innings. Of a surety, Monday, May 2, 1881, marks a red-letter day in the interchange of national courtesies.

During the year 1861 Miss Julia Daly, a clever soubrette, made a profitable tour through the provinces in "Our Female American Cousin." She also appeared, from time to time, as Biddy Casey in the "Irish Girl," and Letty Duster, the Yankee help (and other characters), in the farce "In and Out of Place." She was a capital vocalist, and sang "My Johnny was a Shoemaker," "Trust to Luck," and “Erin is my Home," with great taste and expression.

That remarkable woman, Adah Isaacs Menken, who was everything by turns and nothing long, and whose voluptuous beauty charmed all hearts, came to England in 1864 with the hand of death already upon her. E. T. Smith had just made over the care of management at Drury Lane to Edward Falconer, and on crossing the water to Astley's Amphitheatre he burst on the town with the great female Mazeppa. Success immediately crowned his enterprise. The Menken's engagement was extended to four months, during which her emoluments could not have been less than some three thousand odd pounds.

Joseph Jefferson, John E. Owens, and Newton Gotthold were all playing in London much about the same period in the year 1865. Owens opened at the Adelphi, early in July, in a wretched play called "Solon Shingle," which gave this excellent comedian little opportunity to reveal his talents as an impersonator of character parts. Simultaneously Newton Gotthold-billed as "The Young American Tragedian"-was appearing with success at the Vic. in "The Gunmaker of Moscow." At the City of London, in November, he appeared as Othello to the Desdemona of Miss Ada Cavendish. On the bright side of thirty, Gotthold had journeyed to England under the auspices of a syndicate of wealthy Americans, who placed him under the care of Walter Lacy, and arranged for his appearance at various metropolitan theatres. Turn we now to the début of the actor whom Mr. Dutton Cook very properly considered as "one of the very few genuine artists ever given or lent by America to England"-Joseph Jefferson. Albeit that the play of "Rip Van Winkle" had been performed in London so far back as the year 1832, when Yates appeared in the name-part of Boyle Bernard's piece at the Adelphi, and notwithstanding Hackett's performance as the good-natured Scamp, the theme never became popularised over here until taken in hand by Mr. Jefferson. Five years after this excellent artist had first turned his attention to the character, he came to England, and made his bow at the Adelphi, early in September,

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1865, in a play hastily reconstructed by Dion Boucicault from Charles Burke's stage version of the Sleepy Hollow legend. Inadequate as was the production, Jefferson's marvellous acting. retained "Rip Van Winkle" on the bills for 172 consecutive nights. But one may regret the success which has kept the player harping, for the most part, on a single string ever since.

The most noteworthy event of 1866, from the present point of view, was the début at the Royalty, late in May, of Mr. Charles Wyndham as Sir Arthur Lascelles in "All that Glitters is not Gold." This most mercurial of comedians had gained his early stage experience at the Olympic Theatre, New York, and had subsequently figured as an army surgeon during the war. Mr. John Sleeper Clarke, afterwards to be recognised as the popular manager of the Strand, Charing Cross, and Haymarket Theatres, made his first appearance in England at the St. James's towards the middle of October, 1867, in his well-known impersonation of Major Wellington De Boots. It was under his management at the Haymarket that Miss Linda Dietz, after three years' histrionic experience in America, elected, in August, 1873, to make her bow before an English audience.

America has reason to feel proud of the European career of Miss Géneviève Ward, who, ever since her appearance as Lady Macbeth at Manchester in October, 1873, has held a high and well-nigh unique position on the English stage. Previous to gaining tragic laurels, Miss Ward (whose career is somewhat analogous to that of Charlotte Cushman) had won some distinction as a lyric artiste. America has lent us many dramatic vocalists of merit, such as Kate Munroe (1874), Emma Nevada (1880), and Agnes Huntingdon (1885); but it is just possible that, until the début of Zélie De Lussan as Carmen at Covent Garden on July 7, 1888, London had never heard a lyric artiste of first-rate ability whose training had been solely and entirely American.

Besides the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. George S. Knight in "Otto"; of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Florence in "The Almighty Dollar"; of Mr. William Calder and Mr. D. H. Harkins, the dramatic year of 1880 was otherwise noteworthy for the advent of the first complete and thoroughly representative American company ever seen over here. "The Danites," a capital melodrama, with which Mr. and Mrs. M'Kee Rankin and their troupe challenged attention at Sadler's Wells on the 26th of April, was as thoroughly typical as the artists. For the first time one could form some idea of the quality of Transatlantic ensemble.

