most rudimentary sense of politeness would allow them, but they may sit in the background, mute but beautiful princesses, as much as they like, and they are permitted to comment on the courage of the hero when occasion offers. Successful scenes should be repeated three or four times till their possibilities had been exhausted. Every now and then, if realism is desired, nurse or governess should look through the door and say, “Children, don’t be rough,” to which the whole company must reply, “We’re only playing!” Once at least in the course of the play one of the smaller members of the company should be smitten into tears, to be comforted by the princesses. The actors should quarrel freely among themselves and throw up their parts every half-hour, but, on the whole, they should all enjoy themselves enormously. Such an entertainment, we admit, would be intolerable to the sentimental adult; but the criticisms of the children in the audience would be worth hearing. CHILDHOOD IN RETROSPECT “In age to wish for youth is full as vain, As for a youth to turn a child again.” _Denham_. IT is to be supposed that there are few men and women who do not occasionally look back on the days of their childhood with regret. The responsibilities of age are sometimes so pressing, its duties so irksome, that the most contented mind must travel back with envy to a period when responsibilities were not, and duties were merely the simple rules of a pleasing game, the due keeping of which was sure to entail proportionate reward. And this being so, and the delights of the Golden Age always being kept in the back of our mind, as a favourable contrast to the present state of things, it is hardly surprising that in course of time, the memory of the earlier days of our life is apt to become gilded and resplendent, and very unlike the simple, up and down April existence that was really ours. The dull wet days, the lessons and the tears are all forgotten; it is the sunshine and the laughter and the play that remain. But it by no means follows that such hoarding up of pleasant memories tends to make a man discontented with his lot; it would rather seem that they impart something of their good humour to the mind in which they are stored, so that the sunshine of former jolly days returns to yield an aftermath of more sober joy, and to help to light out our later years with a becoming glow of cheerfulness. And on the other hand you will find that an habitually discontented man will be quite unwilling to own that the days of his youth, at all events, were happy.