records of civilisation, and the most gigantic strides in the progress of mankind, and therefore there is nothing astonishing in the fact that the art of amusement has not stood still, and that it appears now in the most varied forms in order to supply that recreation and relaxation which the busiest minds demand as occasional short periods of repose and change amid the ceaseless work and anxiety of this restless age. Accordingly, theatres have multiplied amazingly, and the theatrical profession has now become almost as recognised a calling and sphere of labour as any other professional career. Persons who go to a theatre now and then for an evening's entertainment express their surprise if a copy of the Era' is put into their hands, and they discover that there is a regular dramatic world which provides its profits, its prices, its demand for labour, as thoroughly as any commercial market; and they are somewhat amazed at reading the advertisements for 'Stars,' 'Singing Chambermaids,' 'First Heavies,' 'Leads,' and 'General Utility. Next they will light upon the announcement that some talented individual is ready to supply dramas, farces, and burlesques with patter songs at a moment's notice; and that somebody else possesses a vast agency extending through England, America, and the Colonies, by which means managers in the four quarters of the globe may cater for the amusement of their various customers; and after perusing the dramatic intelligence which the indefatigable editor of the 'Era' collects from all provincial towns, from America and Australia, they will emerge from the study with the acknowledgment that, if the drama is really in a decline, it cannot be from want of nourishment or power of assimilation. Yet even among

the regular playgoing public how few there are who realise what a thorough business the theatre is. They pay for their places, and are amused and interested, or are sleepy and tired, and they go home and talk about the piece over their oysters, praising or blaming, as the case may be, but attach little or no importance to the lives and labours of those who have worked for them behind the footlights, and whose livelihood depends upon their success as certainly as that of a doctor or a lawyer. The spectators seldom consider the performers apart from the mimic characters they adopt; the authors, to their minds, are little more than machines; still less do they consider the scenepainters, stage-carpenters, stagemanagers, prompters, and the numberless persons who all work together to complete the successful issue. The spectators look only to the result in a lump, and never care to enter into individual considerations.

And yet neither author, actor, nor manager could well wish it otherwise. The whole charm of the theatre consists in its illusion. The occupants of pit, gallery, stalls, and private boxes all pay their money to witness, as mere spectators, events that stir them strangely when they are merely onlookers, but which in most cases would be received with apathy, or at all events with very lukewarm sensations, if they occurred in the ordinary transactions of daily life. The dramatic fable enables the spectator to witness the incidents of life from an entirely separate and unselfish standpoint. In real everyday existence we seldom see cause and effect closely treading upon each other's heels; and if we are personally mixed up with circumstances more than ordinarily interesting, and possessing a tragic flavour, there are usually so many

other pressing matters which distract our keen attention, that we fail to be impressed as we should be if like events occurred on our perusal of a sensational novel. But there are few novel-writers of the present day-are there any indeed?-who can fix our attention and absorb our interest in the same way that a stage-play can do. In the novel we read much the same sort of thing that we can briefly peruse in the newspaper reports of criminal trials, only in more minute detail. In the play we see the acts done, and are far more powerfully excited than when we merely read about them. We go to the assizes; we are present at a trial for murder. We hear the speeches of able counsel; we listen to the evidence; we attend to the careful summing-up of the judge; we are somewhat excited when the jury return to their box and give their verdict; we are solemnly still when the judge pronounces the terrible sentence; and yet, strangely enough, this does not excite us so much as the same events and scenes when portrayed upon the stage. The truth is that reality and fact have not the same power over us that illusions and ideas possess. And it is in this accident of our nature that we discern the triumph of theatrical art.

Theatres are multiplying; gentlemen are finding their way into the profession as a matter of course; ladies of gentle birth, with but narrow means, are beginning to ask themselves why they should not seek upon the stage an honest and remunerative employment; and there seems to be no substantial reason whatever why the theatrical profession should not before long be as eagerly sought after as any other profession that can be named. That strong prejudices still exist against it cannot

be denied, but this is an age in which prejudices are of little force if they have not sound sense to back them up.

