Dear Isabel,

I have a notion much imports your good,
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.

In fact, he never allows the lady to doubt
the sincerity of her lover's intentions; all
is honest and above board; there is a re-
assuring touch of business in his most
romantic declarations. Fenton, in making
love to Mistress Anne, confesses to her
that her father will not believe but he
wooes her for her money:

And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.
ANNE. Maybe, he tells you true.

FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my

time to come!

Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne:
Yet wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;
And 'tis the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at,

We can conceive no wooing less to George
Sand's taste than Henry V.'s; for in her
numerous expositions of the passion, con-
stancy, which is the King's one plea, and
with Shakspeare pre-eminent, figures not
only as an impossible virtue, but as no
virtue at all:-

When Richard exclaims,

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

it is not only Richard that triumphs, but
the imagination that has wrought it out
triumphs too. Again, what a delightful
relish we detect in the situation where
Petruchio proposes to Kate with that nice
which the shrewish temper may be mas-
adjustment of bullying and flattery by
tered, which yearns to hear pretty things
and wooing words, though it cannot help
shying and snapping at them: :-

And will you, nill you, I will marry you?
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn,
For by this light whereby I see thy beauty
(Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well)
Thou must be married to no man but me,
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate.

Parents arranged marriages in Shaks peare's days with probably a higher idea of their rights than has since prevailed, but he would not have us to suppose parental I cannot gasp out my eloquence, nor I have prerogative to be everything and the lady's no cunning in protestation; only downright wishes nothing. Indeed all along it has oaths, which I never use till urged nor never been the part of the drama to relax the break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow stern cords of parental authority, and of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth plead the rights of the affections - with sunburning, that never looks in his glass for Shakspeare the legitimate rights. The anything he sees there, let thine eye be thy three hundred pounds a year which recomcook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou mend Slender to Master Page are to be no canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to indemnification with the poet's audience thee that I shall die is true; but for the dulness which could not plead its own cause:—

- for thy

love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too; and while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places.

SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. 0 boy, thou hadst a father.

SLENDER.I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray father stole two geese out of a pen; good uncle. you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves

you.

SLENDER.Ay, that I do, as well as any woman in Gloucestershire.

For cynicism the real thing-what can
match the scene where Richard III. pro-
poses himself to Anne? With what won-
derful plausibility does he cheat a weak
vain woman out of her grief and hatred,
and show us how it might be done!
Nothing could be more masterly. The
subject is clearly congenial. The grada-
tions with which she is brought round fifty pound jointure.
from loathing and spitting to a half consent
are possible as we read. Richard confesses
all his murders, but they were done for
love of her; and he offers his sword "to
hide in this true breast":-

SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. He will make you a hundred and

ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

fails us, though, as we have said, it is not Our space, not our store of examples,

in the drama that the real field of illustration and suggestion lies. That must be explored at some future opportunity.

From The Saturday Review. "OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT " AND COUNT BISMARK.

can throw his horse down in a paved street as a proof of noble horsemanship. Some folks may think that, though all this is very graphic, it is ineffably silly, not to say impertinent. It is something, to be sure, that we do not get in addition to this wretched nonsense half a column of gabble devoted to the pathology of Mr. Russell's swelled knee, or to an historical diary of the progress of his bruise through all the colours of the spectrum. But, as it is, we are all getting thoroughly tired of Mr. Russell and his small-beer chronicles, seven columns of vapid and unprofitable chatter, about himself and his breakfasts, and his gossip, and his familiarity with generals and staff-officers. Sterne could sentimentalize over a dead jackass, but a Russell cannot dignify a broken-kneed hack. The Crown Prince's boots and breeches are, on the whole, more interesting than Mr. Russell's pinched ribs.

Rolling on the sharp trottoir of Versailles, Mr. Russell however could not have forecast the more serious tumble which was in store for him. As in the mishap just chronicled, so in his more terrible downfall, Mr. Russell was pitched over by his officiousness. As usual, Mr. Russell did not regard his Latin grammar. From sad experience of "Our Own" we remember the once familiar line

