[Illustration:  “OUR SON IS FAT AND SCANT OF BREATH.”

(We shouldn’t have guessed it, but his own mother ought to know.)

Hamlet . . . . . . .  MR. H.B.  IRVING.]

Observers contrasting this with Mr. IRVING’S earlier performance remarked a gain in depth and fire and a happier restraint of mannerism.  It was a very notable and gracious piece of work.  He has the player’s first gift, an arresting personality.  His elocution has distinction.  He conveys the beauty of the words and the richness of the packed thought thoughtfully.  The complex play of action and motive—­the purpose blunted by overmuch thinking, the spurs to dull revenge, the self-contempt, the assumed antic disposition, at times the real mental disturbance—­all this was set before us with a fine skill and resource.  The “To be or not to be” soliloquy was masterly in its sincerity and restraint; the two broken love passages with Ophelia showed a fine tenderness through the distraught, bitter mood.  An ingenious turn was given to that difficult change of weapons in the fencing bout, though I doubt if the Sword Club would wholly have approved the technique of the fencing.

Miss GERTRUDE ELLIOTT’S Ophelia in the Mad Scene was full of beauty, sweetness and dignity—­and we have so often been bored by our lesser Ophelias.  A very fine performance.  Mr. HOLMAN CLARK was the foolish prating knave, a Polonius robbed of his best speech, and the more consistent therefore.  Mr. IRVING is obviously right in his view that Polonius could never by any chance have given any such advice to his truculent son.

One may congratulate the producer on the courage of his convictions.  But I wonder if the Shakspearean tradition is really dying.  The general quality of the performance was, it must be confessed, not inspiring.  There was little of the king’s divinity hedging Claudius; the Queen (an always difficult part) was elaborately unconvincing, though played by a clever actress; Guildenstern and awkward Rosencrantz deserved any fate which awaited them in England.  Neither Laertes nor Horatio seemed authentic.  But Mr. TOM REYNOLDS’ grave-digger had humour and avoided tedium. Hamlet was the thing.

T.

* * * * *

“A Berlin official telegram states that the Kaiser has sent the following telegram to the Crown Prince:—­’The troops of all the German tribes under your command, with steel-hard determination and strongly led, have brought to failure the great French attempt to break through on the Aisne and in Champagne.  Also there, again, the infantry had to bear the grunt.’”—­Northern Whig.

The Imperial euphemism, we suppose, for the cry of “Kamerad!”

* * * * *

THE NEW RATIONS.

    “Joint Hospital Board, ——­, 14th April, 1917.  The above Board require
    two Probationer Nurses for their Consumption.”—­Provincial Paper.