even at 'Mother Goose,' and the review contributed by Keats to 'The Champion' of 'Harlequin's Vision' is contemptuous; whilst Lamb, who wrote delightfully of his first pantomimes as 'all an enchantment and a dream,' had nothing to say of those he might have witnessed in his later years. Leigh Hunt's joy in the harlequinade is, however, almost unbounded. He speaks of Harlequin dashing 'through the window like a swallow,' of that 'hobbling old rascal' Pantaloon and of Columbine as always the little dove who is to be protected.' On the other hand, Hazlitt gives his readers the impression that, as a schoolboy home from the holidays, he must have worked out the philosophy of his Christmas amusement. Those authorities saw pantomime in its prime; yet the enthusiasm they share for it cannot compare with that shown by those who saw pantomime in its decline. This strange fact is explained when we realise that Dickens and Thackeray were thinking of the Christmas of their boyhood. The delights-the ten thousand million delights of a pantomime' were remembered by Boz when he thought of the show that came lumbering down on Richardson's waggons at fairtime': 'What words can describe the deep gloom of the opening scene, where a crafty magician holding a young lady in bondage was discovered, studying an enchanted book to the soft music of a gong!-or in what terms can we express the thrill of ecstasy with which, his magic power opposed by superior art, we beheld the monster himself converted into Clown! What mattered it that the stage was three yards wide, and four deep?-we never saw it.' Similarly, when Thackeray just before his death was writing of pantomime in the Cornhill,' it was not of the current performances, whose quality was causing a noticeable falling off in popular favour, but of a show 'at the Fancy,' where Grimaldi's name was still in the bill. He called his imaginary entertainment, Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's Ghost and Nunky's Pison,' and concluded, 'That Ophelia should be turned into Columbine was to be expected; but I confess I was a little shocked when Hamlet's mother became Pantaloon, and was instantly knocked down by Clown Claudius.' From such affectionate regard pantomime passed by stages into the fiercely critical gaze of champions of Ibsen. Mr William Archer, for one, produced a revolution of taste, as any one can see, who cares to compare his writings of one Christmas with the changes made at Drury Lane the next. Then came Mr Bernard Shaw with the forcible thrust of 'What the pantomime actually does is to abuse the Christmas toleration of dullness, senselessness, vulgarity and extravagance to a degree utterly incredible by people who have never been inside a theatre.' No doubt, denunciation was needed. No doubt, the making of pantomime was a craft that had gone awry. Yet it is not possible to agree that the ills would have been remedied, as these critics suggested, by the introduction of a literary flavour-have we not seen what Sir James Barrie made of a revue? Nevertheless, there is still enough genius in London to bring the past pleasures of Christmas back to the theatre. With Mr Granville Barker as producer, Lopokova as Columbine, Idzikovsky as Harlequin, Leslie Henson, a born mime, as Scaramouch, and Massine to design the plot, the nucleus of an exquisite amusement could be formed. Or do we ask of the theatre too much? M. WILLSON DISHER. of ola. pare 18 ally ess тее ide No ad Fills by Ben on he er, lie to nt ? Art. 3. THE ULSTER PLANTATION. 1. An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the 2. The County of Londonderry in Three Centuries. By History of the It is singular that a whole generation of English journalists, who have discussed the position of Ulster from every conceivable point of view and in accord with their varying political opinions, should never by sign or word in all these long years have evinced the slightest interest in the origin of this great and powerful colony. One is moved to the conclusion that they know nothing about it-an incredible supposition, if it were not for one or two astonishing revelations to the contrary. A leading Liberal journal, which has lectured and abused the Northern Protestants for the past ten years, recently published a cartoon depicting Cromwell expressing a pious regret that he had ever 'discovered Ulster!' A distinguished jurist and politician, formerly a strong supporter of Ulster, informed a crowded meeting recently that the Ulster Plantation was the work of Scots and Welsh, apparently mixing up Strongbow and James I! At any rate, it is tolerably obvious that the would-be directors of British opinion on this burning subject, have never even heard of Pynnar's Survey, the Domesday Book of the Ulster Plantation, so ably edited by Mr Hill, admirably printed and readily accessible. Sometimes these people are vaguely alluded to as of wholly Scottish descent. The Americans, who, fortunately for their country, and