Actors and actresses have long complained that Society has not recognised them as it ought to have done, and they have stoutly maintained that they have as much right to high social position, by reason of the talents they possess and the intellectual amusement they afford, as the persevering followers of any other profession. All who take an interest in the theatre, all who 'go to the play,' should earnestly assist in destroying that miserable and uncharitable notion which the congenital Puritanism of the British public is too apt to foster still, to the effect that the position of the dramatic artist is one to be neither envied nor desired. If the drama is to occupy the high place to which among a cultivated people it is undoubtedly entitled, its exponents should be warmly encouraged. If the scandals which so painfully exist in connection with it are to be put an end to and effectually extirpated, 'Society' must cease to consider any of its own members who, from conscious talent and force of circumstances, are constrained to look to the stage for a profession and a livelihood, as thereby in the slightest degree degrading themselves. Nay, if there are contaminating influences in the theatrical career, it is to be feared that several generally respected members of Society' are in the main responsible for the fact. Those who are, in more senses than one, behind the scenes,' are only too well aware that a vicious system of irresponsible management exists which forces incapable prettiness and luxurious impudence too often into public notice. We have had enough, and more

than enough, of 'lardy dardies,' well-shaped but scantily clad limbs, golden tresses, diaphanous costumes, and insolent female cancan dances. If such are de

manded by a certain class of theatre-goers-chattering boobies who exchange their loud and coarse remarks to the disturbance of their neighbours while something beyond their limited comprehension is going on upon the stage, gilded youths who alternate between the cigarette and the toothpick, and whose chief anxieties are their buttonholes and their bets for goodness' sake let them have a home of their own; call it a Château des Fleurs, an Alcazar, a Mabille, an Argyll, but let it not be honoured by the name of Theatre. In the first number of a new and amusing magazine, called The London Sketch Book,' Mr. Clement Scott wrote an article entitled 'The Stage; a Study or a Speculation?' and he undoubtedly damps the hopes of all theatrical reformers by his denunciation of modern managers; and Mr. Scott does not speak without experience. It is of course true, that a theatre, in these commercial days, must be to a great extent a speculation, a matter of plain business pounds, shillings, and pence. May we indulge the hope that the playgoing public will less and less deserve that epithet of 'inartistic' which Mr. Scott applies to it; and as taste is unquestionably becoming more refined in general articles de luxe,' so its outspoken demand will compel the supply of a higher standard of theatrical entertainment, and teach theatrical speculators that the drama is an intellectual study? Mr. Scott will reply, 'You must first reform your public.'

That there are several dramatic

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authors, or, rather, persons who have written plays, who have not yet succeeded in getting their works publicly performed, is a fact of which we are not unfrequently reminded, though it must be owned that Dr. Vellere has not recently drawn the attention of the public to his unappreciated self by means of a colloquial advertisement in the Times.' We are told that there are plenty of good authors about, and that we, the playgoers, do not know what we are losing because managers are very reluctant to read new plays and to produce the works of untried men. That there is a considerable amount of truth in the statement nobody will care to deny; but in justice to managers we cannot repress the conviction that a thoroughly good actable play will, sooner or later, force itself in one way or another upon theatrical authorities, and take substantial form behind the footlights. The unacted can, at all events, follow the example set them by Mrs. George Cresswell, and if managers will not set their plays before the public in one shape, they can themselves set them before the public in another, as this lady has proved by the publication in a handsome volume of her drama 'The King's Banner; or, Aimez Loyauté.' But on perusing this play it is impossible for anybody who has any practical acquaintance whatever with the stage not to understand why a manager who knew his business would decline to produce it, for, as it stands, the construction is hopelessly undramatic from the managerial point of view. 'The King's Banner' is in four acts: the first act requires four different scenic arrangements; the second, five; the third, three; and the fourth, six; and not one of these are what

