terer, the croquet skimmer, is careless on these points. She dresses herself with an eye to the picturesque, the startling, the bewildering. She appears on the croquet-ground like a transformation scene-so gilded, so gorgeous is she, and so much has she about her that nobody cares to see. She plays in gloves, she pretends to be ashamed to show her feet, she cheats, and she sits down between her strokes. Her train sweeps the balls about, and she is always falling over the hoops. She is possibly a good girl enough in her private sphere, and would no doubt be a desirable acquisition at a pic-nic (another pretty word) or a water party, but on the croquet-ground she is out of place.

But I am bound to admit that, as a rule, the objectionable features of a croquet party are embodied in the gentlemen players, and not the ladies. Ladies, of almost every age, appear to possess an instinctive taste for croquet. No lady who can toddle is too old (or too young, for the matter of that) for the game. I never yet met a lady who was too "blue" to condescend to an occasional turn-who thought it beneath her dignity to stoop to balls and mallets. But with men it is otherwise. They often find themselves bound to play whether they like it or not; and when they don't like it they are an insufferable nuisance.

Firstly,

I divide objectionable men-players into three classes. the men who don't like the game, but who are compelled, by stress of circumstances, over which they have no control, to take an occasional turn at it. Secondly, disputatious people, who stop the game to argue

out points on which nobody else ever has a doubt. Every stroke of their own, and of everybody else, is the occasion of a long and elabo

rate disquisition, divided into heads, and ending in a reference to a standing authority, with points reserved for future argument. The worst of it is, that they conduct the dispute with the utmost good nature and gentlemanly breeding, as far as they are personally concerned. If they would only quarrel to such an extent as not to be on speaking terms with each other, all would be well.

The third class of objectionable men-players consists of people who go in for science, and who refer every mandate to the principles

of natural philosophy. They are great at impacts, angles of incidence, transmission of forces, triangulation, and other cabalistic expressions, which are supposed to give a tone to their play, and to redeem croquet from the commonplace of a garden game. A man of this class has curious theories of his own, the working out of which involves much acrobatic distortion and personal inconvenience. He takes his distances as if he were laying a gun; and then, after working out an intricate little problem in conic sections, in a small memorandum book that he carries for the purpose, he lies down on the grass at an ascertained distance from the ball (A) he is going to strike, and with a horizontal sweep of the mallet, calculated with a due regard to the principles of plane trigonometry, hits his own ball, and misses the one (B) he aims at.

A fourth class of tiresome players may, perhaps, be admitted, in order to include those amiable beings who, unobjectionable in every other croquet particular, devote the intervals between their play to the cultivation of an affectionate understanding between themselves. They

are only objectionable because they keep the play waiting, and are given to making pretty little sacrifices to each other's interests, if they happen to be on different sides. This is an amiable weakness, but reprehensible, because it is traitorous to the other players on their respective sides, who perhaps may not feel as enthusiastic in the cause

of the interesting opponents as the interesting opponents themselves. It is to this class that I myself belong.

The game of croquet has become so general an amusement in summer months, that I am surprised that appropriate emblematic costumes have not been invented for the benefit of enthusiastic players. The cricketer has his shirt covered with portraits of eminent cricketers (who are wonderfully alike, and all with tall white hats-the last form of head-dress that one would think a cricketer would select); the boating man has skiffs innumerable floating on the wide expanse of his manly chest; the sporting man has horsy emblems about him; the doggy man is a walking kennel; the amateur actor wears Shakespearian shirt-studs stuck into a ballet-girl shirt. Why should not the croquet player be equally distinguished? I am not great at fashionprints; but as no professional fashion-artist has thought it worth his while to suggest an appropriate croquet costume, I am induced to do my best to supply the deficiency.

(To the Editor of THE BROADWAY.)

SIR,-Having spoken to Mrs. Brown on the subject of literature in general, and of your new periodical in particular, I am happy to be able to convey to you the opinions of that excellent woman on both subjects. It will be easily discovered, by even a cursory perusal of the annexed paper, that Mrs. Brown is not only a hard reader, but a deep thinker; and, as such, her testimony on any subject connected with literature must be invaluable. With these few words of introduction, I will leave Mrs. Brown to speak for herself, and merely subscribe myself, Yours very truly,

ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.

Mrs. Brown on Periodical Literature.

WELL, in course, readin' and writin' is noble things, and werry proper in their places; but I'm sure what that writin' is come to now-a-days with the penny post, nobody wouldn't believe; for that gal of mine, she's a-writin' 'er letters mornin', noon, and night.

I says to 'er, "If ever I ketches you a-writin' your foolishness all over my dresser in the middle of the day again, and a-neglectin' of your work, I'll put all the lot behind the fire, and you may suit yourself, for you won't suit me."

Bless you, every hinstant of that gal's time she's a-writin', and wherever she can get the money from for them antelopes and paper as she uses by the oshun, you wouldn't credit.

Not as she's a bit partickler about makin' free with them as belongs to others, as I'm sure the gal as lived along with me when I did used to let lodgins, she did make free with their things, as wasn't never, no more stationary the minit as their backs was turned; and yet not a gal as ever tampered with the tea-caddy, nor yet purloined the pickles, and you might 'ave trusted with a cut joint by the week, and never miss a mouthful; not as ever any servant in my 'ouse need take the wittles as always 'as what I 'ave myself, even to stewed petty-toes for supper, for I'd scorn to eat up every bit myself, as I considers 'oggish.