SHAKESPEARE IN A KENTISH TOWN.
[TO THE EDITOIt OF THE "SPECTATOR:']
Six,—In your issue of February 17th the article on "Shake- speare in a Surrey Village" has much interested me. For ten years in a Kentish town we have had a play of Shakespeare each Christmas, and the results have been most promising. The young working lads have gained a solid knowledge of
good English (which in some cases has helped them to grasp the Bible language better). They have been given mental pleasures and a higher ideal of "amusement." No modern play visiting this town has a, chance of attracting lads or girls who have drunk deeply of the delights of the historical plays of Shakespeare. "They are a poor lot, Sir," was the verdict of one of these lads after a tentative visit to the theatre, "and they don't seem to improve my mind like Henry IV. did when I learnt it." We had Henry V. on last "Boxing" night, given in costume, but with no scenery. Four hundred persons, high and low, rich and poor, listened with intense interest. The actors were all young lads of the parish from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, and all had been educated in our Church schools. The verdict of the audience was : "Never better, most interesting, and appropriate to the Franco-English Alliance." One of the lads, acting as the French King, sang the " Marseillaise " in excellent French. I heartily commend to my brethren in country towns and in villages to cease talking of these "evil days" and the " wicked- ness " of amusements, &o. Let them use the great poet. prophet in order to educate their young people to better pleasures, and even prepare them for studying with greater profit that splendid divine library whence Shakespeare drew his language and much of his knowledge of man. Our con- tinuation schools will never succeed in giving the young a real taste for better reading until they use this dormant dramatic instinct.—With apologies for troubling you with a letter, and hearty thanks for the article which prompted it,
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