interesting figure. In 1780, at the military school in Stuttgart the
birthday of the Duke of Würtemberg was celebrated by a performance
of Goethe's _Clavigo_. The leading part was taken by a youth
of twenty-one, with high cheek-bones, a broad, low, Greek brow
above straight eyebrows, a prominent nose, and lips nervous with an
extraordinary energy. The German narrator says he played the part
"abominably, shrieking, roaring, unmannerly to a laughable degree." It
was the young Schiller, wild as a pythoness upon her tripod, with the
_Robbers_, which became famous in the following year.

But I do not mean, Fastidiosus, to cite only German precedents, nor to
uphold the college drama with the names of Reuchlin, Melancthon, and
Luther alone, majestic though they are. In the University of Paris
the custom of acting plays was one of high antiquity. In 1392 the
schoolboys of Angiers performed _Robin and Marian_, "as was their
annual custom"; and in 1477 the scholars of Pontoise represented "a
certain moralitie or farce, as is their custom." In 1558 the comedies
of Jacques Grévin were acted at the College of Beauvais at Paris; but
it is in the next century that we come upon the most interesting
case. In the days of Louis XIV. the girls' school at St. Cyr, of which
Madame de Maintenon was patroness, was, in one way and another, the
object of much public attention. Mademoiselle de Caylus, niece of
Madame de Maintenon, who became famous among the women of charming wit
and grace who distinguished the time, was a pupil at St. Cyr, and in
her memoirs gives a pleasant sketch of her school life. With the rest,
"Madame de Brinon," she says,

first superior of St. Cyr, loved verse and the drama;
and in default of the pieces of Corneille and Racine,
which she did not dare to have represented, she