most needs-reforms of principle, not of detail, the choice of publi men on the public grounds of character and fitness, the management of the finances with undeviating regard to the thorough re-establishment of the national credit. There have, indeed, been critical moments when the public opinion of Greece has asserted itself in such questions with decisive result. The successful protest of 1875 against ministerial infringements of the constitution has been the most recent example: and M. Moraitinis may justly argue that a maturity of political education is proved by the disciplined loyalty with which, at that crisis, all classes united to uphold the constitution by constitutional means. The same general characteristic appeared also in the crisis of 1843 and 1862; and it was better marked in 1862 than in 1843, and in 1875 than in 1862. But then, as M. Moraitinis adds, when the danger is past, public opinion goes to sleep again, "and individual interests resume their ascendancy." What is wanted is that public opinion should be always vigilant. No impartial observer can refuse to admit that Greece has already done much, and is now in a fair way to do more. Few, probably, would deny that from the outset she has had to contend with grave difficulties not of her own making. In the first place it is only since the beginning of the present reign, that is, since 1863, that Greece has been in the full practical enjoyment of constitutional liberty. Secondly, Greece began life not only as a poor country, in which the first elements of prosperity had to be created anew, but a country loaded with debt for loans of which only a fraction had ever been applied to her benefit. Those who wish to read the whole story of the Greek Loans in the light of contemporary documents may be referred to a recent pamphlet on the subject, consisting of extracts from the English newspapers and peridicals of the day, put together without comment.* Among other facts which deserve to be more generally known, it will be found that, of the second loan of 1,200,000, all that ever reached Greece was the amount of 209,000l. Lastly, there has been that most serious and permanent obstacle of all, the original defect of a bad frontier. It has been already shown how this has affected the balance of social and political life in Greece. The dilemma raised by that ill-judged limitation of the new kingdom could not be expressed more clearly or concisely than in the words of the late Edgar Quinet. "I am afra d," he wrote in 1857, "that the artificial boundaries of the new State, and the conditions imposed upon it, may have the effect of hindering its development. Hence, a false position for the Greeks, and a perpetual temptation to get out of it. If they stretch out their hands to their brethren who are still under the yoke, they rouse the anger of their protectors; if they resign themselves to remaining where they are, they are reduced to a hopeless plight, with no outlets, no commerce, no relations; and their brethern accuse them of betrayal."

* The Greek Loans of 1824 and 1825. London: H. S. King. 1878.

+ Preface to La Grece moderene et ses rapports avec l'Antiquité,

An interesting document in illustration of this view has lately been given to the world. In February, 1830, Prince Leopold of SaxeCoburg accepted the Crown of Greece, offered to him in a joint note from Lord Aberdeen and the French and Russian Ambassadors in London; but, after some negot ations, he finally declined it in May of the same year. An Athenian newspaper has now printed the letter, hitherto unpublished, which Leopold addressed to Charles X. of France on May 23rd, 1830,-two days after his final decision. In this he states the reasons for his resolve. Prominent among them is this considerationthat a new ruler of Greece would begin his work at a hopeless disadvantage if he were regarded by the Greek nation as a party to the disastrous truncation of the territory. By the Treaty of Adrianople (September, 1829), the boundary-line of Greece had been drawn from near the entrance of the Gulf of Volo on the east to the Gulf of Arta on the west. But by a new decision of the Powers (February 3rd, 1830) a large slice was cut off. Leopold does justice to the natural feeling which would make it a bitter sacrifice for the Greeks to leave their brethren in continental Hellas-as well as in Crete, Samos, and elsewhere-under that yoke which all alike had striven to shake off, and he hopes that Charles, "with the magnanimity which distinguishes him," will appreciate this. He held that in the narrow limits now imposed on the country-the territory adjacent to the Gulfs of Volo and Arta being cut off-it could not be thoroughly prosperous. The truth of Leopold's forecast was recognised at the Berlin Congress last year by M. Waddington.

