sent level, and the oldest settlements of the colonists were situated immediately on the banks of the river. These remains obviously belong to the Flavian age, while the second period of Roman occupation must be referred to the time of Constantine, as is shown by the coins discovered below the beams and rafters of the buildings in

this middle stratum. The third and most recent of these architectural series is only about from three to five feet above the second, and shows by the richness of its remains, among which large quantities of mosaics, mural tablets, marbles, polished serpentine and porphyry are found, that the period with which it coincides must have been one of great wealth. This period M. Wilmowsky believes we may with certainty identify with the time of the Emperors Valentinian and Gratian, under whom Trèves had become the local seat of imperial administrative power, and the focus of Roman learning, art, and commerce in Germany. This assumption has now received additional confirmation by the discovery, under the ruins of a building apparently designed for a hall of justice, of a bronze tablet, cast at Lyons, and bearing the bust of Gratian with the inscription DN. GRATIANUS. P. F. AVG. On the obverse the Emperor is represented leaning with his right hand on the shoulder of a youth, and carrying in his left a sceptre with the figure of Victory. Besides the words "Reparatio Reipub." this side of the tablet is marked with the letters L v C, and the imperial cipher.

Canon Wilmowsky's work, which is illustrated with numerous maps and plans, and twentysix admirably-executed plates, is one of the most interesting contributions to ancient classical and mediaeval art that has appeared of late in Ger

many.

THE STAGE.

Macready's Reminiscences, and Selections from his Diaries and Letters. Edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. In Two Volumes. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1875.) THOSE who have any knowledge of what Macready was will hardly need to be told that the two volumes which have just appeared are wholly free from the errors common to many similar works, in which bare and slight and unsuggestive and often ignorant comment takes the place of criticism which should pierce to the truth of things, and in which for all record of character and life we have only petty gossip and rough sketches taken at a distance. Macready's long career must indeed have furnished themes for much valuable remark that is not made here: certain periods are passed over with a slight touch because Macready's own record of them has been bare, and there has been no attempt to fill up from the memories or the letters of others what Macready himself left wanting. In some sense, of course, we are the losers by this; but the principle has been firmly laid down, and strictly kept to. Only Macready speaks. And he speaks first in his reminiscences; next in the long series of his diaries; and lastly in a few letters addressed chiefly to the intimate

friend who has edited the book.

So that our loss is a negative loss, and it is of Macready's own infliction. Many of the years of his career in London were filled too busily to allow him to record at any length the social life in which he took part, or that which is more important to the purpose, the story of the stage of that day. Thus it is that he lapses into mere memo

66

randa, which at this distance of time have the air of commonplace. And then we read: May 9th. Madame and Mademoiselle Rachel, Colonel and Mrs. Gurwood, Mrs. Norton, Eastlake, Young, T. Campbell, Kenney, Dr. Elliston and Quin came to dinner; and "Nov. 23rd. Settled with Marshall and Tomkins the scenery of The Two Gentlemen of Verona." But there is not much of this-though the "Diaries" made in middle life are throughout naturally much poorer and less pregnant than the faller "Reminiscences" of youth, made seemingly in age-and on the whole the book is an excellent chronicle of all that was most interesting in the stage life and stage work of many years. It is a chronicle tinged constantly with strong feeling; full of the appreciation of a mind vigorous and cultivated, and sympathetic too, for whatever was best in dramatic literature and dramatic performance. And we cannot have this chronicle, so pregnant, so full, so revealing as to its author's mind, without having, at the same time, a character. And it is in giving us a great actor's character, as well as the story of a career-and giving that character firmly, definitely, fully-that the main interest of the book will be found to consist, by those at least who in the record of life, want not the petty and chance facts for their own sake, but "incidents in the development of a soul." the development of a soul." "Little else" -says the poet of Sordello-"little else is worth study."