are technically called carpenters' scenes, but they all require very considerable stage arrangement, and what are called tableau curtains' would have to be constantly dropped in order to secure due effects. Then, in Act 2, between Scene 2 and Scene 3 three years elapse; in the Fourth Act, nine years elapse between Scene 2 and Scene 3; and Scene 2, according to the author's expressed intention, should be supposed to occupy six-and-thirty hours, with the necessary change of lights. Now it is obvious at once that such requisitions are impossible of fulfilment, and sin so grievously against all rules of dramatic construction, that unless a manager wished to ruin his reputation for ever, he could not for an instant entertain the idea of putting 'The King's Banner' on the boards. The story in itself is a very good one and contains many excellent situations, and it is to be regretted that Mrs. Cresswell having such ample materials at her command, did not, by a very slight exercise of ingenuity, keep them more in hand, and avoid that diffuseness which appears to be her greatest weakness. Into the plot there is no space in these pages to enter; it is sufficient to say that the fable is interesting, if it is at times somewhat hard reading; and there are serious blemishes which cannot easily be forgiven. For instance, what right had the daughter of a certain Sir Ralph Neville, period 1648, to the title of Lady Laura Neville? And why should Sir Lionel de Vere's daughter be styled Lady Eleanor de Vere? Mrs. Cresswell may, possibly, have precedents for this, but they are unknown to the majority of readers. And she would have done well to have consulted a solicitor before she made Sir Ralph Neville's title to his estates, which had been

in his family for six hundred years, depend upon his personal possession of a certain document entitled 'The Royal Charter Extraordinary,' given by the Conqueror to Sir Roland Neville. A considerable amount of the motive of the piece hangs upon this atsurd notion. Again, when Sir Ralph Neville goes away to fight for his king, he leaves his castle in charge of his brother-Mrs. Cresswell probably means his brother-in-law-Sir Lionel de Vere, whom he has every reason to believe to be a thorough scoundrel, and this for no earthly purpose whatever; and the reader does not need to be told that Sir Lionel plays old gooseberry with the charge committed to him, and is especially anxious about obtaining 'The Royal Charter Extraordinary,' though it could be of no more value to him than the market price of a twelfth-century piece of parchment; he is, however, clearly of opinion that if he once gets possession of it the 'goodly heritage,' as he expresses it, will fall to him. Blunders of this description are beyond apology or explanation. Nor is it easy to forgive Sir Lionel-rascal as he was-for his bad grammar in talking about somebody 'leaving the coast clear for you and I,' though we cannot feel. much surprise at the Puritan lawyer shortly afterwards talking about 'founding' a tale upon a 'superstructure,' because he in all good faith took Sir Lionel's view of the insecurity of Sir Ralph's title should the wonderful document pass into other hands. But we are bound to quarrel with Lady Laura's language when she swears 'to be none other's bride but thine, and to use this ring only in case of direst need either to save my life or honour from our enemies, or thine's, Eustace, or my dear father's. 'Thine's' might have suited Arte

mus Ward very well, but it does not do for Lady Laura. Just before this oath, the following dialogue had taken place:

LORD E. But listen, sweetheart, hast thou no token to exchange with mine? I hold thy glove. Even that poor covering of thy soft, white hand I prize most truly; but 'tis only as a hostage for something better. I would carry away with me some part of thy dear self-thy warm, living, breathing, loving beauteous self. Canst thou not spare one of these? (touching her curls).

'LADY L. Even as thou wilt, my lord, seeing I am all thine own in body, soul, and spirit. (Offers scissors from her girdle or châtelaine.)

'LORD E. Yet 'tis too great a boon. I would not harm a hair of thy dear head. I am almost tempted to claim the whole at once instead of one fair curl.'

It is to be feared that this last remark of my lord's would be too much for the gravity of a British audience; and the spectacle of Lord Eustace St. Clair going to battle with the chignon of his fiancée in his pocket would sharply touch that sense of the ridiculous which is always present in the pit and gallery, and would rather spoil the effect of a love scene which the

authoress intends to be pathetic. Several passages in the drama are marked with inverted commas, and the ordinary reader would probably think that these passages are intended to be cut out in representation. This is not the case; for a note at the end informs us that the lines so marked have been considered the best by all great actors and judges who have read the play.' It is only right that a specimen should be reproduced.

'ST. CLAIR. I pray you stay, and share our wedding feast.

'MAURICE. Nay, that were too hard a task for any mere mortal man, to gaze ungrudgingly on that rich jewel he once had well-nigh deemed his own, set in the breast-plate of another; it were to lift the bowl of Tantalus, brimming with joy, unto the parched lips of some poor thirsty traveller, and bid him not quaff the precious nectar; yet, lady, believe me, I as much rejoice in thy new-found happiness as if it were my own, albeit henceforth I own no mistress but my country and my cause. Farewell! for ever.'

I will not say to Mrs. Cresswell the last three words spoken by the gallant Maurice: on the contrary, I express a hope that we may meet again.

FREE LANCE.