brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, filled with monkish legends and academical controversies! what bogs of theological speculations! what dreary wastes of metaphysics! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illuminated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely separate heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age."4 I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent; the clasps were closed; and it looked perfectly unconscious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further conversation, but in vain; and whether all this rambling colloquy actually took place, or whether it was another of those odd day-dreams to which I am subject, I have never to this moment been able to discover. Thorow earth and waters deepe, The pen by skill doth passe; And featly nyps the worldes abuse, The vertu and the vice Of every wight alyve: The honey-comb that bee doth make As are the golden leves That drop from poet's head! Which doth surmount our common talke As farre as dross doth lead. "Churchyard." RICHARD HENRY DANA 1787-1879 Richard Henry Dana, whose career must not be confounded with that of his son, Richard Henry Dana, Junior, the author of "Two Years before the Mast," was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1787. He spent three years at Harvard, and was admitted to the bar in 1811. The law, however, had no attraction for him, and he soon devoted himself to literary pursuits. In 1814 he assisted in founding the "North American Review" in Boston, and in 1818 became one of its editors. During this period he contributed to that magazine a series of critical papers, notably one reviewing the entire field of English poetry down to Wordsworth, which gave proof of his fine culture and literary ability. He published two psychological novels, " Tom Thornton and "Paul Felton," now seldom read, and a volume of poems likewise too metaphysical to gain permanent popularity. His lectures on Shakespeare, which were well received and greatly admired, are perhaps his best and most successful literary effort. His admirable essay on "Kean's Acting" shows his profound appreciation of Shakespeare, and gives an excellent idea of his literary acumen and artistic temperament. Few dramatic criticisms contain such subtle analyses of an actor's interpretation, few are more suggestive and instructive. In 1850 Dana published an edition of his collected works in two volumes. He seldom wrote for publication after this, and was but rarely seen in public, passing his summers at Manchester-by-the-Sea, and his winters at Boston. He died in 1879, at the advanced age of ninety-two. Taken as a whole, Dana's work is somewhat disappointing, inasmuch as it failed in the fulfilment of the promises of his youth. His influence extended only to the limited circle of the cultured and refined. His literary style is classic and severe, perfectly polished, faultless in form, but somewhat cold and colorless. In his literary criticisms he is at his best. Here his style is admirably adapted to the subject, and his acute discernment and keen analytical powers find their proper field. I KEAN'S ACTING HAD scarcely thought of the theatre for several years, when Kean arrived in this country; and it was more from curiosity than from any other motive, that I went to see, for the first time, the great actor of the age. I was soon lost to the recollection of being in a theatre, or looking upon a grand display of the "mimic art." The simplicity, earnestness, and sincerity of his acting made me forgetful of the fiction, and bore me away with the power of reality and truth. If this be acting, said I, as I returned home, I may as well make the theatre my school, and henceforward study nature at second hand. How can I describe one who is nearly as versatile and almost as full of beauties as nature itself-who grows upon us the more we are acquainted with him, and makes us sensible that the first time we saw him in any part, however much he may have moved us, we had but a vague and poor apprehension of the many excellencies of his acting. We cease to consider it as a mere amusement: It is a great intellectual feast; and he who goes to it with a disposition and capacity to relish it will receive from it more nourishment for his mind than he would be likely to in many other ways in fourfold the time. Our faculties are opened and enlivened by it; our reflections and recollections are of an elevated kind; and the very voice which is sounding in our ears long after we have left him creates an inward harmony which is for our good. Kean, in truth, stands very much in that relation to other players whom we have seen, that Shakespeare does to other dramatists. One player is called classical; another makes fine. points here, and another there. Kean makes more fine points than all of them together; but in him these are only little prominences, showing their bright heads above a beautifully undulated surface. A constant change is going on in him, partaking of the nature of the varying scenes he is passing through, and the many thoughts and feelings which are shifting within him. In a clear autumnal day we may see here and there a deep white cloud shining with metallic brightness against a blue sky, and now and then a dark pine swinging its top in the wind with the melancholy sound of the sea; but who can note the shifting and untiring play of the leaves of the wood and their passing hues, when each one seems a living thing full of delight, and vain of its gaudy attire? A sound, too, of universal harmony is in our ears, and a wide-spread beauty before our eyes, which we cannot define; yet a joy is in our hearts. Our delight increases in these, day after day, the longer we give ourselves to them, till at last we become as it were a part of the existence without us. So it is with natural characters. They grow upon us imperceptibly till we become fast bound up in them, we scarce know when or how. So it will fare with the actor who is deeply filled with nature, and is perpetually throwing off her beautiful evanescences. Instead of becoming tired of him, as we do, after a time, of others, he will go on, giving something which will be new to the observing mind; and will keep the feelings alive, because their action will be natural. I have no doubt that, excepting those who go to a play as children look into a show-box to admire and exclaim at distorted figures, and raw, unharmonious colors, there is no man of a moderately warm temperament, and with a tolerable share of insight into human nature, who would not find his interest in Kean increasing with a study of him. It is very possible that the excitement would in some degree lessen, but there would be a quieter delight, instead of it, stealing upon him as he became familiar with the character of his acting. The versatility in his playing is striking. He seems not the same being, taking upon him at one time the character of Richard, at another that of Hamlet; but the two characters appear before you as distinct individuals, who had never known nor heard of each other. So completely does he become the character he is to represent that we have sometimes thought it a reason why he was not universally better liked here in Richard; and that because the player did not make himself a little more visible, he must needs bear a share of our hate towards the cruel king. And this may the more be the case, as his construction of |