As for serious plays, they are remarkable for their
murders, battles, bloodshed, and also for the crowds
they draw — a moved, distracted, and panting crowd
which comes to the theatre and forgets shop, stall, and
home, and wishes the play would last two hundred

" Tot apres le tambour sonne ;
Tout retentit de clameurs.
L'un crie en saignant : Je meurs !
Et si l'on n'occit personnc.
Les feintes, les faux combats
Font trembler et haut ct bas
Le cceur du sexe imbecile,
Oui laisse ceuvre et domicile
Pour jouir de ces ebats.

L'une voyant l'escarmouche,
En redoute le progres ;
L'autre oyant de beaux regrets,
Pleure s'essuye et se mouche ;
L'autre . . .

Gabant vainqueur et vaincu,
Gruge quelque friandisc.

Mere, fillc, tante ct niece,
Bourgeois, nobles, artisans,
Voudraient que de deux cents ans
Ne s'achevat unc piece."

Saint-Amant composed his diatribe in London the
1 2th of February, 1644. He did not publish it, but
it gives us an idea of the way in which, on his
return to Paris, he must have described English
manners, literature, and drama in his conversations
with his lettered friends.

The guide-books published about that time were
scarcely calculated to correct these impressions. In his
" Fidele conducteur pour le voyage d'Angleterre,"
printed in Paris in 1654, 2 Coulon warns the reader
that this island " used to be the dwelling-place of
angels and saints, and is now the hell of demons
and parricides. But for all that its nature has not
changed ; it is still in its place." It is worth the
trouble of going there, O traveller ! " Thou wilt be
able to observe the remains of the former pietv as well
as the commotions and disorders produced by the
brutality of a nation run mad, though at the same time
stupid and northern." A description follows, written
in a way that recalls the travels " dans la Tartarie le
Thibet et la Chine," of Father Hue, a large space
beino- devoted to the wonders which abound in
such remote and unknown countries. The land