The people of Greece are industrious, singularly temperate, with a strong regard for the ties of the family, and with the virtues which that implies; they have proved at more than one trying conjuncture that they have learned the lessons of constitutional freedom; and they possess a versatile intelligence which justly entitles them to be regarded as the gifted race of South-Eastern Europe. Men of all parties and opinions are interested in forming a true judgment of what the Greeks can or cannot achieve. So long as their character and capacity are imperfectly or incorrectly estimated in this country, a necessary element of every "Eastern Question" will be taken at an erroneous value, and the margin of possible miscalculation will be so far increased. If, as now seems not impossible, some means should be devised of sending young Englishmen from our universities to pursue studies in Greece, it may be predicted that the good results will not be confined to the world of letters. Englishmen who have resided in Greece, and who have lived in converse with its people, will gradually help to diffuse a better knowledge of them in this country, and with a better knowledge, a kinder spirit,-such a knowledge and tone as, through similar intercourse with Greece, are already more general in France and Germany than they are in England. It will become more usual to recognise fairly how much the Greeks have done and are still doing, how much they have had to suffer, what diffi

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culties they have overcome, and with what disadvantages they are still contending to distinguish between ambitions which deserve to be reproved and those aspirations for a free development of national life which no people can renounce without losing self-respect and forfeiting the good opinions of those who retain it; and to consider whether the only manifestations of friendship which Greece may reasonably expect from the leaders of European civilization are those in which our friends (with the honourable exception of France) have hitherto been principally zealous,-the offices of candid remonstrance and veiled repression. R. C. JEBB, in Macmillan's Magazine.

MR. IRVING'S HAMLET.

WE intend to give ourselves the pleasure of a few words on Mr. Irving's Hamlet; and as this periodical does not habitually deal with living actors, since we do not consider ourselves the channel for such a purpose, they shall be brief. But Mr. Irving is no ordinary actor. Setting aside his genius, his industrious care in everything he undertakes, we associate him with the possible renovation of our theatre. He has pandered to no low tastes, but recalls and revives the traditional stage of the Kembles and of Macready.

The first thing we notice in his Hamlet is that there is no seeking after an immediate effect. Hamlet comes in with the rest of the Court, and seats himself somewhat listlessly by the side of the Queen. There is in his aspect a profound melancholy, which seems to search for the unknown and the unseen. His eyes look far away from the scene before him, and in their deep gaze there is a restlessness which shows that Hamlet's will is already puzzled. In the first speeches, he exhibits a grief all the more impressive for its weariness and helplessness; whilst in the soliloquy which follows them, there is a deep tenderness in Hamlet's recollection of his father, his voice dwelling on the words, "So loving to my mother, that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly," as if he were unwilling to quit that recollection for the one which supplants it of the Queen's inconstancy. It is to be noted that in his present performance Mr. Irving has needlessly changed "beteem " to "let e'en."

In the "Must I remember?" we note a foretaste of the protest against fate, in which he afterwards indulges. In the comparison_between his father and uncle, "But no more like my father than I to Hercules," he pauses a moment before the last word, as if seeking for a simile and thus sustains the spontaneous air which distinguishes his delivery throughout. It has been thought, and not unnaturally, that the dropping of the voice and manner in the last line, "But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue," is weak and ineffective. Ineffective it is in the sense of missing a stage effect: but in its weakness lies its

consonancy with Mr. Irving's conception; it is an expression of the same sense of weariness and subjugation to fate which is found in the earlier speechies.

The entrance of Horatio and Marcellus brings a welcome change to Hamlet's mood. He receives his old friends with a courteous, but restrained, affection; a touch of irony comes into his tones and look as he says, "We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart," and deepens to a bitter scorn upon the words, "Thrift, thrift, Horatio." As he recalls his father's image, he loses himself for a while in reverie, shading his eyes with his hands, as if to hold the memory longer, so that he does not at first take in the meaning of Horatio's words, but answers absently, "Saw? Who?" Horatio's reply rouses him at once, and the hand which before served to conceal the actual world from his consciousness seems now to help him in concentrating his attention upon it. Through the remainder of the scene he is nervous and restless; he walks to and fro in excitement, and stops to question Horatio and Marcellus further. "Then saw you not his face," he says with an air of disappointed conviction rather than of inquiry. In the last speech there seems a certain exultation at having found a chance of breaking by action the passiveness of his misery.

