happy after all. Now Lady Martin (Helen Faucit), that loving student and impersonator of Shakespeare's heroines, has expressed her melancholy conviction that the gentle Hero was but ill-mated with one so fretful and paltry-souled as Claudio; and that Imogen the fair was doomed to an early death, the bitter fruit of her sad pilgrimage to Milford-Haven. But be this as it may,—and we more than fear that Lady Martin is rightly acquainted with the matter,—Shakespeare himself has whispered us no word of such ill-tidings, but has left us free, an' it please us, to dream out happier things. So, too, Dorothea Brooke, wedded to Will Ladislaw, has before her many long and weary hours of regretful self-communings; yet, while we sigh over her doubtful future, we are glad, nevertheless, to take our last look at her smiling in her husband's arms. But when Basil Ransom, in The Bostonians, makes a brave fight for his young bride, and carries her off in triumph, we are not for a moment permitted to feel elated at his victory. We want to rejoice with Verena, and to congratulate her on her escape from Mr. Filer and the tawdry music-