And

Road, in March, 1793-and the son of actor and manager-he went from prepar tory schools to Rugby, which he had leave early, owing to his father's difficultie His first appearance on the stage was in t character of Romeo, and this took place Birmingham, when he was but seventee He rapidly acquired country reputation, an hesitated as to acting in London, wher Kean and the Kembles and Young held th great places of the stage; but having finall decided to make the experiment, he appeare at Covent Garden in September, 1816, a Orestes-with good success-and three year later his performance of Richard the Thir set him at the head of his profession. Be tween these two events he had had grav thoughts of abandoning the stage for th profession of the Church. The scale wa only turned by his wishing to borrow money to lend to his brother-that his brother might be replaced in his old regiment-and this money, which Macready succeeded in borrowing, could only be repaid by his own earnings at the theatre.

Long before his marriage he was a famous man; and his engagement to Miss Catherine Atkins, who was a very young provincial actress of no note, was not very welcome to his friends. There is an amusing account of how he introduced his sweetheart to his sister, and how evident was the sister's surprise and disappointment. Catherine was chagrined, and the sister laid up for the rest of the day-it reads like a page out of Unhappily, a soul does not only "deve- domestic comedy. But Macready's own lop" it sometimes dwindles too. though no doubt Mr. Macready thought-poetical, from the morning when he saw her feeling for Catherine was always tender and him, that his life of retirement, first at Sherhumbly withal-and many thought with walking on the stage at Dundee, waiting for a rehearsal not yet begun. She played borne and then at Cheltenham, was more Virginia, to his Virginius, in the tragedy of desirable than the restless life led in sight Sheridan Knowles. But let us hear him on of the public of London, one cannot help the subject:feeling that he did, in a certain measure, narrow himself down there, however lovably, with his interests in the work that is called "practical "-the village school, the domestic management of the household. He had to care anxiously for his own health. He had had losses-loss of children and wife. And all this told upon him: on his habit of thought, as well as on his outward existence. He kept up some of his old interest in high poetical literature, but not without change. The old artistic life had passed away from him: something of his best self, as an artist, was surely gone.

For the character, then, of Macready, while he was before the public, it is to the record of his youth and middle age that we must look. That was the period of development. His faults were faults of impulsiveness.

Into pettiness of feeling and action he was very rarely surprised. But he was always regretting his quickly roused anger, and the sensitiveness and the excitability which were his strength as well as his weakness. Want of appreciation he had not often to complain of; but when he noticed it, it irritated him. "Acted Money very well," he writes on one occasion, "to a very dull audience. Was very angry." And now and again there are entries regretting his irritability: his want of self-control in the small things of life.

Born in Mary Street, Tottenham Court

"She was distinguishable for a peculiar expres sion of intelligence and sprightly gentleness. She rehearsed with great propriety the part of the Prince of Wales, and was introduced to me by the manager as my Virginia for the next night's play. On the following morning she came an hour before the regular summons to go through the scenes of Virginia and receive my i y instructions. She was dressed in a closely-fitting tartan frock, which showed off to advantage the perfect sy metry of her sylph-like figure. She might have been Virginia."

He says this quite simply. He hardly knows that he is praising her. The sen tence slips out accidentally, with many others. But, "she might have been Vir ginia.' It was that that settled it, whether he knew it or no. And long afterwards he is found declaring that his Virginia had never disappointed him. And from the triumph of the stage, in later days-as Richard, Hamlet, Iago, Henry the Fourth, Evelyn, Richelieu, Strafford he was glad to turn to the quiet of his country house and its family party: "Catherine and the children were loves to which he was always true. Some artists find their truest rest in the pursuit of their art; but in this Macready seemed to find no rest at all, but at most, only a fierce satisfaction which lessened as time went on. That point in his character and temperament is certainly to be noted. He was happier at home, in a quietness,

which he did not feel to be the quietness of stagnation.

