laughed the idea to scorn, and appealed to each other as to the possibility of such a thing.

If the mounted police want any thing, they have only to ask for it,' said Millighan. At this present we are out of tea, sugar, and tobacco, and if you could supply us with some, for the price of which I will give you an order on Lieutenant Mole, our commanding officer, in Bathurst Town, we shall be very much obliged to you.'

Oh, certainly!-how much do you require?' asked the Major. "Why, sir, about five pounds of tea, fifteen pounds of sugar, three pounds of tobacco, and about half-agallon of spirits, rum, gin, or brandy,' said Millighan.

While these stores were being weighed out, Millighan wrote an order for payment on Lieutenant Mole, and signed it 'Walker, lancecorporal."

Corporal, will you allow me to speak a few words to you in private?' said Major Grimes.

By all means, sir,' said Millighan, following the Major into the verandah, where he walked up and down, his heavy sabre in its steel scabbard dangling at his side.

Corporal," said Major Grimes, confidentially, a shepherd of mine this morning told me that he knows the very spot which those desperate dogs make their head-quarters.' Indeed,' said Millighan; where may the spot be P

and

That's the point,' said the Major. The fellow knows the secret is worth something, and he wont tell; but he says he'll point it out if we will go with him and take a large force, and promise to obtain for him a pardon, and give him a portion of the reward that is offered: three of their number are worth 3007.-a hundred each, you know.'

The man's terms are very moderate,' said Millighan-very moderate. Of his free pardon he would be quite sure; but if he wants a good share of the money, the fewer that have to do with the capture the better. Let me and my men have some conversation with him, and who knows that by this time tomorrow we may not have the whole gang, dead or alive?'

Flower was now summoned to the

council. He heard, with well-acted delight, what the Major communicated, entirely agreed with Millighan that the fewer who had a hand in the capture the better, and proposed that the shepherd should be at once sent for and questioned.

The shepherd repeated his story -that he had seen the den at a distance, and could point it out, for he had marked with a tomahawk several leading trees as landmarks; but he said he could not describe the road to the den, it was so intricate and round

about. From his description of the den, there could be no doubt that he was possessed of the secret, which, as Major Grimes had truly observed, was well worth knowing. At first he declined to go, unless accompanied by a large force; but after a while he yielded to the persuasive arguments of Millighan, which Flower was reluctantly compelled to support.

It was half-past two in the day when the shepherd, mounted on a fine mare belonging to Major Grimes, his master, set out with Millighan, Flower, and Drohne, whose saddle-bags were crammed with supplies, to lead the way to the bushrangers' den.

'How did you happen to stumble across it, my man ?' inquired Millighan, when they were about two miles distant from the road, and in the heart of a forest peopled only by kangaroos, opposums, and wild

cats.

Why, one day,' the shepherd replied, I was out looking for a working-bullock in this direction, and I lost my way and had to sleep in the bush all night. Next morning, when daylight appeared, I wandered about, almost starved to death, when suddenly I came upon the print of a horse's foot. This I followed, and at last I came upon a path, where I lost sight of the print of the horse's foot, and came upon the print of a dog's foot, which was quite fresh. Hulloa, says I, I can't be far off some cattle station; and I followed the track for about three mile, when I came to a creek, where I saw a horse drinking. Now that horse belonged to a gentleman who had it stole. It belonged to one of Billy Wentworth's overseers, and

measure called for by the exigencies of the case and the increasing population of the metropolis. Yet it is in vain to deny that the extended privileges have operated, in some respects, unfavourably upon the histrionic art. With twenty-seven theatres of more or less importance, open nearly at the same time, it has become next to impossible for a manager to collect, or if collected to keep long together, an efficient troupe of performers. The second-rate actor of a west-end theatre, especially if he excels in 'Hercles' vein,' is the magnus Apollo' of a city establishment, and by merely crossing the bridges' earns golden opinions, and an advanced salary to boot. His praises indeed are not sung in the columns of the Times or Morning Chronicle, but his pudding is sure, and he is probably not nice as to the discrimination of his audiences. But from this it results, not only that the lucky emigrant to the east has less urgent motives to study the details of his art, and to raise himself by just gradations in his profession, but also that his duties at a superior theatre devolve through his absence upon still less competent performers than himself, and both by what it loses and what it keeps the general character of the troupe is impaired. And even in the case of better performers than the one we have supposed, the number of theatres of a higher order is adverse to the stability of a company, unless the manager buys his monopoly at a heavy pecuniary sacrifice. At the patent theatres the same company played for years together, in the winter at Covent Garden or Drury Lane; in the summer season at the Haymarket, or at most varied their engagements by starring it' in the country. They thus acquired both a distinctive position in their respective circles, and a corporate interest in the company generally. Each in short became a part of a well-organized whole. Even to actors of the first order this was no inconsiderable advantage. It was a kind of regimental discipline, or rather such a training as two elevens' at cricket gain by playing customarily on the same ground. To inferior performers, again, it was a decided

VOL. XLVIII. NO. CCLXXXV.

benefit to perform frequently with the acknowledged masters of their art. Whereas under the present system there is no such principle of collision; an actor flits from the Haymarket to the Adelphi, from the Adelphi to the Olympic theatres without attaching himself to any one of them. By frequency of change the general discipline is slackened; and managers, vexed with the uncertainty of their troupes, come to regard their scenery and wardrobe as the only permanent forces of their establishment.

