their woodwork. They had only just been rebuilt after a fire which had destroyed several houses a few months before. Thus ended the great Cottenham Fire.

Perhaps the most startling fire that took place in Cambridge in my time, was that at St. Michael's Church, then held by good old Professor Scholefield. It was one Sunday morning. The Sundayschool had been held in the church, and, just as the congregation was coming in, about a quarter to eleven, flames were seen breaking out in the roof. The iron pipe of a common stove had got red-hot and had ignited the beams in the roof, through which it passed. It was full term time, and therefore there was soon a full muster of gownsmen. There were no waterworks then in Cambridge, so that the whole supply of water had to be brought up from the Cam. This could only be reached by the long, narrow Trinity Lane; but soon a double line of men was formed down the lane, across Trinity New Court-the grass, generally preserved from the profane feet of undergraduates with religious care, being mercilessly trampled down-into Trinity grounds, and so to the river, where Long Johnson (afterwards stroke of the University boat in which I rowed), with other plucky men, was seen standing up to his middle in the water steadily filling the empty buckets. Dons even took their places in the ranks; and others, careful of the health of those committed to their care, were seen pouring out glasses of brandy for the men who were working in the water. After I had done my share of the handing work for a time, one of the most intelligent and respectable of our college servants got half-a-dozen of us together, and took us to get our College engine. Knowing the town well, he took us round by Sidney-street and the Market-place into the yard belonging to Messrs. Swan and Hurrell, ironmongers. There was a good supply of water; and, taking the hose through the houses of Rose-crescent, he got to the back of the church, and just reached the chancel window as the flames had seized the beautiful old oak stalls, which adorned

that part of the church. These we saved. The rest of the church was thoroughly destroyed, and had to be re-built. Some of the men on this occasion exposed themselves to great risk; all worked with a will, but yet system was wanting.

The only other fire at which I "assisted" at Cambridge was at a house in Sidney-street-close to Trinity Church. The men worked here as willingly and hard as ever, even though the house had been occupied by one of those sharks who sometimes prey upon the young and thoughtless. Old Whitaker had been one of those wretches who entice young men into extravagance and worse, by lending money, or buying clothes or other articles of property from men who are hard up. I had known a silly fellow who had been in the habit of getting clothes on credit from his tailor, and then selling them to old Whitaker, of course for half-price or less. It was, therefore, with some satisfaction that, at the next summer assizes, I saw the old wretch sentenced to transportation for life for setting fire to his house-the fact being that his malpractices had compelled the University authorities to "discommune" him, i.e. forbid the undergraduates to have any dealings with him. His trade thus being gone, he had hoped to make the Insurance Offices pay him for stock which he had previously removed.

A few weeks after I had taken my degree, I was in Cambridge for a couple of days, and to my sorrow the front of Trinity Hall was burnt down without my knowing it. I was sorry for the college. I am afraid that I grieved almost as much that I was not there to see-the fact being that Cambridge men felt a kind of savage interest in extinguishing fires. I have often said that it was part of my University training. A few months after I had gone to my first curacy, I had the opportunity of showing what my education in this line had done for me. One Sunday morning, at five o'clock, I was awakened by a loud crackling noise, which I found to proceed from the wooden buildings of a tan-yard, which were in a perfect blaze. A very few minutes

sufficed to take me to the spot, and I gained a considerable amount of kudos by my exertions on that occasion.

I daresay the present generation of Cantabs is just as fond of fires, and just as willing to work at putting them out, as we were. The young and kindly hearts must be just the same in their feelings now as then. What I should like to hear of is the establishment of a Volunteer Fire Brigade in my old University. I venture to say that, if the colonel of the University Volunteers were to graft the fire brigade on to his system, it would add wonderfully to its popularity. In the rifle corps there is the necessary discipline, authority, and organization. After half-a-dozen drills with the engines there would only be needed a monthly practice to keep the brigade efficient. The college servants should also be enrolled in the brigade, so that there would still be a body of men ready for any emergency in the vacations. If some such plan were adopted, much desultory energy and un

directed power would be brought under control. Clergymen and country gentlemen would acquire a kind of knowledge which might often be very useful in remote districts; and the University which began the Volunteer movement might give an impulse to Volunteer Fire Brigades which would produce beneficial. effects from Cumberland to Cornwall.

Some anxious parents might say that they did not send their sons to the University to make firemen of them, and to expose them to the great risks that attend such an employment. But the fact is, that men will go to fires, and will work at them. It must certainly be better to have them there under discipline than as their own masters. The risk would be much less; the good done much. greater. And, as the University engines would always move at the first alarm of fire, much valuable property might be saved while the managers of other engines were bargaining as to who was to pay for the engines, as happened at Cottenham, and lately near Preston.

RODEN NOEL.

THIS Pastorale was played at Larran, June 20th, 1864.

