little rustic bridges tempt one to pause and listen to the ripple of the waters tumbling beneath them.

Lilian wandered along the busy street, while many pedestrians passed her by, bent on their various missions. Suddenly her attention was arrested by two men in front, who were walking leisurely along. They were of the ordinary height, with broad-set frames, well and strongly built, though coarse and roughly clad; around their necks were twisted gaycoloured handkerchiefs. That they belonged to the toiling, hard-working class was evident. After walking a few paces one of the men spoke to his companion, and it was the peculiar sound of his voice which caught Lilian's ear, for there were tears in it.

"Hi, mate," he said, "she were all the world to me. I can't forget her nohow; only a fortnight agone she walked with me down this 'ere very street as happy as could be, and I minds 'ow we called at my sister Jane's and chatted with her and the children afore I took her home, and now to think she's gone where I can never see her again." And he brushed his eyes quickly with his sleeve. "I thinks of her often, and I say it is hard, mate 'tis hard to bear it steady like."

A few more words, and the men passed beyond Lilian's hearing, but every word entered her soul. She saw before her a man who had loved deeply and lost; she saw also beneath the roughness of the unpolished diamond the glitter of the gem, the hard, unaffected exterior unexpectedly showing the tender heart hidden away under the surface, seeking sympathy in sorrow from its fellowman. Thinking of her own dear one at home, whom she loved but had not lost, who had been mercifully spared to her unthankful self, she turned homeward with a lighter step and a wiser heart.

A little later she entered her sister's room with a tender smile and a new, bright light in her eyes.

The roses have re

"Oh, Lilian, how beautiful you look! turned to your cheeks; I am so glad," said Winnie.

Lilian answered, "I am better for the walk; it has done me good, dear. Shall I read to you a little now before we say good-night?"

And afterwards the angels saw in her room a figure lowly bent, whilst a prayer was being silently wafted to heaven for the sorrowing heart of the stranger who had passed her that day. But the bleeding heart went on its way, knowing not that his words had turned the life of one from murmuring discontent into thankfulness and joy. While the Father of all looked down on them both and softly whispered, "I weave the threads in the lives on earth, and some time each one shall see My wisdom when the woof of life is beautifully complete."

LINES (SUPPOSED TO BE) WRITTEN IN A COPY OF LAMB'S "SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH DRAMATISTS" CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKESPEARE.

L

THREE DISTINGUISHED COMEDIANS.

ONG ago we remember a gentleman, not a theatre-goer, but an occasional patron of the drama when "anything good was on," more especially when Charles Matthews was on his provincial tour, and playing in the old Royal now the site of our post-office, Edinburgh. The special attraction for this gentleman lay in the brilliant comedian's delineation of the character "Sir Charles Coldstream," in the play "Used Up," the story of which simply told being that of a l'homme blasé, a child of fortune pampered in luxury, having lost all interest in life, perpetually saying "there's nothing in it." Travelled abroad, been to Vesuvius, looked down the crater, "nothing in it." "Have a pittance of £5,000 a year, gone to America, had a shooting-box on the banks of the Mississippi, 'nothing in it,' and so on." Well, how it came about we recollect not, but he encounters in a wrestling match one "Ironbrace," a blacksmith. Both being good hands at an encounter of this kind, the battle was a drawn one. They took a fancy for one another, and Sir Charles telling his story to Ironbrace, the latter informs him he must do some physical work daily, gets him as assistant, with the result that before long his tone improves, his interest in life reawakens, he even becomes to some extent a useful member of society, and all goes right. We remember seeing the late Sir William Don playing this character, and fairly well he did it; but not being to the manner born like Matthews, he could not succeed like one who had made the character his own, like Powrie in "Rob Roy," and Turner in "Don Cæsar de Bazan." Matthews, son of a comedian, was in his youth apprenticed to an architect, obtained the entrée into the social set of the "upper ten," travelled abroad with Lord and Lady Blessington, fought a duel with Count D'Orsay, and at length, the instinct being strong within him, adopted the stage as a profession, and for long carried his audiences along with him in many a rôle for which he was pre-eminently fit. Of his professional activity, his social charm, his skill as a raconteur, his acquiring several fortunes and freely spending

