When he and

prematurely where felicity was involved. Bassanio have met success in their quest of love and some old Venetian friends happen on the scene, proud as a robin he marches forward to explain: "We're the Jasons, we've won the fleece." A secret could hardly have been safe with him; and Nerissa must have had her hands full to keep closed the curtains of domestic life.

But it has been said that Shakspere has no heroes,— only heroines. And what redeems these romances from a suggestion of sentimentality is the true loveliness of the women. Bassanio's reverent homage was altogether deserved by that gently dominating mistress of his. Portia is the queenliness of mercy-a strong, sweet nature, to which one might confidently go in hours of despondency. Hers was the heart and hers the womanly courage to make a man brave; and, if ever Bassanio met reverses in life, they must have been grandly submerged in her love. There is a contagious buoyancy about her: the ripe optimism of a woman in character, if a girl in years. For between the lines we may read the life of a soul, not harshly disciplined, and so marred, but nevertheless tutored by some mild griefs of her own, and so mellowed:-deeply aware of the sorrow of the world. Hardly enviable was the position in which her father's whim had left her. "By my troth, Nerissa,' she would sometimes say, "my little body is a-weary of this great world." But in another moment, with characteristic rebound, she would be breaking merry comparisons on her foolish suitors. When Bassanio at last both won and rescued her, she was caught up in a rapture of tender emotion. For after the irksomeness of a life which had held in fruitless abeyance her womanly talents, she lavished them with all the more joy now that she had found an object.

There are men perhaps who find Portia rather too wise. But, indeed, her little homilies are all sweetness, and entirely casual,-not officious. Moreover, they are incidental to her deeds. She is a woman and her thoughts must speak,

but her deeds speak the louder, and both spring from a kindly and humanitarian nature. Fortunately her wisdom did not afflict her with any constructive theory of life; she simply lived and was lovely. To make others happy was as the breath of life to her, and she entered on her judicial exploit as blithe as a maid preparing for a masque-ball." And then that playfulness of hers, so gently arch and lovingmischievous, that sparkled on the surface of her deep woman's nature! There seemed to be nothing wanting to make gracious music of Bassanio's life.

Such are some of the creations with which Shakspere has adorned human literature. It is always the quality of his greatness that he wins the unconscious surrender of his audience, and never more effectually than here, where the romance of life supplements its reality. The ultimate spring of this power is of course the reality: in a broad sense, realism. It is something which resides in the obvious human coloring of all he writes. He has nothing abstruse, however close his observation. When Shylock says, "Still have I borne it with a patient shrug," he illustrates a scientific truth laboriously ferreted out by Darwin, namely, that the shrug is a physical expression of patience. But here it is shown in its obvious human aspect. And this aspect is fundamental with our poet. He assumes certain human passions, biases, intuitions, as the element in which we all move and have our being,-things to be presupposed, not dissected; and those who would read philosophical systems into Shakspere not only misconceive but depreciate him. For it is the work of mere learning to cope with sage and bewildering problems;-genius alone can appeal to child and philosopher alike. What a man believes in the abstract will not determine how he hates or loves or laughs or cries, or even his emotion toward the universe; and these are what strike home. If it be the function of learningand a valued one in its place to furnish accuracy of thought, all the more blest be Shakspere that he restores to us the resonance of life.

If, therefore, Shakspere is the prince of poets, is Matthew Arnold altogether felicitous when he calls poetry a criticism of life? Is it not rather an exposition of life?-or, better still, a crystallization of life? For, besides realism, there is a second element in Shakspere's greatness, and that is idealism. Carried so far as in these plays it becomes what we have chosen to call romance; but everywhere it is that which differentiates the artist from the mere intense observer like Tolstoi. Life as it comes to us is uneven, exasperating, with many odd ends in search of a connection; and of such we may have our surfeit outside of books. But within the covers of Shakspere we find that selective tact which copies things with a sense of symmetry; rejecting all that contributes nothing to a desired effect, and touching only the heart of experience; so that even his tragedies leave us satisfied.

So

Thus this realist who draws from life; this idealist who combines his strokes in harmony, has that immortal power to master us like music or the sound of the near sea. long as humanity is human and can sympathize with its own heart, it will never cease to love the world which Shakspere made; and in proportion as our Nineteenth Century lives are specialized and dry, do we need in particular that fresh, romantic side of him which is found in the Italian Plays.

EXPERT TESTIMONY IN THE CASE OF END VERSUS MEANS.

RANDOLPH was sitting on the piazza rail, so inter

ested in the discussion as to entirely overlook the fact that he was gesticulating with his cigar, and that it had gone out. Theodosia was leaning forward, with her face flushed, trying with might and main to get an argument in edgewise. Tom had dropped out some time before, as usual, and was doing all the hard listening; in fact this was the regular way for it to turn out, because Tom was a peace-loving man, who preferred smoke to argument, and had learned long since that one could not discuss ethics with Theodosia and keep a cigar burning at the same time.

The question before the house was whether or not truthfulness was a matter of degree. Deponed by the affirmative that one always said "Glad to meet you," in greeting acquaintances, even the acquaintances that one would not have met if one had seen them first. Admitted by the negative, with the qualification that "Glad to meet you" is only a verbal way of shaking hands, and no more a committal than "Your humble servant," at the end of a business letter. Statement also appended by negative that she never said "Glad to meet you," anyway, under such circumstances, but only "How do you do"? Affirmative attempted to prove that negative had weakened her case by defining "Glad to meet you" as an admissible conventionality, and then denying that she used it, but this involved such heartbreaking distinctions that he waived the point, and began to cite instances bearing on the main argument.

"Now take the case of Billy Fricker," said Randolph. "I never yet knew Billy to fail to make just the wrong remark to a person, besides being strikingly original in matters of etiquette, and the most tiresome man I ever

saw.

Billy asked me to take him to call on a particularly

swell friend of mine, and I said 'Sure, I will, some day,'— but if I ever see that day coming, I'll run. Now what would you have said, Ted? 'No, William, I will not take you to call, because I think my friend is happier as she is?' That would have been unquestionably true."

"Of course not!" retorted Theodosia, "I should have changed the subject; anyway, I hate a liar!"-which statement appeared undebatable.

"I used to know a girl that had just that same idea," broke in Tom, "and yet a fellow stood up before her and lied alternately to two men for half an hour with the greatest originality and candour, and she afterwards fell on his neck for it." The debate was temporarily suspended to receive this expert testimony, and the witness took the stand.

"You know, when you go to Russia," said Tom, "they take your name, pedigree, and personal data as supplied in reply to forty-three impertinent questions propounded by the government, and enter them all on a passport; three dollars. On the frontier, the Russian police magistrate counts your eyes and ears to see if the number is as specified, and writes six meaningless comments on the back; two rubles, please. First town you meet, the Protector of the Poor and the Lord High Executioner takes your papers to the town hall, find out how old you are with interest, also the name of the ship that your uncle first crossed the ocean on, write "Scat," or something like it, under the police magistrate's name, and charge you for a day's work. All of which is very tiresome, but not fatal, if only you have enough signatures on the passport, and do not lose it. But that is exactly what the girl did.

She was travelling in Russia with her father, and the man in question had come across them unexpectedly in Moscow, and altered his plans to travel with them awhile, as they were old friends. One time, when they were in the country district, the girl's father stayed at home for an afternoon, and she went for a long walk with the man.