The benevolent reader will perhaps at once exclaim, with varied energy of expression, according to his or her peculiar temperament: "Where is Larran? and what is a Pastorale?"

Larran is a village of about 1,200 souls, high among the mountains of the French-Spanish frontier, near the head waters of Le Saison (or Cesson, according to Michel), in the arrondissement of Mauléon, in the department of the Basses Pyrénées, the south-westerly department of la belle France, and one of the most lovely in the whole of it. So far, geographically. Ethnologically-which is of still greater importance to the present subject-it is situated in the very heart of La Soule, in the Pays Basque, and thus occupies the proudest of all positions among that remarkable people; for, of the three French districts of the Pays Basque, viz. Le Labourd, La Basse Navarre, and La Soule, the inhabitants of the last are those who claim to be Basques par excellence-the pure, unmingled, aristocratic blood. And, what is still more to the present purpose, it is in the Souletin district alone, nay, only in its more remote parts, that Pastorales are now either acted at all, or in anything like their primitive simplicity.

Now, what is a Pastorale? Reader, the gist, the whole purport of this paper will be an attempt to describe to you a Pastorale. But, before describing the thing, we will endeavour to explain the word. It is evidently of French-Latin origin, and is defined in Boiste's Dictionary as a theatrical or poetical piece, in which shepherds are the actors, musicians, dancers." This seems to be pretty nearly correct; but the Basques themselves use the French word "Tragédie" as synonymous with Pastorale. The piece we are about to describe is entitled in MSS. "La Tragédie de

Richard sans Peur, Duc de Normandie," and in ordinary conversation the terms Pastorale and Tragédie are indifferently used. The reader must not understand, however, by Tragédie, anything like the Tragedies of Corneille or of Shakespeare, nor even what is in some respects much nearer, the Plays of Euripides, or of Sophocles, or of the early Athenian stage. This will, we trust, be made plain by the sequel. Meanwhile we must be content with this definition: a Pastorale is a dramatic representation as performed among the Souletin Basques.

How can one get to Larran? Starting from Mauléon or from Tardets, the chief towns in the valley of Le Saison, and which are easily accessible from any of the central stations of the Pau and Bayonne railroad, there is a carriageroad up the valley as far as Licq; but thence the traveller must proceed on his own legs, or on those of horse, mule, or donkey. Following the path up the valley, a valley as lovely in its quiet beauty as a mountain valley of the softer kind can well be-following up this valley, the path winds close along the banks of the Gave, or mountain stream, till the ascent begins which leads immediately to Larran itself. The village is perched on a kind of high plateau or promontory in the hills, so far above the little mountain stream which we have hitherto followed that it can neither be seen nor heard directly from it, though but a hundred yards from the centre of the village there is a point whence nearly the whole course of it may be seen, as it comes leaping, sparkling, foaming down from its iron mountain home. But, high as Larran is, it has still this peculiarity: from no quarter can it be seen as you approach it, until you are almost in its streets; and again, when you are in it, nought can be seen from it but the open sky, and the summits of the neighbouring but still somewhat distant mountains. It was in the rough open "place"

of this village, looked down upon by those majestic spectators, under a literally cloudless sky, and, of course, as its midsummer concomitant in Pyrenean latitudes, a blazing scorching southern sun, that this Pastorale was playedacted for eight long hours, or, reckoning the preliminary procession, for nearly nine.

The performers of these Pastorales are no paid actors-they are no set of artists devoting themselves, either exclusively or in part, to the service of the tragic muse. They are simply the rustic villagers, young or old as the case may be, who, for their own pleasure, or to while away the tedium of a long winter in the mountains, and for the entertainment of their neighbours, or for the still more cherished approval of the fair Basque maidens, learn and act these Pastorales. In the district of La Soule there are generally one or two acted yearly, but seldom at the same village in two consecutive years. In the acting the sexes are rarely, if ever, mingled. Generally all the performers are males, young lads or boys taking the female parts; but, sometimes, once in seven years or so, the maidens of the valley will act a piece, the subject of which is almost always taken from the life of some female saint; and excellently well we are assured they do it--the girls in this case taking the male as well as the female parts. At Larran, the piece we witnessed was performed by the young bachelor lads of the village and of the neighbourhood. None of the actors were above twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, but they ranged from boyhood up to that age. The piece selected was entitled (as above) "Richard sans Peur, Duc de Normandie;" but, notwithstanding this French title, the reader must please to remember that every other word of it was Basque (Escuaras), excepting solely in the interlude, wherein some words of Béarnois patois were introduced.

