opposite principles? Why should the one
system be a national honour to us, while—let us
pretend to put it aside as we may—the other
is a national disgrace?

A BLUSH.

"THE ELOQUENT BLOOD."

IN a blush doth a tell-tale appear
That speaks to the eye, quite as plain
As language itself can convey to the ear,
Some tender confession of pleasure or pain;
What thoughts we should never impart,
What secrets we never should speak,
If the fountain of truth in the heart
Did not rise in a blush to the cheek.

As the blossom of spring on the bough
Is promise of fruits yet unseen,
So the colour that mantles thy beauty just now
May be but prophetic of hopes but yet green.
How vain is each delicate art
Of concealment, when nature would speak,
And the fountain of truth in the heart
Will arise in a blush to the cheek!

GAG.

ART of all kinds is suffering much damage in
these days from the practice of making clap-trap
do duty for the force of intellect and the power
of skill. In literature, science, art, and in the
professions which we call learned,

                         We are all gagging,
                         Gag, gag, gagging.

The word is a coinage of the mimic world of
the stage. Let us begin there.

Actors are fond of quoting Hamlet's address
to the players. When an actor gets up to make
an after-dinner speech about his art, he is pretty
sure to say that "its purpose is to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue
her own feature, scorn her own image, and the
very age and body of the time his form and
pressure." But here he stops short. He finds
it convenient to forget, or possibly he has never
learned, the passage which succeeds: "Let
those that play your clowns speak no more than
is set down for them, for there be of them that
will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity
of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the
mean time some necessary question of the play
be then to be considered. That's villanous,
and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool
that uses it." It would appear from this that
in Shakespeare's time only those who played
clowns indulged in the villanous and pitiful
practice of gagging; but in these modern days
it has become universal. And if it were
villanous three centuries ago, how much more
villanous is it now in the boasted era of taste,
education, and enlightenment? In the dark days of
the patents, before the drama achieved its freedom,
managers exercised some control over their
clowns, and enforced observance of Hamlet's
rules by fines; but, latterly, the principle of
free (and easy) trade in dramatic art has knocked
off all such fetters, and actors are licensed to
say and do whatever may come into their heads.
Gagging has become a vice, and the form which
it takes in this modern and familiar age is both
an offence against propriety and an obstruction
in the way of the progress of dramatic art. It
is particularly offensive in our day, because the
favourite gags are generally an echo of the
senseless vulgarities and slang expressions of
the street-boys. The gags of which Shakespeare
complained were probably nothing more
than strained amplifications of his text. It is
this sort of thing which Sheridan satirised in
the Critic, when, on the announcement of three
morning guns, he made Mr. Puff exclaim:
"Three morning guns! These people never
know when to stop." How Sheridan would
have been horrified to hear the villanous gag
which is now commonly introduced into his
famous scandal speech about the duel, the pistol-
bullet, the little bronze statue, and the post-
man. Nothing could be more perfect and
complete than this speech, culminating in that
triumphant climax of circumstantiality, "the post-
man with a double letter from Northamptonshire."

One would think the actor would be content
with this. But no; he never knows when to
stop, and he must needs go on to add; "but I
really forget whether the letter was post-paid or
not." The laugh comes here, and the actor is
encouraged to think that he has improved the
speech; but if he would only look calmly at
the words he has added, he would find that they
are a violation of the whole point of the relation.
Sir Benjamin Backbite is circumstantial,
or nothing. But this nonsense is now an
established gag.

It is in a great measure owing to the copying
of these gags, and to the slavish observance of
traditions, that we have no striking originality
on the stage. Every new actor who comes out is
like some other actor, because he has copied
him, sometimes at second and third hand. Not
long ago, we went to see a young actor play a
part in which the late Mr. Robson made a great
hit. The performance was a close imitation of
Mr. Robson's manner, and a careful reproduction
of his business. We were assured,
however, that the young actor had never seen Mr.
Robson. But he had seen another actor who
had seen him. He had caught the manner at
second hand. Perhaps it would scarcely be
credited that gags are written out and passed
from one person to another—handed down from
generation to generation like heirlooms, or
recipes for making catsup. When an actor,
who has not previously played the part, is
suddenly called upon to play, say, Moses in the
School for Scandal, he rushes off to some other
actor for the gags. And you may take your
oath of it, that he will say, "I'll take my oath
of that," many more times than it is set down
for him. One of the instructions to a novice in
the part is this:

"Get Careless to hit you over the fingers
with the family pedigree when he knocks down