the same, who does not know? That he attained a good old age, dying in harness, is also known to those who followed with interest his interesting career. To other admirers of Charles Matthews, his impersonation of “Affable Hawk," with pantomimic wire-pulling, in the "Game of Speculation," was a more powerful piece of acting than the blasé baronet. We recall with pleasure his inimitable performance in the comedietta "The Captain of the Watch," Mr. Puff in "The Critic," and "Paul Pry." In the fulness of his activity he played “Used up" in English at one theatre, then drove off to another, and in it performed the same character in the same play in French, under the title L'homme blasé. His first wife was the renowned Madame Vestris, his second an American lady gifted with considerable dramatic talent. Charles Matthews, the third of that name, is now an eminent member of the English Bar.

The dramatic profession affords many instances of humour off the stage, as when Matthews, being examined in bankruptcy about a certain bill, was asked by the presiding judge, "You kept a brougham?" "Yes, it kept running, so did the bill, and it was difficult to decide which ran the fastest;" thus manifesting that not only on the stage, but in the witness-box, he was "cool as a cucumber," witty as a jester, full of geniality and good humour. The stage of the present day has nothing like him in quaint, old-world bonhomie, or stately form, courteous address. He was appreciated in America, in India, the Colonies, wherever the English language is known.

There now comes under review the late W. H. Murray of Edinburgh fame, the predecessor of R. H. Wyndham in the Royal, lessee and actor; and in both capacities highly esteemed. Catering for the public in that he enlisted the services of all the famous players of his time, he himself attained eminence in a profession which he adorned by his rectitude of conduct, manifesting also in private life an unimpeachable integrity, and, alas! also an undue depression of spirits, which, whatever the cause of it, was too frequent a companion of the man so mirth-giving on the stage, so much in need of cheer from others when off the boards; a peculiarity this, not confined to members of the sock and buskin, but

to be found with the clergyman in his manse, the doctor in his brougham, the solicitor in his chambers, the merchant at his desk, the speculator on 'Change; and while the ideal of youth is that happiness will be found in a farm, the agriculturist, the stock farmer has his well-known grievances. We would, for the benefit of each, recommend the actor to be as much as possible on the farm, and the agriculturist to frequent the theatre with all due discretion. We were too young at the time when Murray trod the boards to have a vivid recollection of him; it is for the grand-parents of this generation to recall what the man was as manager and actor, and what an institution the old Royal, close to a now demolished place, "Shakespeare Square," and to "The Box, North Bridge," institutions well known to us in the days when coming over "The Bridges" to the new town that our young ideas might be taught to shoot,

"With satchel on our back,

We trudged, like snails, unwillingly to school."

And this brings us to comedian number three, happily still in the land of the living, earning his well-deserved repose after a long, lucrative, honourable career as comedian, well-known in Edinburgh and Glasgow as in London, and the leading provincial cities of the kingdom. You guess, of course, that it is John Laurence Toole of whom we speak, the Toole of Artful Dodger" and "Paul Pry" fame, but of equal celebrity in Dickens' "Caleb Plummer," or any character wherein pathos has to be rendered by a master hand, for he is as at home in the sublimity of pathos as in the absurdity of broad comedy, of screaming farce, and fortunately he also, as manager and actor, has adorned the dramatic profession, has endeared himself to a wide circle in social life. Amongst many friends he numbers those of the learned professions, and of mercantile life. Under R. H. Wyndham did Sir Henry Irving and John Laurence Toole serve an apprenticeship; with the Edinburgh streets, the Midlothian roads they are both familiar. Coming back there to the scenes of their youth, they return to their first love, and Toole has never been in pleasanter vein than when the night's work was over