that, too, before the Revolutionary war, received about 100,000 of these hardy, industrious souls, invariably refer to them and to their descendants as Scotch-Irish, as opposed to the other Irish, a comparatively modern influx. This, however, for the good reason that it was chiefly the Scottish Presbyterians who had then good cause to leave Ireland. With the turbulent period, which resulted in the escheating and the acquisition by the Crown of the lands of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and half a dozen smaller chiefs, we have no concern here. It will be enough to say that their estates comprised the six counties of Donegal, Coleraine (to be re-named Derry), Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh, and Cavan. The northeast corner of the Province, the counties of Antrim and Down, were not included in the Plantation. Long before this time, these two counties had acquired such affiliation with western Scotland by natural intercourse, both peaceful and warlike, and by private adventure, as to prepare the ground for a steady stream of spontaneous immigration from all parts of southern Scotland. This wide-spread origin was fortunate, for the west-coast Gaels, undiluted with stiffer and more civilised elements, might have proved, and indeed on occasions had proved, as troublesome to the British Government as the Irish Celts they displaced. In brief, Antrim and Down may be fairly regarded as ethnologically Scottish colonies; and with the complications of their further development we are not here concerned. Monaghan, too, was planted independently and has a little story to itself. In 1608, after the flight of the earls, the ground of the six counties, from the Crown point of view, was now, save the Church lands, all cleared of ownership; and the moment was ripe for the colonisation scheme which had been long in the air. There was already a swarm of soldiers in Ireland, who had fought through seven years of war in the full hopes of reward out of the confiscated lands. It was a period of high adventure, stimulated by what seemed at the time a lack of opportunities at home. John Smith and his companions were struggling with the beginnings of Virginia. New England was being written up by distinguished navigators; and Ireland, so close at home and occupied by a mainly pastoral people, who seemed to the English almost savages, must have had immense fascinations. Intending colonists this side the Channel were astir; and the old soldiers in Ireland, then known as servitors, were all agog and more than suspicious of the King. James had in fact harboured some fatal notion of giving large grants to certain Scottish nobles, who would have shipped over hordes of wild western Gaels and the like, only to add fuel to the seething fires of Irish unrest. The Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, the shrewdest of Crown officials in Ireland, and his Dublin council fully recognised that industrious farmers and artisans were the only material to carry the business through; and King James, having been successfully brought to heel, now threw himself with ardour into the project. So in July 1608, a commission, accompanied by troops, started from Dublin on a journey of inspection through the six escheated counties. They were away for two crowded months, incidentally trying suspected persons, skirmishing with recalcitrant natives, and everywhere summoning juries to give evidence on boundaries. They treated the country for survey purposes as virgin territory, for such natives as might be retained on the soil were to be allotted fresh lands. The country consisted of bog, forest, waste mountain and pasture land, and was thus scheduled. Whatever may have been its condition at a former period, it was at this time almost wholly grazing ground, and the tillage area was nearly negligible; while beyond a few rude houses or stone towers, occupied by the better sort, there were scarcely any substantial dwellings. 80 The labours of the Commission were completed on Sept. 2. But the results were so imperfect that another expedition started immediately and returned late in October; and Sir John Davys, of the ready pen, Attorney-General, and Sir James Ley, Chief Justice, repaired to London with the Report to assist in perfecting the scheme. Excluding the county of Derry, which was to pass en bloc to the London companies, the amount of land surveyed for settlement was, in round figures, 600,000 acres. It was understood that only reasonably productive land was to be reckoned in this computation, since the total area of the five counties was, of course, many times this amount. But, making liberal allowance for mountains, woods, and bogs, there is yet a large margin unaccounted for-a problem that is met by the statement of competent judges, that the surveyed lands, by design or carelessness, were considerably underestimated. The scheme of the Plantation which was thoroughly, Vol. 239.-No. 474. с |