Yet no one can read his reminiscences without perceiving how genuine was his appreciation of the art of the theatre; how intelligent his judgment on his great contemporaries. He was decided in preferring Talma to Kemble; Talma, he said, was on ccasion quite as nobly statuesque as Philip John, and at the same time more natural. Kemble declaimed his part-Talma lived in it. Miss O'Neill was the most perfect Juliet of his experience. She entirely realised his conception of the character. He was for awhile a somewhat jealous rival of Young's, but he always respected. him. Rachel he was disappointed with. She lacked, not indeed intensity in passion, but exaltation in passion; and for this he went back to his memory of Miss O'Neill, as he might have gone forward to his sight of

Ristori.

During his professional career Macready was ever studiously occupied with the thought of his characters. The first time he had to represent madness, he went to a lunatic asylum, and made his painful observations, not at all in the spirit of a medical student engaged in vivisection, but with reluctance, and even with fear. Two rooms were all that he could manage. Then he turned back. And in the night he woke with nervous horror, remembering everything that he had seen, and praying that he might never himself be bereft of his reason. Long afterwards, he went again. That was when he was studying Lear. But even then, Bedlam was too dreadful a sight for a man of his sensitive nature and quick imagination. He was too nervous to go on, as he confesses in his diary. He played Lear very unequally. At Swansea, in 1833, he reports himself ill satisfied after five hours of retearsal. . Then came the performance itself -"a crude, fictitious voice, no point-in short, a failure. To succeed, I must strain every nerve of thought." A day or two later, walking, at night, about the streets of Gloucester, "I perceived clearly my want of directness, reality, and truth, in Lear." At Cardiff, in the coach, "thought a little on Lear." At Leeds, "applied myself to the consideration of Lear." Afterwards, "walked from Knaresborough to Harrogate, thinking of Lear." And so it was that unremitting work made him an artist-among the last of our great ones. But we stop here. That Macready's Reminiscences abound in valuable criticism and interesting record-besides, but not above, this picture of personal life and character has already been indicated. By chiefly of its earlier and least fragmentary portions, this is a book that will

reason

live.

FREDERICK WEDMORE.

STAGE NOTES.

Nicholas Nickleby, or as much of it as can conveniently be put into a single drama, was produced at the Adelphi Theatre on Saturday night, with all the signs of success. were not very interesting, and his earlier plots were not very well constructed, though they were often more than sufficiently complicated. In both points, he improved as he went on, until at last in The Mystery of Edwin Drood he gave us, in addi

Dickens's earlier héroes

tion to the thousand other charms of an inexhaustible genius, a good plot and an interesting young man. The story of Nicholas Nickleby goes, so to say, on many lines, and it is round the episode of Smike that Mr. Halliday has clustered the persons and scenes of his play. He has introduced a good deal of dialogue not to be found in Dickens, and the sequence of scenes he has necessarily altered; and the relationship of Smike to Mr. Ralph Nickleby may be guessed at early in his work. The Crumles family have no place in the play; we do not make the acquaintance of Mr. Mantalini; and even Mrs. Nickleby herselfin being all she was meant to be-is little better who perhaps never quite succeeded, in the book, than a shadow. On the other hand, much prominence is given to Newman Noggs, and some to Brooker-whom Mr. Shore does not make less melodramatic than the novelist has made

