between the speakers, and the protagonistes in most cases uses more verses than the deuteragonistes. This is in leed a peculiarity of all Greek tragedies; but in Eschylus it is more striking than in any of his successors.

Eschylus also introduced great improvements in the choral dance. He invented several dances himself, instructed the dancers without the assistance of a teacher, and paid the most anxious attention to the orchestra performances of the chorus. With this care for the execution of the chorus, it was necessary to combine equal attention to the choral songs themselves, so as to render it practicable on the one hand to execute them with perfect accuracy, and on the other to produce a perfect harmony between the action and the words of the chorus.

Eschylus was also the first who saw the propriety of adapting the dress of the actors and the scenery to the characters which they represented. He intro duced the cothurnus or thick-soled buskin, and other artificial means to raise the figure of the actors above the standard of ordinary men; the masks were greatly improved by him; and he bestowed the utmost care and attention upon the whole of the theatrical wardrobe. The introduction of scene-painting is likewise ascribed to Aschylus ; and it was probably under his direction that Agatharchus painted the scenery for the first stone theatre at Athens. The machinery requisite for theatrical performances must have attained a high degree of perfection under Æschylus, on account of his frequent introduction of the gods and other supernatural beings upon the stage. Every thing of importance to the performance of the drama was thus either perfected or introduced by Æschylus, who left to his successors nothing but to complete the work which he had commenced.

ART. VI.

1. My Last Tour and First Work. By LADY VAVASOUR. Cunningham.

2. The Old River; or, the Chronicle of the Rhine. By CAPTAIN KNOX.

Oliver.

LADY VAVASOUR is an enthusiast in education, and proposed to herself to found an agricultural school on her property in the county of Wicklow, where she witnessed about three years ago, while wintering upon that estate, a great amount of misery. This was amongst the mountain-farmers, "who are often in great distress, where they might be in ease and comfort, if they knew how to cultivate their lands in a proper manner." To support a school, however, that would have to train in agricultural knowledge and art a hundred and sixty of the rising generation, was, she began to discover, more than her means could afford. But being obliged to travel for the benefit of her health, she bethought herself of writing a book containing an account of her tour, and her reflections in the course of it; the profits of the publication, if there are any, to be devoted to the said school, besides a subscription which she makes for the same end. The gains of authorship, and the result of her free-gift example, it is to be hoped, will be considerable.

66

The Last Tour and First Work" is in truth worthy of being read, and therefore ought to command a sale. Her ladyship's route itself had nothing new in it; for its principal features consisted of an ascent of the Rhine, and a visit to the baths of Wildbad and Rippoldsau; there being an interval between her residence at the two spas, which she spent at various places in Italy. But although there was nothing novel in the route, there is good matter as well as a right sort of amusement in the book. To be sure, Lady Vavasour entertains some crotchets, practically speaking, on the subject of education. Indeed, she has theories which she unaffectedly and sincerely puts forward, but which require to be reconsidered. For example she thus writes:

"One of the great evils of the education of our young men in England is, that it gives them no occupation: and when they enter the world, all the Latin and Greek they have spent so many preciors years of their lives in learning, they find useless in society. Many have almost forgotten it, and those who have some smattering of what has been flogged into them, dare not make use of it: if they did, few would understand their learned quotations, and all would dislike their pedantry,-whereas, the man who knows one living language besides his own, though he may know nothing else, gets before them. The scholar feels bashful and awkward,-vexed to think his education, and the enormous sum it has cost his parents, avail him so little, he shuns the society that might be so useful to him, and in which, with language, he would shine; he flies to the gaming table, where he finds a tongue he, unhappily, too soon understands,the excitement delights him,-the occupation kills the time he does not know what to do with,-and his soul, which the Almighty formed for nobler and better purposes, is sacrificed at the shrine of fortune. How many young men, of large possessions, have been ruined before they were aware of it, and, from this cause, have passed the latter days of their lives in repentance, that the morning of life was so ill spent,-while all this misery might have been saved by a Christian education, by teaching children to occupy themselves with the wonderful works of God, instead of the miserable, allegorical, mytho logical works of bad men, in barbarous times. Ovid, and his tribe, are unfit studies for the young of these more enlightened days. It is only wonderful, if they are what they are said to be, that still more mischief has not been done to those to whom they are given as examples of all that is great and noble in literature."

