Tae Scotchmen who decided that a ball should take the place of a banquet on December the first, unquestionably did a wise thing, and the interest which was first excited in the Settlement by the announcement that the feast of St. Andrew was also to commemorate the gonias of the novelist and minstrel who has exercised a wider influence than any writer since Shakespeare, is deepening as the fast shortening winter days are bringing the festival nearer and uenrer to us. There is no author who has approached Sir Waller Scott in the range of his productive energy. A Dickens Ball or a Thackeray Bull would give ne little more than a crowd of grotesque figures in the costume of the uiueteeuth century, but a Waverley Bull allows of the largest choice, and gives ample opportuuities for taste and knowledge to play themselves in picturesque activity, Englishmen may surely find some character to suit them in Ivanhoe or Kenilworth. Wo shall be disappointed if we do not seo representatives of Cour de Lion and Robin Hood, of Friar Tuck and Cedric the Saxon, of the Princess Rowena and of the faithful Garth. The Elizabethan epoch will gratify those who delight to ruffle it in silks, satins and velvets, and while Leicester and Raleigh will no doubt those who seek for less gaudy trappings may portray for ove brief evening the chivalrous Tressilian, the rough Wayland Smith, the swashbuckler Mike Lamborne, or the puritanical Tony Foster, What quaint character parts are the herald Mum. blazon, and the quack Alasco! To come to a luter period, the two great romances, " Woodstock" and " Poveril of the Peak," are rich in figures of historic interest, There is Charles in disguise in one novel and Charles ae the King in the other, there are Buckingham and Julian Peveril; and, if any one has a taste for euneting a thorough paced villain, thoro is "the most Chris. tian Christian." Nor must the austere Roundhead Major Bridgenorth and his beautiful daughter Alice be omitted. "Woodstock," a novel which can never be read without astonishment when we consider the circumstances of calamity under which it was written, affords an opportunity for character "make up" in the three Commissioners and in Wildrake. And perhaps some bold man may essay the Protector himself. The "Fortunes of Nigel" will give an opportunity for a careful and artistic picture of King Jo os, and some demure person may find an ap. propriate role in George Heriot. Nor must the miser rapbois and his daughter and the two prentice boys, or the winsome Margaret Ramsay, or the mysterious Lady Hermione be forgotten, Three of the four romances of which the scene is laid on foreign soil—" Quentin Durward," "Anne of Geierstein," and the "Talisman," give famous scope. We should like to see such a representative of Louis the Eleventh as Charles Keau was of old, and the rich uniform of the Scotch archer guard will suit any stalwart figure. A character part so to speak might be made of the Wild Boar of Ardeuues, and the Swiss peasant rulera would be good parts for those who affect the less costly materials, coarse grey frocks, which are put on without trouble, and who Lappen to have the grave
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.