The beginning of the platform scene is finely imbued with a feel-. ing of high-strung expectation, which seeks relief in talk that may distract attention from the thing expected until it comes. The restless searching mind of Hamlet, once started upon the subject taken up merely as a pastime, is beginning to follow it further, when all other thoughts are stayed by the entrance of the Ghost. At this point Mr. Irving seems less fortunate in his conception and execution than elsewhere. Men are not the less horrified at an event full of dread, because they have expected it. Indeed the suppressed ag ny of fearful waiting is apt to burst forth, when its cause is reached; but the emotion thus awakened does not, or upon the st ge should not, show itself in the sudden feebleness of voice and aspect, which Mr Irving here represents. There should be less of terror than of awe in Hamlet's bearing at the Ghost's appearance. Mr. Irving's tottering frame and hands clutching at the air have more of mere physical fear than of the awe which should strike Hamlet. The breaking away from his companions is finely managed, but there is a certain want of force in the exit of the Prince, with slow dragging steps, followed by the trailing of his sword's point on the ground.

The same tone of weakness used to be kept up through the interview with the Ghost. Even now the actor crouches on the ground; he seems unable to hold up his head, the limpness of his attitude and bearing suggests physical rather than mental disturbance. He has now restored the previously omitted wild and whirling words addressed to the fellow in the cellerage, but there is a certain want of the spirit of over-strung excitement of which these words are the indication. Where one expects wild mirth one finds hysterical depression. On the

other hand, nothing could be better than the changing intonation and gesture of Mr. Irving's Prince as he indicates to his comrades the forms of dubious speech which they are not to employ, and there is an overpowering despair in the arms lifted to heaven and the appeal of the voice as he cries out upon the spite of fate. In the scene with Polonius, the next in which Hamlet appears, the satire of the speech is so biting that some critics have complained of its rudeness; and the same force of satire is present, though veiled with a lighter manner, in the dialogue with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In the description of his sinking of spirit he is carried away so that he forgets the presence of his companions, and when he turns and sees the empty smile upon Rosencrantz's face his momentary burst of irritation seems the reaction of a mind brought down from the contemplation of noble things to that which is mean and base. In the words, "He that plays the king shall be welcome," the depth of his secret thought is shown for a moment, but it gives place instantly to a pleasanter mood, broken once again by the reference to his Uncle being king in Denmark.

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A rare art is exhibited in the mockery with which Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is but mad north-north-west, and in the fine banter with which he greets Polonius. The mention of Ophelia seems to wake in him a crowd of varying emotions, which, kept under while he greets the players, find some expression as he calls for a passionate speech.' The quickness with which Hamlet's emotions and perceptions shift and change, the habit of introspection which makes him a double personality, looking on at his own emotion and commenting upon it as soon as it has found a form, is perhaps rendered better than anywhere else, in the speech beginning with, "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I." He rises to a climax of rage as he cries, "O vengeance," and then the reaction comes suddenly; the passion dies and gives place to the habit of meditation which ever interposes between Hamlet's desires and his actions, and he speaks of the empty bravery of his words as if they were those of another. From consideration, emotion is again aroused; the notion already suggested of turning the play into an instrument for his purpose takes possession of his mind, and as the curtain falls he is already composing the speech which he designs to insert. Mr. Irving's action here of resting his tablets against a pillar and hastily writing, as if afraid to lose his ideas before he could bind them in words, is striking and impressive.

On Hamlet's next appearance he enters with the air of one lost in thought, and seating himself on a chair in the centre of the hall speaks out his thoughts as they follow each other in the speech, "To be or not to be." Throughout this speech there is a depth of suf rering, of pain that struggles for freedom and can find none, expressed in the actor's tones, such as to make his grief common to all who hear him. He has a command of pathos which sometimes misleads him into too much tearfulness; but here there is no fault to find; there is the truth of sorrow so profound that the disturbance of Hamlet's reverie by Ophelia's entrance comes as a relief. The dialogue with. Ophelia is full