him-and to Squeers and Mrs. Squeers, Miss Squeers, Tilda Price and John Browdie much room is naturally assigned. Mr. Halliday has not, we think, had as good material to work upon as when he undertook to dramatise David Copperfield and Dombey. It is true that he made of Dombey almost two distinct plays in one evening's entertainment, but both had interest, and one gave occasion for the most artistic display of humble and peculiar life that the stage had witnessed for a very long time. In presenting in his version of Nickleby one connected story, his work has both gained and lost. But as regards this particular novel the gain is greater than the loss. That Nickleby would on the whole be well acted appeared pretty certain from the list of strong names in the programme. But the owners of one or two of the strong names do not fit their parts quite as well as they are accustomed to. Mrs. Alfred Mellon has been seen to far greater advantage than in the character of Mrs. Squeers, though she appears to realize what most of the audience desire to have presented them. Mr. John Clarke as Squeers brings humour and experience to his task, acting, as usual, with alertness and energy; but his luscious voice and genial utterance are perhaps out of keeping with the presentation of Squeers, who was probably a more morose rogue. Mr. Emery looks John Browdie to the life, and acts throughout the tea party with the nervousthe world except women. ness of a big shy man who is afraid of nothing in But John Browdie's part is noticeable for little beside geniality of nature, and though Mr. Emery has presented us with few more accurate portraits, he has given us more interesting and more touching work. Mr. Fernandez makes up well as Ralph Nickleby, and Mr. C. J. Smith-a veteran at the Adelphi-gives us a good picture, a bit of the true Dickens, in his lachrymose Snawley. Nicholas Nickleby himself is represented with some grace and youthfulness of feeling by Mr. Terriss. Newman Noggs is forcibly played by Mr. Belmore. The gait of the besotted servant once a gentleman-is excellent. Notice the half-paralysed hands: a detail true, though repulsive. But of the softer elements in Newman Noggs' character Mr. Belmore is not so complete an exponent. Poor Smike is acted by a imbecility of the boy, but gives a sufficiently lady-Miss Lydia Foote. She does not seize the touching picture of the wrongs he suffers, and has a death-scene not without effect. As Mrs. Nickleby Mrs. Addie is poor. Miss Edith Stuart appears as Kate. Miss Harriet Coveney is good in the beginning of her representation of Miss Squeers, and Miss Hudspeth is set down for Tilda

Price.

MANY readers will have heard with surprise and regret of the death of Mr. H. L. Bateman, who for the last three or four years has been the lessee and manager of the Lyceum Theatre. Mr. Batemen died suddenly on Monday evening, at his house in Rutland Gardens. For very many years he had been engaged in theatrical and operatic enterprises, always prosecuted by him with energy, tact, and shrewdness; but no enterprise had been

more creditable to him than his last, by which he had sought to restore the poetical drama to some lasting home on the English stage, and in so doing to give room for the fit display of the abilities of a wholly remarkable actor-Mr. Irving. The Lyceum Theatre has been closed during the week; but it will reopen on Monday, when the performances of Hamlet will be resumed.

THURSDAY next, it will be observed, is fixed for the first appearance of the Italian tragedian, Signor Salvini, at Drury Lane Theatre.

A NEW bouffonnerie is to be played immediately at the Strand, in place of Mr. Farnie's Loo, and we hear that they are also rehearsing a new comic drama by Mr. Byron, which in due time will take the place of Old Sailors.

THE Opéra Comique, in the Strand, reopens on Monday for a season of French plays. Sardou's Famille Benoiton will be performed, with Mdle. Andrée Kelly in the cast.

A REVIVAL of the Ticket of Leave Man, it is now announced, will follow. Two Orphans at the Olympic.

DURING the week Money has been acted at the Gaiety Theatre, where Rose Michel, with the new cast which we announced last week, will take its place to-night.

MISS LITTON and her company return from the East End to the West End, on Monday evening, appearing for the first time at the Saint James's Theatre, where the Pit, which was lately banished, has wisely been restored.

THE Nation is outspoken in its criticism of Mrs. Rousby, who has just been playing at New York. "Her acting," it says, "is absolutely flat and weak-uninspired, untrained, unfinished. It was singular to see so extremely pretty a person take so little the critical chill off the atmosphere. Mrs. Rousby is distinctly incompetent." But the Nation is not the first paper that has told Mrs. Rousby that she has her art to learn.

MANY will be surprised to learn that the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs dramatiques, founded by Scribe in 1829, has now 749 members. Of these only seventeen are ladies.

Les Ingrats, by M. Jules Claretie, is the last new production at the Théâtre de Cluny.

THE death is announced of Mdme. Ancelot, who wrote many pieces for the Paris stage. The Mariage Raisonnable was her first piece, at the Théâtre Français; and she afterwards wrote for the Variétés and other theatres. Her daughter married Maître Lachaud, the famous advocate.

MUSIC.

