Nov. 16.
Mendelssohn chose well when he took "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the exercise of his own art. The wealth of poetical imagery, elfin fantasy and elemental emotion lavished by the poet on his tribute to an Elizabethan marriage affords full inspiration to the musician who seeks to harness imagination to the senses. Hollywood has chosen the play for its first onslaught on Shakespeare. Midsummer Eve in Tudo: times was a national festival wherein horse-play, pageantry and martial display received the patronage of civic dignity, temporarily relaxed. It offered the substance of which the Lord Mayor's show, today, is the faint but pursuing shadows Seeking to do courtly homage to Queen Elizabeth and honour to a noble marriage, Shakespeare turned to the popular love fof revel and masquerade. The bride was Elizabeth Vere, daughter of the poet's: patron, the Earl of Oxford." The bridegroom was William Stanley, Earl of Derby. The wedding took place at Green-[wich on January 26,1895. Thus the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.