acture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always
and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are
not disposed to be very severe.

The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The dancers are
swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish dance. Everybody who
can find a partner and a place on the floor--there are many who cannot
find the latter--is dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is
going as merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and
solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, the
laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the _Noche Buena_,
and the bell summons the faithful to the midnight mass. The effect is
electric. The last twirl of the waltz is suspended, half executed. The
dancers stop as suddenly as if they were puppets moved and stilled by
the cunning of some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the
church: in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as
instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are now
kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional attitudes.

The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes contrasted in a
"dim religious light," the sudden change of place and mood, from gay
to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, strikes a stranger's eye with
thrilling effect. At the conclusion of the service the dancers return
to the ball-room, to change from grave to gay, and dance _ad libitum_
till daylight.

J.T.

ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS.

The first complete translation of the Bible into our language was
made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or Wickliffe. There are
several manuscript copies of it in the Bodleian and other European
libraries. This great work unlocked the Scriptures to the multitude,
or, as one of his antagonists, bewailing such an enterprise, worded
it, "the gospel pearl was cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long
before the appearance of this translation various versions of portions
of the Bible had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from
the reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British
Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was longe
before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men translated
into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion
and soberness well and reverently read." This statement is further
corroborated by Foxe, the martyrologist, who remarks: