and then breaking the line of white palaces, now and then a superb cloud floating before it, until, at last, a mist seemed to rise from valleys below, wrapping it little by little, till all became invisible in soft gradations of vapoury gloom.  I shall never again see anything like that, where an art-loving court subsidises heavily scene-painter and machinist; but for all that, is it wise to have only sneers for what can be brought to pass with more modest means?  Our hall at Sweetbrier is as large as the Christ Church refectory, and handsomely proportioned and decorated.  A wide stage runs across the end.  We found some ample curtains of crimson, set off with a heavy yellow silken border of quite rich material, which had been used to drape a window that had disappeared in the course of repairs.  This, stretched from side to side, made a wall of brilliant colour against the gray tint of the room; and possibly Roger Ascham, seeing our audience-room before and after the hanging of it, might have had a thought of Antwerp.  The stage is the one thing in the world privileged to deceive.  The most devoted reader of Ruskin can tolerate shams here.  The costumes were devised with constant reference to Charles Knight, and, to the eye, were of the gayest silk, satin, and velvet.  There was, moreover, a profusion of jewels, which, for all one could see, sparkled with all the lustre of the great Florentine diamond, as you see it suspended above the imperial crowns in the Austrian Schatz-Kammer at Vienna.  The contrasts of tint were well attended to.  Pedro was in white and gold, Claudio in blue and silver, Leonato in red; while our handsome Benedick, a youth of dark Italian favour, in doublet of orange, a broad black velvet sash, and scarlet cloak, shone like a bird of paradise.

There was a garden-scene, in the foreground of which, where the eyes of the spectators were near enough to discriminate, were rustic baskets with geraniums, fuchsias, and cactuses, to give a southern air.  In the middle distance, armfuls of honeysuckle in full bloom were brought in and twined about white pilasters.  There was an arbour overhung with heavy masses of the trumpet-creeper.  A tall column or two surmounted with graceful garden-vases were covered about with raspberry-vines, the stems of brilliant scarlet showing among the green.  A thick clump of dogwood, whose large white blossoms could easily pass for magnolias, gave background.  The green was lit with showy colour of every sort,—­handfuls of nasturtiums, now and then a peony, larkspurs for blue, patches of poppies, and in the garden-vases high on the pillars (the imposition!) clusters of pink hollyhocks which were meant to pass for oleander-blossoms, and did, still, wet with the drops of the afternoon shower, which had not dried away when all was in place.  When it comes to rain and dewdrops, dear Dr. Holmes, a “fresh-water college” has an advantage.  First, it was given under gas; then, the hall being darkened, a magnesium-light gave a moon-like radiance,