Some of Sh2kespeare's Female Characters. By Helena Faucit, Lady Martin.
(Blackwood and Sons.)—This is a "new and en- larged edition" of a valuable and interesting book. "Helena Fancit " has done good service to the English stage in many ways, and not least effectively by this intelligent review of the dramatic conceptions to which she has herself given fresh force and vitality. The volume consists of letters addressed to friends, and the heroines discussed are Ophelia, Portia, Desdemona, Juliet, Imogen, Rosalind, Beatrice, and liermione. Perhaps the most interesting of them is the first letter, on "Juliet," addressed to Mrs. S. C. Hall (apparently, as it is dated 1881, in the very year of her death). This gives an account of the writer's debut. She had set her heart on appearing for the first time in the character of Juliet; but there were difficulties, chiefly in the fact that there was not a Romeo young enough to suit so very youthful a heroine. She had accordingly to take up with the part of Julia in The Hunchback. It may comfort young aspirants to theatrical dis- tinction to know that she was a victim to stage-fright in its most aggravated form.
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