MONDAY POPULAR CONCERTS. THE seventeenth season of these concerts was brought to a close last Monday, the director's benefit taking place on that evening. As usual on this occasion, Mr. Chappell brought together a large number of the artists who through the past season have taken a prominent part in the concerts; and the programme, though consisting for the most part of well-established favourites, was, crowd St. James's Hall to the doors. perhaps partly for that very reason, sufficient to As a representative programme, that of Monday night is worth giving in its entirety. It commenced with Beethoven's quintett in C, Op. 29, played by Messrs. Joachim, L. Ries, Straus, Zerbini, and Piatti. Mdlle. Sophie Löwe then sang two songs by Schumann ("Waldesgespräch" and "Frühlingsnacht"), after which Mendelssohn's well-known variations in D for piano and violoncello were given by Mdlle. Krebs and Signor Piatti. Two movements from Spohr's Duet in D for two violins (Op. 67, No. 2) succeeded, the performers being Mdme. Norman-Nóruda and Herr Joachim. After Miss Antoinette Sterling had brought forward Schubert's two songs "Der Lindenbaum"

and "Der Tod und das Mädchen," the first part concluded with Beethoven's Sonata in G, for piano and violin (Op. 30, No. 3), played by Dr. Bülow and Herr Joachim.

The second part of the concert comprised the Andante with variations for piano and violin forming the second movement of Mozart's Sonata in F for those instruments, which on the present occasion fell to the share of Mr. Charles Hallé and Mdme. Norman-Neruda; Chopin's song "Polen's Grabgesang; " (Miss Antoinette Sterling); three of Brahms's" Hungarian Dances" arranged for violin and piano by Herr Joachim, and performed by that gentleman and Dr. Bülow, one being encored; and, lastly, Bach's Triple Concerto in D minor for three pianos with double quartett accompaniments, the three pianists being Mdlle. Krebs, Dr. Bülow and Mr. Charles Hallé, and the accompaniments being sustained by Messrs. Joachim, L. Ries, Pollitzer, Wiener, Straus, Zerbini, Piatti, Daubert, and Reynolds. With such artists as those enumerated any detailed criticism of the performance becomes altogether superfluous. It will be more to the purpose, as well as more interesting, to attempt a slight review of the season which on Monday was brought to such a successful close.

There can be little doubt that Mr. Chappell has had, so to speak, to make his own public. When the Monday Popular Concerts were commenced in 1859, our concert-goers could be attracted only by well-known names, and not always by them. A" Beethoven night " or a "Mendelssohn night" might be counted on as a probable success; but at that time the announcement of a new work by Brahms or Raff would certainly not have been expected to bring together a large audience. Mr. Chappell, however, by sheer perseverance, has educated his hearers till they are capable not merely of enjoying but of appreciating good music whencesoever it may come. There is probably no more discriminating audience, whether as regards the merit of the music or of the performance, than that which assembles on a Monday in St. James's Hall. Were it otherwise, the director would hardly have ventured to produce so many new and unknown works as he has done during the past season. Among the novelties, or almost novelties, brought forward, have been Beethoven's Variations, Op. 121, for piano, violin and violoncello; Spohr's Third Trio (in A minor, Op. 124) and his piano Quintett in D minor, Op. 130; Schumann's Toccata in C, "Faschingsschwank aus Wien," Fantasiestücke, Op. 88, and Sonata in D minor for piano and violin; Schubert's Fantasia in C, Op. 159, for the same instruments; Chopin's Sonata in G minor, Op. 65, for piano and violoncello; Brahms's Sextett in B flat (Op. 18), his piano Quartett in A, and his piano Quintett in F minor; Raff's Suite for piano in E minor, and Sonata in D for piano and violin; Rubinstein's Trio in B flat, Grieg's Sonata in F for piano and violin, Gernsheim's Trio in F, and Rheinberger's piano Quartett in E flat. Besides these works, Bennett's Chamber Trio in A, and his Sonata "The Maid of Orleans" were given at a memorial concert; and on every evening the programme has included some of those old-established favourites which can scarcely be heard too often. Mr. Chappell may well be proud of such a retrospect as that of the season now ended, which is not only most honourable in itself, but which affords well-grounded reason to hope that the course which he has adopted of bringing out of his treasury things new as well as old will be adhered to in future seasons.

