within himself and made ready for an intellectual treat. To the regular play-goer the old comedies were a most important part of the legitimate drama. Just what the legitimate drama is, I have never been able to get defined exactly; nor can I see why one play, any more than another, should bear the bar sinister; to me a play of one kind is as legitimate as a play of another kind, each in its place. But, whatever the legitimate drama might be, there was no doubt in the mind of the regular play-goer that the old comedies were an integral part of it. If you asked the regular play-goer for a list of the old comedies, it was odds that he rattled off, glibly enough, first, "The School for Scandal," second, "She Stoops to Conquer," and third, "The Rivals." After these he might hesitate, but if you pushed him to the wall he would name a few more plays, of which "A New Way to Pay Old Debts" was the oldest, and "Money" the youngest,-although I have seen a series of old comedies in New York in which was included Mr. Lester Wallack's cheap and comic melodrama, "The Veteran." Leaving the regular play-goer and investigating for yourself, you will find that the old comedies are mostly those which, in spite of their being more than a hundred years old, are yet lively and sprightly enough to amuse a modern audience.

The life of a play, even of a successful play, is rarely three-score years and ten; and the number of plays which live to be centenarians is small indeed. In the last century the case was different, and a hundred years ago the regular play-goer had a chance to see frequently eight or ten plays by Massinger, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley. Nowadays, Shakspere's are the only Elizabethan plays which keep the stage, with one solitary exception

| Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts." "The Chances," "The City Madam," and "Every Man in his Humor" have one after another dropped out of sight. The plays of the last century have now in their turn become centenarians; of these there are half a score which have a precarious hold on the theater, and are seen at lengthening intervals; and there are half a dozen which hold their own firmly. Of this scant half-dozen, "The School for Scandal" is, perhaps, in the greatest request, followed closely by "She Stoops to Conquer" and by "The Rivals." Here in the United States, during the next few months, "The Rivals" will be the most frequently seen, for Mr. Joseph Jefferson, laying aside the accent of that New York ne'er-do-weel, Rip Van Winkle, has taken on the counterfeit presentment of Squire Robert Acres, full of strange oaths and of a most valiant bearing; and he is to be aided by that sterling artist, Mrs. John Drew, in the part of Mrs. Malaprop.

"The Rivals was Sheridan's first play; it was produced at Covent Garden January 17th, 1775, nearly one hundred and six years ago. Like the first plays of many another dramatist who has afterward succeeded abundantly, it failed dismally on its first performance, and again on the second, the night after. It was immediately withdrawn, and, in all probability, somewhat rewritten. Then, on January 28th, after a ten days' absence from the bills, it re-appeared, with Mr. Clinch in the place of Mr. Lee, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger. It was in great measure owing to Lee that it failed at first.

With Clinch, its success was instant and enduring. So grateful was Sheridan for Clinch's help, that he wrote for the benefit of the actor a little Irish farce called "St. Patrick's Day," to be found in his works, but of no great value. It may be noted that Goldsmith had shown his gratitude to Quick, who acted Tony Lumpkin to his satisfaction, by putting his name to "The Grumbler," an adaptation of the "Grondeur" of Brueys, acted for Quick's benefit.

The success came in the nick of time. Sheridan had married, nearly two years before, the beautiful Miss Linley, of Bath, and he had at once withdrawn his wife from the concert stage. This was honorable, but it deprived the young couple of a certain in

come. Sheridan himself had nothing, not even a serious education. He had been entered a student of the Middle Temple just before his marriage, but he had not pursued the law further. Without money, and without a profession, but with a full confidence in himself, and a hereditary connection with the theater, it is no wonder that Sheridan determined to write for the stage. His father was an actor and a manager and had written one play; and his mother had written several. With these antecedents and the reputation of ability which he had already achieved somehow, he was asked by Harris, the manager of Covent Garden Theater, to write a comedy.

In November, 1774, he wrote to his fatherin-law (who was afterward to compose the music for his "Duenna") that he had finished "The Rivals,” and that he "had not written a line of it two months ago, except a scene or two, which I believe you have seen in an odd act of a little farce." This little farce and various other fragmentary dramatic attempts had been written in the years since 1769, when he left school at Harrow. Sheridan, in November, 1774, was only twenty-three years old-a very early age at which to write a first play, and one surviving for over a hundred years, with even now no signs of approaching decay.

Moore remarks that as comedy, more than any other species of composition, requires "that knowledge of human nature and the world which experience alone can give,-it seems not a little extraordinary that nearly all our first-rate comedies should have been the productions of very young men." And Moore then cites Farquhar, and Vanbrugh, and especially Congreve, all of whose comedies were written before he was twentyfive. It is these three writers who gave the stamp to English comedy; and Sheridan's die was not unlike theirs. Now, a consideration of the fact that English comedy was thus, in a measure, the work of young men, may tend to explain at once its failings and its force. As Lessing says: "Who has nothing can give nothing. A young man, just entering upon the world himself, cannot possibly know and depict the world." And this is just the weak point of English comedy; it is brilliant and full of dash, and it carries itself bravely, but it does not show an exact knowledge of the world, and it does not depict with precision. "The greatest comic genius," Lessing adds, " shows itself empty and hollow in its youthful works." Empty and hollow are VOL. XXI.-13.

harsh words to apply to English comedy, but I think it easy to detect, behind all its glitter and sparkle, a want of depth, a superficiality, which is not far from the emptiness and hollowness of which Lessing speaks. Compare this English comedy of Congreve and of Sheridan, which is a battle of the wits, with the broader and more human comedy of Molière and of Shakspere, and it is easy to see what Lessing means. In place of a broad humanity is an exuberance of youthful fancy and wit, delighting in its exercise. What gives value to these youthful plays, and especially to Sheridan's, is the touch of the true dramatist to be seen in them and the dramatist is like the poet in so far that he is born, not made.

"A dramatic author," says M. Alexandre Dumas, fils, "as he advances in life, can acquire higher thoughts, can develop a higher philosophy, can conceive and execute works of stronger tissue, than when he began; in a word, the matter he can cast into his mold will be nobler and richer, but the mold will be the same." And then M. Dumas shows how the first plays of Corneille, of Molière, and of Racine, from a technical point of view, are as well constructed as the latest. So it is with Congreve, and Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, and Sheridan; they gave up the stage before they had great experience of the world; but even in their youth they were born dramatists. All their comedies were made in the head, not from the heart. But made where or how you please, they are well made. It is impossible to deny that "The Rivals,", however hollow or empty it may appear on minute critical inspection, is a very extraordinary production for a young man of twenty-three.

Humor ripens slowly, but in the case of Sheridan some forcing-house of circumstance seems to have brought it to an early maturity, not as rich, perhaps, or as mellow as it might have become with time, and yet full of a flavor of its own. Strangely enough, the early "Rivals" is more humorous and less witty than the later "School for Scandal,”—perhaps because the humor of "The Rivals" is rather the frank feeling for fun and appreciation of the incongruous (both of which may be youthful qualities) than the deeper and broader humor which we see at its full in Molière and Shakspere.

So we have the bold outlines of Mrs. Mal

aprop and Bob Acres, personages having only a slight likeness to nature, and not always even consistent to their own pro