I always find the Lane big scenes and ballets more full of competing colour and restless movement than of controlled design. But the Hall of Fantasy, with its spiral staircases reaching to the flies, was an ambitious effort crowned with success. The dance of the eight tiny zanies was the best of the ballet. The Shakspearean pageant at the end might be (1) shortened, and (2) brightened by the characters throwing a little more conviction into their respective aspects—notably the ghost of Hamlet's father. However, as a popular tercentenary tribute to "our Shakspeare" the scheme is to be commended and was as such approved.
T.
THE SPIRITUAL SPORTSMAN.
[The Executive of the German Sporting Clubs and Athletic Associations have issued a manifesto expressing satisfaction at the substitution of German for English words and phrases. "German sport," it declares, "in future places itself unreservedly on the side of those who would further German Kultur. German Song and German Art will in future find a home in German sport." This new patriotic programme has been greatly applauded in the Press, the Berliner Tageblatt observing that the culture of soul and body must proceed pari passu, with the result that "not only will the German sportsman become a beautiful body, but a beautiful soul as well. Every club must have its library, not filled with sensational novels, but with works of art. And before all else the club-house must be architecturally beautiful—an object from which he may obtain spiritual edification.">[
The German is seldom amusing,
Since humour is hardly his forte,
But I've frequently smiled in perusing
His latest pronouncement on sport;
For it seems that he thinks it the duty