To _The Merchant of Venice_—a rambling, untidy comedy at best, a play for reading, or only to be played by a man of genius—he brings a graceless cast, a marvelous pot-pourri of music (tom-toms for “Morrocco” and Spanish jingles for “Arragon”), a quite distended and “improved” version of the original play, himself (God save us), and a theory of decoration quite incomprehensibly fearful. Brown palaces shaking to the conversation of the players—brown palaces with hangings of decayed green, a sham, paper Venice, elaborately stenciled, a Portia in landlady’s pink, a Jessica (a spirited Cockney girl) in Turkish costume, roysterers garbed with all the delicate art of Timbuctoo, a Shylock in old dressing gown. No detail, no fragment of the picture of vulgarity is lacking—from red-plush curtains to modern rattle-jacks for the Carnival, from mouthed speeches to maudlin groupings—a complete whole. This to an apparently delighted audience, to a receptive press. Barker departed from America, a semi-success, embittered towards us. _The Weavers_, finely played and brilliantly produced, clung to the shadow of an audience at the Garden Theatre, got as far as Chicago and failed completely there. The two great things in the theatre of the past year trodden out of sight of the easy public at the absurd and dolorous prancing, at the loud cajoling of popularity of bourgeois neighbor Tree. How long is the theatre to cling to ragged precedent; to these mournful gentlemen of a dusty yesterday, raving through their paper and lattice Venices, showing us their entrail-colored Belmonts, barring sun and light and poetry and singing from the song-starved people of America? ROLLO PETERS. Some Imagist Poets, 1916[1] MARY ALDIS It is a matter of speculation why six poets of widely dissimilar viewpoints, if similar technique, should choose to band themselves together to publish in a yearly anthology selections from their works. An examination into the prefaces and poems of the three anthologies sent forth by the Imagists and a study of various articles on the subject by individual members of the group fail to give adequate explanation. The principle tenets of Imagism, i. e., clear presentation, the abolishing of outworn phrases and extra adjectives, the necessity of rhythm in all poetry, the absence of reflective comment, are those common to most of the modern serious writers of verse; and although the Imagists have done well to lay fresh emphasis on the difficulty and desirability of putting these tenets into practice, this hardly constitutes a new school. As for a definite understanding of the term Imagism, God help the man who thinks he can explain to another its meaning.