Not to speak of the strange vagary that brings Ovid and his tribe in by the shoulders, in order to make them answerable for the folly and vices of our educated young men in England at the gaming table; or of the utter mistake about the uses of studying the Latin and Greek; we must inform her ladyship that the education to be acquired in Germany by the said young men, were they or their parents to give it the preference, would not be found to improve the morals beyond what they actually are, but would in the general run of cases only vary the nature and amount of extravagances; at the

same time, destroying that nationality of manner and feeling which may afterwards be essential to their prosperity and happiness when they become regular citizens and exerting their influence at home.

But although her ladyship at times speaks unadvisedly, it is always with a right-heartedness as well as honest independence. More than this, she looks closely and describes pleasantly, seeing most things in their native and true colours; so that fresh spirit and plain reality go along with the feminine sentiment and neat expression. But above all is she to be admired among the shoals of journalists who have made books about the route she adopted, in that it was with what most tourists have deemed it unworthy of their fine pens to have to do, that she chiefly concerned herself; thus adding to our knowledge as well as conveying a truer picture than imaginary and high colouring can ever furnish. And this fair and sensible way she takes with society as well as scenery,-with economical matters and objects of homely import as well as with themes in fashionable estimation. Mark in what manner she turned her attention to the small rivers in Germany, and the uses to which they are put:

The quantity of wood that is brought down by this shallow little river Enz is immense, and must be seen to be believed. They raise the water by little sluices until it is high enough to float the trees; which are first peeled, and then tied together with a sort of rope made of small fir-trees, which is quite a trade in the upper part of the forest. The smallest trees are placed first, to make the raft narrower in front: three men, with long leather boots much above their knees, stand upon the fore-part, and with their long poles guide it: they are up to their ankles in water, their extra clothes hang upon a rail on the raft, and so they go down to the Rhine, shooting every fall, turning every angle with the greatest ease, until they come up with the great monsters on that river. Some of the trees are sixty feet long; I measured one eighty; and we have counted eighteen of these lengths. When they wish to stop it, they run one of the middle lengths against the bank, and they soon become a vandyke. They go with great rapidity. The firewood, which is split and cut into lengths of three feet, goes down in part of itself, as if it knew its own business, and like a good and faithful servant, would perform it. But the idle and dilatory stop on the way; these attract others, (it is wonderful how catching idleness is,) until at last the river is fringed with them the whole way, After leaving them many days to their own cogitations, men come with long poles and sharp hooks, and soon send them down after their brethren.

These little rivers are of immense value to the people of the country, as they carry down all the wood of the Black Forest. This slides down the mountain upon little single wooden railways, looking like spouts at a distance.

The following gives us foreign notions of English marriages:

A Hungarian lady once asked me to tell her truly, "if there was such a thing as a happy couple in England?" and when I assured her the contrary was rare, she looked at me with a face of incredulity-"C'est possible, mais."

She had a friend who passed some time in England; and he said there appeared little courtesy upon the part of English husbands to their wives, which produced a degree of incivility and quick retort unknown in her country. I tried to prove to her there were no husbands in the world so faithful, so true, as Englishmen. "It may be I do not understand your customs, but we pity the English very much."

Wealth and education in the estimation of foreigners:

When nothing better can be said of any one, the kind world says they are goodnatured, as a sort of apology for their being nothing else; although there is hardly a man in society would accept the cognomen of the goodnatured man. And yet there can be no comparison in the compliment between him and the rich man, or in the way they will make in foreign society; a good education and amiable manners being all there looked for in a stranger. Many a wealthy citizen has been surprised to find how little impression his riches have made upon the society he courts, or how they laugh at an expenditure so unnecessary to happiness, and so infinitely beyond their own that they never think of competing with him or returning his hospitalities. I can never forget a calculation being made of the cost of a dinner given by an Englishman to a mixed company of continental and English subjects in Paris, and which the former declared was so insufferably dull they wished they had the twenty-five francs it cost for each, as it would have been more useful to them, less mischievous to Monsieur, and have been accepted as a greater civility.