EBENEZER PROUT.

A GENUINE treat was afforded to musicians at the Crystal Palace last Saturday by a particularly fine performance of Schumann's symphony in D minor. This remarkable work has been repeatedly produced at these concerts-the one in question being its eleventh performance there-but has, strange to say, seldom if ever been heard elsewhere in this country. That it is one of Schu

mann's finest and most finished works can, perhaps, hardly be affirmed; that it is one of his most individual may safely be maintained. With the exception of the second subject of the finale, which was (no doubt unconsciously) suggested by a theme from Beethoven's symphony in D, the ideas are throughout most original; and the treatment is no less so. The work is the first example of a symphony " in one movement," as the author himself describes it on his title-page; the four, or rather five, divisions of the piece having not merely that external connexion which arises from their following one another continuously and without break in performance, but that deeper internal unity resulting from the employment of the same subjects in different parts of the work-the theme of the introduction recurring in the "Romance," while the principal subject of the finale is founded on an important episode of the first allegro. May not this symphony have suggested to Liszt the form which he has adopted, and so largely extended, in his "Symphonische Dichtungen," of using the same leading subjects ("Leitmotive") in variously metamorphosed forms throughout the different parts of his compositions? With respect to the performance of the symphony, we can but repeat the phrases which it is needful to employ nearly every week--it was simply the perfection of symphony-playing. The remaining orchestral pieces of this concert were Hiller's "Dramatic Fantasia" (Op. 157), an interesting and scholarly work which was written for the opening of the new theatre at Cologne in 1872, and first performed at the Crystal Palace in the following March, and Weber's overture to Euryanthe. The solo instrumentalist was Mdme. Norman-Nóruda, who brought forward Viotti's concerto for violin in A minor (No. 22), which she played with her wellknown purity of tone and delicacy of style. work itself is of chiefly historical interest, being of course, like nearly all the older Italian music, not destitute of melody, but somewhat oldfashioned, and, as a whole, dull. The vocalists were Mdme. Lemmens-Sherrington, who sang Auber's brilliant "Ah quelle nuit!" from Le Domino Noir, and Beethoven's "Kennst du das Land," and Miss Antoinette Sterling, who, whether from a misunderstanding with her accompanyist, or from some other unexplained cause, had to "try back" twice with her first song (one by Blumenthal) with an effect more novel than agreeable. This afternoon Bach's great cantata "Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss" (one of his noblest works), is to be performed at these concerts for the first time in England.

The

As we are obliged this week to go to press on an earlier day than usual, we are prevented from giving, as we had intended, an account of the Passion week performances of Bach's Passion according to Matthew, under Mr. Barnby, at the Royal Albert Hall. It is a gratifying sign of the progress towards popularity which Bach's masterpiece is rapidly making in this country that the directors of these concerts should have been encouraged to repeat the experiment of last year, and to perform this great work three times in one week.

MR. MAPLESON has issued his prospectus for the coming season of Her Majesty's Opera, Drury Lane, the opening night of which is fixed for the 10th proximo. His list of artistes includes, besides most of the members of the company last season, the new names of Mdlles. Varesi and Pernini, and of Signori Bignardi and Panzetta. Far more interesting, however, than the mere recital of names is the list of promises, which for the sake of art it is much to be hoped may not result in a mere paving of the nether regions. The intended production of Lohengrin has been already announced in the ACADEMY, and the complete cast which Mr. Mapleson now gives is as follows: Elsa, Mdme. Christine Nilsson; Ortrud, Mdlle. Titiens; Lohengrin, Signor Campanini;

[MARCH 27, 1875.