Another source of managerial difficulty in collecting a company arises from the circumstance that provincial theatres have nearly ceased to be the nurseries of the metropolitan stage. In the provinces, for a theatre to pay the expenses of keeping it open is now almost as great a prodigy as if an ox should speak. The rural frequenters of the playhouse, whom a few hours and a few shillings will convey to the Strand, think scorn of the performances that contented their simpler and less locomotive sires. Even in Race or Assize weeks the stewards' and sheriffs' 'bespeaks' do not half fill the boxes. The country manager consequently has neither the means nor a motive for training or seeking out histrionic talents; and if his company should possess a performer better than ordinary, the world of London is all before him where to choose.

In

the days of the patent theatres he would have been a hardy débutant, and most probably a luckless one, who had ventured to meet a metropolitan audience before he established his provincial character at Bath, Norwich, or York. At one or other of those cities, and sometimes in all three, he served his apprenticeship; at York especially, under the well known Tate Wilkinson, the aspirant was sure to receive a sound education in his art, somewhat roughly administered. Whereas now, under the regimen of theatrical free-trade, the city theatres have taken the place of the provincial, and the terra incognita of Shoreditch or Whitechapel intercepts many a recruit who would otherwise have been cleaving with horrid shout the general ear at Plymouth or Southampton. This, however, is but a poor

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substitute for the more regular discipline of an established provincial theatre, for although the legitimate drama' (Shakspeare included) is much encouraged by the men of the east, as yet no Roscius has stepped westward' from those regions, nor indeed is the style of acting favoured there like to recruit more westerly theatres with many efficient members.

Doubtless among the stock picces in vogue fifty years ago there were many which the present age would no longer endure, and which have been most rightfully consigned to that valley of dust and dry bonesthe library of the theatre. Our grandsires were contented and even edified by performances which we, accustomed to more stimulating species of literature, account utterly stale, flat, and unprofitable. Another generation may very possibly designate the bulk of our present dramatic compositions by even harsher names. But let them look to that matter: we are now neither absolving nor condemning. Many, however, of these flat and unprofitable stock-pieces, as we now esteem them, are really better adapted to the conditions of histrionic art than the broader horrors and humours of the present stage. They attempted, in the first place, no rivalry with literature -as literary productions, indeed, they are for the most part below contempt and by abstaining from such competition their authors proved themselves wiser in their generation than many of their successors; for though the spheres of the drama and literature may occasionally touch, they can never coincide without respective forfeiture of their proper natures. In some respects, indeed, the literature of the day acts unfavourably upon the theatres.

We can take tea and scandal, or sup full with horrors at home, through the medium of our novelists, without exposing ourselves to the disasters of heated rooms, narrow benches, crowds, or unjust cabmen. But these domestic and untroubled delights impose upon authors, actors, and managers a necessity for providing us, if they would live by their callings, with something yet more stimulating abroad. We

Englishmen are often twitted with being an uninventive people; and assuredly, though we occasionally produce a startling murder, yet in devising stage horrors, or in conceiving intricate, yet cunningly evolved plots, we come very far behind our neighbours in France. To convey'-as the wise call it—a drama from Paris is now, with a few striking exceptions, our only practice. We notice it, however, on this occasion, merely to remark upon its relations to acting. We admit the frequent excellence of the plots so conveyed; yet we are persuaded that they both lose considerably by the transfer, and impose new burdens on the actors. They lose by the transfer, because our ways are not as their ways, our manners and morals-be they better or worse is not now the question-are not French manners and morals; and, accordingly, the actor can no longer copy from the life which he sees, but is constrained to transcribe a model with which he is unacquainted. Neither is our language-so superior in many higher respects-adapted to the conversational tone of French comedy; and, therefore, in most of the adoptions, while the plot remains nearly intact, the lightness and grace of the dialogue is, in many cases, sacrificed. As far as regards the diction alone, we succeed better with the French melodrama. Yet, even in this case, the actor is forced into undue exaggeration, in order that his impersonation may not sink below the unnatural situations or terrors of the scenes. In the older farcesthose veterans which sufficed our simpler ancestors-the humour was, at least, English; and in the older tragedies, the part was generally to be made by the performer. In the modern farce and melodrama, the actor has little more to do than to accommodate his idiosyncrasy to the part. It would be useless for him to study actual life for the purpose of representing sentiments or situations that occur only in the teeming brains of the writers.

It would be easy for us to mention the names of English writers for the stage to whose productions none of these objections will apply, and English actors who, in the midst of