"OUR Own Correspondent" has come to condign grief. We make no apology, which under other circumstances would have been due to Mr. W. H. Russell, for naming him, because, since he has had the honour, if it is an honour, of being personally denounced by the redoubtable Count Bismark, it can be no breach of etiquette to assume his personality in the columns of the Times. Mr. Russell has had a fall —indeed he has had two falls; one from his horse, and one from his place of honour at Ferrières. The material tumble was an ominous forecast of the moral purl, as horsy men call it. We shall only be doing Mr. Russell a kindness, which he will appreciate, if we devote our space, which some cynical readers may say is wasted, to the narrative of his adventure with his horse in Versailles street. It is not for us to appraise the relative importance of Mr. Russell's accident as compared with other events of the day; but as in the same copy of the Times about the same number of lines is devoted to the capitulation of Strasburg and to the tragic fall of Mr. Russell's broken-kneed horse, we assume that the disasters are of equal historical value. Mr. Russell then, it seems, with his peculiar alacrity to do Percontatorem fugito: nam garrulus idem est. everybody's business as well as his own, picked up some unimportant fact about an In his letter published in the Times of Sepambulance which he met in the street, and tember 24, Mr. Russell took upon himself in the fervour of his zeal to purvey news to relate "what occurred when the Emhurried after the Staff to tell them what was peror Napoleon and the King of Prussia not worth telling. His alacrity in busy- met at Bellevue." Now considering that bodying was so great that he rode at full the surrender at Sedan was long past and gallop on a paved causeway, and in turn- over, and that the details, true or fictitious, ing a corner horse and man came down of it had been published over and over with what is technically called a cropper. again, it might have been thought that the As the horse only broke his two knees and matter was not at all in Mr. Russell's way. Mr. Russell bruised one knee, few people But Mr. Russell thought very properly but Mr. Russell would have diarized and that an event of such historical magnitude published this notable incident; fewer still would be incomplete to all posterity were would have sent it to the Times, to be it not written in the book of Russell, and perused with wondering awe by all Eu- authenticated by the Great Chronicler rope. But out of this ignoble trifle Mr. himself. Future ages would say the NaRussell contrived to pay a sly compliment poleoniad would be incomplete without its to himself, and did a bit of pictorial talk. Russell. Caret vate sacro. This must not We see the noble animal rearing, and be; so apropos of nothing at all, and interwhile rearing, "in a second" the crafty calated between the usual weary gabble horseman "throws up his arms across his about milestones and somebody's dirty forehead" and with wondrous skill wrig-shirts, Mr. Russell, not without a noble gles from under the horse, who, after performing this playful feat on his hind legs, doubles up his fore feet and comes to earth. Perhaps never was bad riding so glorified, and Mr. Russell has the skill to wish it to be inferred that he at any rate

pomp of diction and a grave circumstantiality of details, tells us about the interview between Emperor and King. Gibbon, in a famous passage, informs us how and where he finished his immortal work, and after Gibbon's pattern a greater than

All

Gibbon solemnly authenticates the pre- and enjoyed their special confidences. cious fragment of contemporary history. of a sudden comes out a formal telegram "I write from this town of Coulommiers," signed Bismark:-"The report of the and henceforth Coulommiers, which up to conversation between King William and that moment nobody in England had ever the Emperor Napoleon, given by Dr. Rusheard of, is for ever immortal. Here, ad- sell, the Times Correspondent, is founded miring students of all ages will say - here throughout upon mere invention." Mere the immortal Russell wrote his famous invention, and nothing else; either Dr. narrative. To be sure, when the tale Russell's own invention, or the invention came, it contained absolutely nothing of somebody who has hoaxed Dr. Russell, new; or rather, as the proverbial formula the great historian. Which is as much as has it, what was true was not new, and to say-for Count Bismark does not what was new was on the face of it un- mince matters-the whole thing is a fiction true. Nobody but Mr. Russell could have from first to last. Such is history, conpersuaded himself that the Emperor ac- temporary history, in our last "Russell's tually did not know who commanded the Modern History." We suppose Count Prussians at Sedan. This was the only Bismark intends to say that all that has novelty in Mr. Russell's gorgeous histori- been said by anybody and everybody about ette. Of course it was written up to the the famous interview is mere invention; finest finish of the most exalted penny-a- for, after all, Mr. Russell only says sublining, and decorated with the very best stantially what others have said before of fustian, all about "the grand old King," him. If this is what he means, he had betand "the finest mintage of Tennyson's ter have said so; for to single out Mr. brain," and "the cloud by day and the Russell for express contradiction is to attach pillar"—it might as well, for the sake of somewhat too much importance to Mr. accuracy, have been pillar of fire- -"by Russell's own particular gossip. Count night," "heroic images," and suchlike Bismark may have known that King Wil stately verbiage. But new facts the his- liam was especially disgusted at the contory contained none. Why then was it clusion which people drew as to the indeliwritten? "My little history. . . . comes cacy of his relating what passed between from the best sources." As to sources him and the Emperor, and was, not without there could be but one; it must have come reason, more seriously offended at the susfrom King William himself. No other picion that either he or those about him human being was present in that memo- had chattered the incident over with a rable saloon of Bellevue. The Crown newspaper Correspondent. This may acPrince himself was excluded. Either then count for, but will hardly justify Count the spirits must have told the wondrous Bismark's telegram. The King of Prussia story to Mr. Russell; or he must have might honourably wish in the eyes of developed it from his own consciousness; Europe to be exonerated from the suspior he must have got it from the King him-cion of having violated propriety in deself directly, or all but at first hand. This was the raison d'être of "my little history." Other "Our Own Correspondents" may have interviewed Bismark or Jules Favre, but I, the Own Correspondent, get my intelligence from nothing less than Kings or Crown Princes. "It comes from the best sources"; and the best sources are the highest sources; and the best source in this case, indeed the only authority which can be relied upon, is that of the only person who was present-namely, the King himself.