Telramund, Signor Galassi; King Henry, Her Behrens; and Herald, Signor Costa. That Si Michael Costa will do his utmost to secure a fin performance no one will for a moment doubt; i is only earnestly to be hoped that the spirit may not move him to retouch Wagner's masterl orchestration. Hardly less welcome than the promise of Lohengrin is the announced revival of Cherubini's Medea, with Mdlle. Titiens as the heroine, a part she has made completely her own. Balfe's Talismano, as might be expected, again occupies a prominent place in the programme, and a new opera, Gli Amanti di Verona, composed by the Marquis d'Ivry, in which Mdme. Nilasca will sustain the principal character, is also in the list of novelties. Best of all however, for true lovers of music is Mr. Mapleson's intimation that in order to meet the increasing taste for works of the highest artistic value, one evening in each week will, as an experiment, be devoted to classical opera. Among works of this class named in the prospectus we find, besides the Medea already mentioned, Fidelio, Der Freischütz, Il Flauto Magico, Don Giovanni, and Figaro. We sincerely hope that the result of the "experiment" may be sufficiently favourable to warrant its continuance; but remembering the sad fate of Les Deux Journées in 1872, and the present state of operatic fashion, it is impossible to feel very sanguine. The frequenters of the opera mostly go there not to hear good music, but to listen to their favourite singers. It will be indeed a happy result if Mr. Mapleson's venture should succeed in raising their taste to the required standard.

quartett, offered last year by the Société des Beaux THE prize for the composition of the best string Luigini, of Lyons, who last year obtained a similar Arts of Caen, has been awarded to M. Alex. distinction for a string quartett at Paris.

THE German Government intend, according to the Allgemeine Zeitung, to build a new quarter in Berlin, in which all the streets and squares will be named in honour of great composers and musi cians, as has already been done in the case of artists.

SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1875.

No. 152, New Series.

THE EDITOR cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscript.

It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER, and not to the EDITOR.

LITERATURE.

The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland to the close of the Twelfth Century, &c. With 54 Plates. By Richard Rolt Brash, Architect, M.R.I.A., F.S.A.Scot., Fellow of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland. 4to. (Dublin: Kelly. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1875.)

SINCE Petrie gave to the public his (alas!) unfinished work on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland previous to the AngloNorman Invasion, the work which heads this article is the most important and valuable contribution to an interesting and almost unexplored branch of knowledge. When, however, we bracket these works together, and indicate the value of Mr. Brash's volume, we are far from wishing to dethrone Petrie from his well-earned pre-eminence. However meritoriously Mr. Brash may follow in the track of his predecessor, yet, haud passibus aequis must be the verdict; and that it should be 20 is not a disparagement to Petrie's follower. Petrie, as was almost inevitable to the explorer of paths totally untrodden, has made mistakes, and of these the greatest was the assignment of too early a date to the specimens of Irish church architecture which he illustrated so well. That Petrie was convinced

they should, as a class, be left out of a treatise on ecclesiastical architecture which very properly arrays examples of the masonry of avowedly pre-Christian cashels and crypts among the facts by which it is conclusively proved that Irish builders constructed stone edifices, and were available for their erection, when Christianity was introduced early in the fifth century. It certainly looks like an instinctive shrinking from the truth of the Pagan theory of the towers, when a writer of Mr. Brash's known proclivities on the question, although he describes a few of them incidentally, has omitted to cite them as triumphant proofs that cemented and tool-dressed masonry was known to the Pagan Gaels.

But to return to the work before us. The author's plan first leads him to treat of confessedly pre-historic structures, into the constructive features of which masonry enters; the proofs of this must be looked for, curiously enough, at both the commencement and conclusion of the work; while last of all he gives an interesting account of the great traditional builder of the Irish-the Goban Saer.

devoid of cement of any kind; in most inAll the examples of this class are stances, as in the walls of the crypts, or souterrains, of earthen raths, they consist of rough unjointed masonry; but he gives some examples of the fine jointing or joggling of the stones one into another, which are very examples of the fine jointing or joggling of remarkable. He then passes on to the earliest Oratories, and proves their connexion with the buildings of the pre-Christian period in this last-mentioned feature, the sole improvement being the use of mortar. These early oratories he divides into two classes: the first devoid of ornament, of small size and quasi-cyclopean masonry, the doors squareheaded, with inclined jambs; the vaults with which they were covered not being true arches, but formed on the same principle as the bee-hive vaulted crypts, and clogháns or stone-roofed huts: some of these build