Let us now attempt a description of the accessories. First, of the stage. No stage that ever was constructed could possibly be more simple. It consisted merely

of rough boards, laid on joists, which again rested on empty wine-barrels set on end. The whole surface of the stage might be some sixty feet by forty. The access to it was by a short ladder of four or five steps from the ground in front. The hinder part abutted on a house, on a level with the first floor, taking advantage of a slope in the ground, so that through the windows and doors of this house, the actors and inmates found egress and ingress to and from the stage. Some five or six feet from the house-wall, a sheet, to which a few flowers and ribbons were attached, was suspended across the stage, and the space thus inclosed between the sheet and the house formed the ordinary greenroom, or retiring-place for the actors when off duty. At the sides, this too was as open as any other part of the stage, and as patent to the curiosity of the spectators. At the upper righthand corner of the sheet was affixed (as is always the case in these Pastorales) a wooden puppet, whose body, legs, and arms could be jerked about by cords; which puppet is supposed, in the Basque idea of Saracenic and diabolic mythology, to represent Mahomet, the god, or idol, whom Saracens and devils equally adore. It is frequently alluded to as such in the course of the performance. This is absolutely the whole scenic decoration; the rest is bare boards.

How shall we describe the actors themselves, and their dresses? How can we speak of simplicity without making it ridiculous? how show originality lurking beneath conventionality, and old ideas of romance united so quaintly with the latest phases of modern caprice in feminine and military toilettes? Can the reader picture to himself Charlemagne, that doughty emperor, in the blue uniform of a national guard, with white cotton gloves for gauntlets, and a gold-headed Malacca walking-cane to represent the sceptre before which trembled almost all of Europe's monarchs; and Richard, Duke of Normandy, the hero of the piece, in similar attire, but with blue glass spectacles on, in order to hide a squint?

Clarissa, too-the fair Clarissa, the only daughter of England's proud king, Astolpho-in hat and feather, ay, white cotton gloves, and crinoline? These are types of most of the dresses on that day. But by the side of these was the graceful Satans' dress-those darling Satans of whom we shall have so much to say so thoroughly Basque, from the pretty red beret (cap), with its white tassels, to the hempen sandals (spartingues or espadrilles); the short, tightfitting jacket of brightest scarlet, open in front, the crimson sash, the nether garments white, with just three threads of different colours, some inches apart, below the knee. An Archbishop, too, was there, gorgeous in purple spangled cassock and cape, and purple pasteboard mitre, with silver tinsel cross upon it, and gilded crosier. An Angel, too-a boy in satin tunic, white, with garland on his head of green and white, with sash of blue-a wingless angel, but who ever kept a tiny cross upheld between his joined palms and outstretched finger-tips, and ever marched with softly measured steps, and ever spoke in softly chanted tones. Such were the chief costumes. Blue was the colour of the good and the heroic-of Roland, and of Charlemagne, of Richard himself, and of Salomon, king of Brittany, and all the French; while scarlet, horrid scarlet flamed upon the backs of all the bad-the terrible Satans, the heathen Saracens, the perfidious English.

The head-dresses, among all else that was conventional, were truly original, and seemed invented for the occasion. If Charlemagne, for instance, was not Charlemagne in the play, but some one else (reader, express not too strongly thy astonishment; such changes happened continually, for there was a play within the play, in which the metamorphose of the characters was indicated to the eye by change of head-dress only)-if Charlemagne, I say, was not himself, but some one else, he wore a common buff wide-awake; but, when himself, he shone most glorious to behold in tinsel bravery-upon his head he wore what one of my companions most accurately

described as "a structure like a conical bird-cage made of sticks of barley-sugar, with his head in the middle of it." The head-dresses of the blue division were but variations on this, with fieldmarshals' and gendarmes' hats for the minor characters; but the reds, the Sultan and his men, were terrible in gleaming helmets of carmine tinsel, over which nodded fearfully four plumes of mingled red and white. A small oval lookingglass did duty for a diamond above the front of the mighty Saladin, and by this small mirror his gallant followers did literally often dress themselves. A giant, too, appeared in black, with sombre plumes at least half a yard high upon his lofty head. Let this suffice for the millinery department.

The other properties comprised a full orchestra of three performers, and five instruments. The first performer played a violin simply, like any other village musician; but his fellow-artists played four instruments, two apiece at the same time, viz. a pipe or fife, and a Basque tambourin. The former was played with the mouth and right hand; the latter rested on the shoulder and knees, and was beaten by a stick with the left hand. This Basque tambourin must by no means be confounded with the instrument of similar name familiar to our childhood in the hands of German peasant girls. It is quite a different instrument-being one of the many variations of the guitar, only made of stouter wood, oblong in shape, about two and a half feet long, but slightly broader at the upper end than at the lower, and with a low bridge, over which are stretched five strings of very coarse material, which are beaten with a short stick, about twelve inches long. The music thus produced seems to be not at all unpleasant to dance to, or to give the rhythm to the chants. For other purposes we dare not hazard an opinion.

Stage construction, scenery (or rather no scenery), costumes, orchestra, have been more or less described. What remains? Some very useful personages. First, a prompter and stage-conductor