Important truths seasonably stated.

No extra gain can ever pay a man for the loss of health and life before his natural time for dropping off; and it is surprising, that those employed in public offices, counting-houses, or any sedentary labour, should not divide their time so as to give themselves at least two hours in the day for exercise. To say it cannot be done is absurd. If the work is really so heavy that a man must continue at it twelve or fourteen hours a day to get it done, an additional hand should be put to it. The saving of expense is no excuse, where there is such a benefit to be gained as a continual state of good health; and the work would be better done.

When the mind is on the full stretch for so many hours a day, it loses its power; its elasticity is gone; and in many cases, justice, absolutely justice, is not done, for he who administers it is not himself-his mind is gone from over-fatigue. This class of persons, and the young girl kept hard at work at her needle, often both day and night, are most to be pitied. The poor girl, shut up in a little back-room looking to a dead wall; the face growing pale, the mind growing melancholy; no day let out but Sunday, and then perhaps a lover meets her he may be true, and may be not; and here the hardness of woman's lot on earth commences.

One extract more from the "Last Tour and First Work:" it treats of feather-beds, and sundry slight incidents of travel:

"We are come from the Jura, and going to the Alps. The first sight we had of their snowy heads, was on the road a few miles frem Bern. We arrived

there at three o'clock, and a pretty awful hill it is to pull up with a loaded carriage, as you enter the town. They talk of making a bridge here, and much it is wanting. As we intended staying here a fortnight, and were tired of inus, I decided to take a campagne, and fix ourselves as quickly as possible. C▬▬ and I got out of the carriage, and walked up the arcade, until I saw a countenance I liked; a curious way of procuring what one wants, but I find it successful. I stopped and asked a sensible-looking (woman you may be sure) if she knew of a campagne to be let near the town, and for so short a time as fifteen days. She said, "No; but!" and put her finger to her mouth. When I see a finger at the mouth, I am sure something is coming into the head, so waited patiently; in a moment she said "Madame, will you be so good as to walk this way." I should tell you, the shops at Bern are generally open, as they were a century ago in England, and the owners (particularly if women) sitting working before them. I followed her. She called her daughter, and desired her to look at the advertisements in the last paper, They were all examined, but no house to suit; she considered again, "attendez,"--she drew two chairs. "If you will be so good as to sit down one moment,"—she was out of the shop and up the street, before we remarked she was gone, and as quickly returned. "Madame, I have inquired at the post-office. I know of a house that was let, and am told there are no more letters inquired for, therefore conclude the family are gone: I will send the boy to inquire." All this was done while the carriage was putting up at the Crown. The general custom at Bern is to take either a house or apartment unfurnished, and hire the furniture. We were in this case most fortunate, my first application was successful. The proprietor of the campagne answered it in person: she accepted my offer of fifty francs for the fortnight, so here we are most comfortably settled in double quick time. When we came into it at twelve o'clock, there was only the drawing-room and one bedchamber furnished. There was not a stick in my room at three o'clock, and at five it was completely furnished, and I felt quite at home, writing my journal in it. The beds were put up like magic, Certainly they beat us hollow in the matter of beds. When I think of a fourpost bed in England, with its hundred yards of material, flounced, frilled, plaited, quilted, tortured into every form and variety, with its dust-catchingtop, taking a whole day to put up, and half a day to pull down, and see the pretty light clean-looking canopy I shall this night repose under, with its oft-carded, soft, clean, wholesome wool mattresses, I cannot but wish that we would condescend to copy so useful an example.

When the Emperor of Russia camne to England he could not sleep upon the magnificent thing prepared for him, and begged to have a mattress on a truckle deb. Our luxurious feather-beds are, if not death to the lazy, certainly sickness to many, with their closely-drawn curtains in a carpeted room, breathing dust all night from the feathery down.

It chokes one almost to think of it, and yet when we return to England we shall find nothing else. And this feather-bed, two, has been lain in by all manner of persons for generations, without the "taste" of a drop of water or a breath of air.

Sketches and testimonies cleverly put forth, such as Lady Vavasour's, have more value than that merely of enlivening an hour, or