Mr. Russell, we admit, did not say that the King told him; but what he must have wished us to infer was that he got his information from the King, or from one only next to the King. And this was a feather in Mr. Russell's cap. Our Own Correspondenting here touched the zenith. Mr. Russell was at head-quarters; he was hail fellow well met with all sorts of royalties,

scribing, directly or indirectly, to Mr. Russell what passed between him and the Emperor in private conference. But even for this creditable object it is not very dignified for a King, or for a King's highest servant, to fall to wrangling with Mr. Russell. Special Correspondents are, we know to our cost, literary libertines, and great statesmen may as well let them be

chartered libertines." Count Bismark will have to start a new telegraph service if he proposes to himself the duty of contradicting formally and officially all the nonsense of all " Our Owns." Yesterday he thought it worth while to repel the insinuation that he ever expressed some opinion which somebody on the Daily Telegraph attributed to him. The sensitiveness as to what Correspondents, especially as to what Mr. Russell said, is not very wise. Let the man scribble, because scribble he must; it is his nature to. Nobody

...

whose opinion is worth having attaches the least importance to what Mr. Russell does or does not say. It is a pity that Count Bismark does. As the matter stands, and as of course Mr. Russell will have his say, the Count seems to have done what the schoolboy in his verses thought impolitic, parvas volucres bombardâ cædere magnâ. What will be the end of it we cannot conjecture. Either Mr. Russell will eat humble pie, or, if he contradicts Count Bismark, Count Bismark will follow up his telegram. He can hardly tolerate at head-quarters the author or disseminator of "mere invention." And should Mr. Russell's place know him no more, and should he be forced to abandon Ferrières as he was obliged to fly America, the world will come to an end, and the Times will probably go in for France once more.

From The Saturday Review. THE GERMAN VIEW OF ALSACE AND LORRAINE.

grand example, that she ought to begin a new era in which cessions of territory shall no longer be heard of. We are told that we must not nowadays have another Vienna Congress, in which "souls" shall be handed about from master to master without any regard to the wishes of the souls annexation of these provinces would be themselves. We are further told that the no gain to Germany, but rather a loss; that, as it is not just, so neither is it profitable, to reign over unwilling subjects; that by exacting a cession of territory a wound would be inflicted on France which would rankle in the national breast till some form of vengeance has been taken; that, in short, Germany, by demanding the cession of these provinces as a condition of peace, would in fact be sowing the dragon's teeth for another war.

to put ourselves into the position of an ordinary well-informed German, and to see how the question is likely to appear to him.

Now we should suppose that no thoughtful German or partizan of Germany would deny that in some of these arguments there is no lack of strength or appearance of strength. Whether we believe all the Istories of conversations with Count Bismark or not, we may be sure that the last at any rate of these arguments has been We are not going to try to foretell what and will be carefully weighed by German will be the issue of the present war with statesmen before the final decision is come regard to those border provinces which to. That will be done which to certain Germany at this moment seems to have very clear heads may seem to be most made up her mind to hold, and which likely to lead to the lasting profit of GerFrance at least professes to have no less many. Meanwhile it may be well to try fully made up her mind not to give up. Neither are we going to say what, on any abstract principle, ought to be the issue, because nothing is more unlikely than that the strife should be ended by either side First of all, it is as well to remember submitting to an abstract principle of any that Germans do not, like ourselves, live in kind. But it is just as well that people an island. The fact of our living in an should fully understand that side of the island makes it somewhat hard for us case which, with regard at least to the thoroughly to understand the case of Conquestion of territorial cession, seems just tinential nations with regard to the purely now to be the less popular. Many people, artificial barriers which often separate even people who have on the whole taken them. Because Great Britain is something the German side, are beginning to cry out with a real physical being, with boundaries at the German claim on the lands which, which cannot be changed except by the act changed by French lips into Alsace and of God, we are apt, often quite unwitLorraine, still keep on German lips their tingly to look on France or Germany, older names of Elsass and Lothringen. or any other Continental country, as someThe claim is spoken of as if it were some- thing which is equally unchangeable in the thing strange and monstrous, something nature of things, and whose boundaries it of which the like had never been heard is as unnatural to enlarge or to contract as before. Other people know better than it would be to enlarge or to contract the this; they know that, if Germany seizes boundaries of Great Britain. Secondly, Elsass and Lothringen, or a slice of French we should remember that Germans, as a territory much greater than Elsass and rule, understand the past history both of Lothringen, Germany will simply be doing their own and of other countries very what all conquering States have done much better than either Frenchmen or since wars began among men. But they Englishmen do. There are a great numargue that Germany ought now to set a ber of points which have no small bearing