leaning for support upon the arm of his fair young wife. Disraeli,
with his lustreless eyes and face like some seamed Hebraic parchment,
came also, and whispered behind his hand to the faithful Corry. And
Walter Sickert spread the latest mot of `the Master,' who, with
monocle, cane and tilted hat, flashed through the gay mob anon.

Autrement, there was Coombe Wood, in whose shade the Lady Archibald
Campbell suffered more than one of Shakespeare's plays to be enacted.
Hither, from the garish, indelicate theatre that held her languishing,
Thalia was bidden, if haply, under the open sky, she might resume her
old charm. All Fashion came to marvel and so did all the Aesthetes, in
the heart of one of whose leaders, Godwin, that superb architect, the
idea was first conceived. Real Pastoral Plays! Lest the invited guests
should get any noxious scent of the footlights across the grass, only
amateurs were accorded parts. They roved through a real wood, these
jerkined amateurs, with the poet's music upon their lips. Never under
such dark and griddled elms had the outlaws feasted upon their
venison. Never had any Rosalind traced with such shy wonder the
writing of her lover upon the bark, nor any Orlando won such laughter
for his not really sportive dalliance. Fairer than the mummers, it may
be, were the ladies who sat and watched them from the lawn. All of
them wore jerseys and tied-back skirts. Zulu hats shaded their eyes
from the sun. Bangles shimmered upon their wrists. And the gentlemen
wore light frock-coats and light top-hats with black bands. And the
aesthetes were in velveteen, carrying lilies.

Not that Art and Fashion shunned the theatre. They began in 1880 to
affect it as never before. The one invaded Irving's premie`res at the
Lyceum. The other sang paeans in praise of the Bancrofts. The French
plays, too, were the feigned delight of all the modish world. Not to