America in England: A Theatrical Retrospect. 99

In 1881 London enjoyed the performances of Edwin Booth, and was afforded an opportunity of contrasting the old and new schools of tragic acting by the debut at Drury Lane, in May, of the late John McCullough as Othello. During 1882 Miss Calhoun challenged comparison with Mrs. Langtry by appearing at the Imperial as Hester Grazebrook in "An Unequal Match." That eccentric, musical, comical oddity, "Fun on the Bristol," was performed in rapid succession at half-a-dozen London theatres, and wound up with a longextended run in the provinces. And Mr. George Kirk went on tour with "Dan'l Bartlett ; or, a Messenger from Jarvis Section," as identified in America with the acting of the late Barney M'Auley. One thousand eight hundred and eighty-three admirably illustrated the fickleness of Dame Fortune. Lotta, spoiled child of the American stage "The Dramatic Cocktail," who defied criticism and scorned convention-met with sad reverse at the Olmypic. On the other hand, Minnie Palmer, certainly an adherent of the Lotta school, won all hearts in "My Sweetheart." The event of the year, however, was most undoubtedly the début of Mary Anderson at the Lyceum as Parthenia. It would be idle to speak here at length of the career of an artiste who, after appearing in some fifteen characters, has won a position in the affections of English playgoers superior if anything to that attained by Charlotte Cushman.

Of infinitely greater importance, from our point of view, than the protracted sojourn of Lawrence Barrett at the Lyceum in 1884, was the advent of Augustin Daly's company at Toole's Theatre, when metropolitan débuts were made by such sterling artists as Miss Ada Rehan, Miss G. H. Gilbert, Miss Virginia Dreher, Miss May Fielding, Mr. James Lewis, Mr. Otis Skinner, Mr. Wm. Gilbert, and Mr. John Drew. Owing to their appearing at the fag end of a dull season, with a thermometer registering something like ninety in the shade, success failed to crown their efforts at the outset.

The light of Ada Rehan, not to speak of other members of the company, was certainly hidden under a bushel in the opening piece, Casting the Boomerang." But when "She Would and She Would Not," "The Country Girl," and "Dollars and Sense" had been produced, it had dawned upon us that Mr. Daly's organisation boasted one or two comedians without their peer on English boards. Subsequent visits only served to confirm this impression. Uniformly large audiences were attracted to the Strand Theatre in June, 1886, when "A Night Off" formed the pièce de résistance. Daly's revival of that much-neglected comedy, "The Taming of the Shrew," in the summer of 1888, gave Ada Rehan, as Katherine, opportunities which

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she was not slow in taking advantage of; so much so that by the time "As You Like It " had been seen at the Lyceum this talented comedienne had secured a place in the affections of Londoners second only to that held by Ellen Terry.

With this necessarily brief record of the work of the Daly company in England we prefer to bring our retrospect to a close.

Rather than treat of the Rigls, the Fay Templetons, the Patti Rosas, and the Loie Fullers, who fretted their brief hour upon the stage, let us linger over the achievements of a band of artists the remarkable smoothness and absence of point-making in whose playing have at last afforded English playgoers ample means of judging of the artistic equipment and histrionic resources of the kindred nation.

W. J. LAWRENCE.

ΙΟΙ

RAMBLES AMONG ALGERIAN

THE

HILLS.

HE brilliant sunshine and heat at the Algerian sea-level at Bona was almost tropical, so we started as soon as possible for the mountains. A narrow belt of plain fringes the sea-coast, and is bounded inland by round forest-clad hills. The single line of railway to Tunis climbs them, and runs through and about them. For nearly seven miles it courses through the plains, which are thronged with ripening crops of wheat and barley, with large stretches of greening vineyards intermingled. The high road to somewhere runs alongside the railway, and is almost solely occupied by Arabs on horseback. It seems to be a rule among the Arabs never to walk when they can ride, and never to ride when they can sit still. Here they are, frequently two on one horse, or else mounted on a pyramid of some kind of luggage or fodder. Their horses for the most part seem as if they had done duty in London cabs. Nevertheless, there is a look of broken-down gentility about them, which indicates that they come from an ancestral aristocratic horse-stock.

It was the beginning of May; and, after the rains, the whole country is crowded with flowers of every hue: the surprising thing to a botanist is their European look and affinity, although they are growing in North Africa. In fact, it is the Mediterranean flora, which flourishes almost equally on the south as well as the north side of that historic sea, and extends inland as far as the Sahara deserts. Africa and Europe are now geographically separated; but they were not always

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At a period geologically recent, the Mediterranean was an nland sea. The present Straits of Gibraltar were then a narrow ridge of dry land, across which both animals and plants could igrate from Europe to Africa. The desert of Sahara was at that eriod a shallow sea, which prevented emigrations more southerly. s a sea-bed, uplifted and converted into a dry, inhospitable, and urning terrestrial waste, it opposes migration of plants nowadays much as it did when it was a sea. The shallow reef still stretchacross the Straits of Gibraltar plainly proclaims to the geologist