With all our modern progress, our advances in science and our new audacity of thought, there is one fashion of our ancestors that seems unlikely ever to die out - the love of Jane Austen. Her characters lived at the time of Waterloo, and their speech and manners seem almost incredibly artificial and formal compared with those of today; but they have never lost the charm that springs from the keen wit of their creator, her detached comprehension of human nature, and the limpid clarity of her style.

BEFORE the war it was a proud boast of certain Englishmen that they could speak no foreign languages. But the war, which was responsible for so many changes in the national life, seems to have broken down our professed ' insularity '—and today there are no more eager travellers, no more proficient linguists than the English people who are to be met with in every corner of Europe. There can be no doubt that broadcasting has played a -large part in creating this new cosmopolitanism, for it has given the average man an opportunity of hearing foreign languages spoken-by far the quickest short cut to surmounting their difficulties. Monsieur Stephan , whose talks both for school children and grown ups are a feature of the programmes, is definitely one of the ' personalities ' of broadcasting. Listeners who are taking their holidays in France this summer and wish to polish up their French grammar and accent will find his teaching of great help.

from The Theatrical Garden Party in aid of the Actors' Orphanage
Relayed from The Royal Hospital Ground, Chelsea

Every summer, when the green lawns of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea are at their greenest-and there is no lovelier garden in London than this that Wren planned for the gayest of the Stuart- kings-the spirit of carnival finds a resting-place- for a day in the heart of sober London. The Theatrical Garden Party gathers together all the stars of the stage in their most care-free mood. Actresses whose names are known wherever theatres flourish run impromptu side-shows; critics burlesque themselves, and the best-known figures in Society applaud their efforts. Everybody who is anybody goes to the Garden Party, and the Actors' Orphanage, that admirable charity run by the most generous profession in the world, benefits from it all.
This year the B.B.C. will provide one of the most striking features of the whole show. Listeners will remember that at the end of certain programmes broadcast from the studios they have heard the applause of an audience sitting in' the studio itself. This afternoon any of them who are in the grounds of the Royal Hospital will have their chance to become a part of the studio audience. From three o'clock until seven; the B.B.C.'s marquee will be the scene of a succession of variety programmes, starting at every half hour, performed in the complete semblance of a London studio. The microphone will be there, the announcer, the control-box, the red-and-white lights — the whole studio atmosphere that anyone who has ever been present during a broadcast knows so well.
It is one of these variety shows that is being broadcast from half-past four to five. Among the well-known artists, of the air and of the boards, who are taking part during the afternoon, and who will probably be heard in the broadcast, are George Grossmith, Nelson Keys, Marie Dainton, Ann Penn, Dale Smith, Dorothy Bennett, John Henry and Blossom, Harry Hemsley, Muriel George and Ernest Butcher, Mavis Bennett, Clapham and Dwyer, and the Don Vocal Quartet. And at the end you will hear the London Radio Dance Band, which Sidney Firman is conducting outside the marquee in some of the intervals between shows.
So, even if you cannot get to the Garden Party, you will find it very easy to imagine you are there.

THIS is the fifth of the Holiday Talks designed to give listeners some idea of the attractions of various sorts of holidays in various places at home and abroad. Today they will hear of the rugged beauties of the Border country; the wild hills over which the Romans drove their great wall, the heathy fastnesses whence the moss-troopers rode down on their forays, where Douglas and Percy waged their age-long war. Mr. Logan Mack has written an interesting book about the Border line, which he knows so well.

: Frederick Chester will sing songs of the West Country and tell a tale concerning some eggs. Stanford Robinson will conduct the Toy Symphony Orchestra.
'Erbcrt will conduct his family to the Seaside

CREENWICH; Weather FORE
CAST, FIRST GENERAL NEWS BULLETIN

OVER, a century and a half ago the four Adam brothers leased an area of waste land on the shore of the Thames, and began the erection of the fine group of buildings that is still called after them. Many times recently the Adelphi has been threatened, and today it has come at last under the hammer. If, as seems likely, this leads to its demolition, lovers of London and oi architecture will have cause to mourn, for Adelphi Terrace is a triumph of construction, and has always attracted distinguished residents, amongst whom at this very moment are Sir James Barrie and George Bernard Shaw.

THE SONATAS of BEETHOVEN

THIS is the fifth week of Professor Turner's talks, in which he has been explaining all about eclipses of every kind. His next talk will end the series, for the event itself is imminent.

by William Shakespeare

(Continued)