At

mencement of the eleventh century. this point our author breaks off, and devotes his sixth chapter to an enquiry as to the origin of early Irish art, which he professes to trace from the rude stone carvings-the spirals and chevrons-of the burial mounds of the Lough Crew Hills and the sepulchral chamber of New Grange on the Boyne:-

"In these rock sculptures, then, we see most undoubtedly the germs of that art for which the Irish in subsequent ages became so famous. These forms can be traced downwards in the illumination of manuscripts, upon grave slabs, and on the monumental crosses."

That Byzantine art, however, influenced this development Mr. Brash acknowledges, and he attributes this influence to the close connexion that existed between the Irish Church and Eastern Christianity. When, therefore, he heads his seventh chapter with the title "The Romanesque Period," it is to be presumed that he means Eastern Romanesque.

he

The architecture of the twelfth century in Ireland receives a large share of Mr. Brash's attention. Our space forbids us to enter fully on his descriptions of the many tecture which this period affords : beautiful examples of Irish church archidescribes, among others, the porch of shin church, the chancel arches of MonaClonfert Cathedral, the doorway of Kelleincha, and of the Nun's church, Clonmacnois, and the ancient Cathedral of Cashel, now called Cormac's chapel; and is the first to call attention in the croft or upper chamber of the last-mentioned building to the existence of a pointed arch in the vaulting, dating from the earlier half of the twelfth century.

The last phase of Irish church architecture to which Mr. Brash refers, is that which came into fashion with the introduction of the Cistercian order about the middle

of the twelfth century. He considers Cormac's chapel to have been probably the last

for

truth that the necessity of retracting his error was a task he shrank from, and although he had prepared the illustrations and was familiar with the matter necessary the completion of his of his second volume, yet it never saw the light; while by a strange nemesis his glorious woodcuts, drawn lovingly on the block in his unequalled style, and no less lovingly and beautifully engraved under his own eye, were sold by his publishers, after his death, to pay the expenses incurred, and now go to form the illustrations in the book which ventilates Mr. Marcus Keane's "Cuthite" theory, and converts the saints of Ireland into demons and idols!

Mr. Brash may object to Petrie that the work of the latter was written with a foregone conclusion; but at least Petrie is not open to the charge of writing an essay on the Architecture of Ireland which avowedly leaves out of its field the Round Towers of that country. And it cannot but be held a blot in Mr. Brash's work, that let these remarkable structures be what they may (and Mr. Brash openly and honestly avows his belief that they are not of Christian origin *), * Mr Brash says, when speaking of the lesser round tower at Clonmacnois, " much ado has been made about

era;

damp climate of Ireland.

whose arrangement, construction, and details were in accordance with the traditions of native architecture. To St. Malachi O'Morgair's intimacy with St. Bernard he thinks we owe the introduction of a new style. On his way home from Rome as Apostolic Legate for all Ireland, he visited St. Bernard at Clairvaux, by whom he was persuaded to introduce the Cistercian order of monks into Ireland; and the postulants whom he sent for instruction to St. Bernard having returned, accompanied by some Gaulish monks, they were established in the place now called Mellifont, in the county of Louth, A.D. 1142. There is a decidedly Gallie tendency in the details of the small portion of the original buildings of Mellifont which has come down to us, and which perhaps is due to the presence of the foreign monks who accompanied the Irish postulants on their return from France; but although the lightness and beauty apparent in the style of the so-called baptistry of Mellifont may be

* Although Mr. Brash has come to the conclusion that this octagonal building pierced with richly moulded openings on each of its eight faces is a baptistry, it does not seem certain that it was so. baptistries were not usually adjuncts to monastic houses. The polygonal chapter houses attached to Wells and Salisbury would seem to tell strongly in