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it should appeal to the intellect, and should help to encourage all 

 that is best and highest from the authors and poets of its peoj)le. 

 Three causes had helped on the course of stage art — improvement 

 of scenery, dresses, and stage accessories ; development in the 

 actor's art ; and increase in the rewards of success both for man- 

 agers and actors. Many artistic conceptions and much historical 

 research were embodied in the drama of to-day. The immediate 

 duty of encouragement to the player was nearer than that due to 

 other artists. Schools for dramatic art had been established, but 

 had invariably proved failures. The real school for the stage was 

 the stage itself. The system formerly in vogue — that of stock 

 companies — was more likely to produce capable actors than the 

 present system, whicli sends companies on tours extending over 

 two or three years, the actors playing the same piece every night. 

 No good would follow fi-om the establishment of a National 

 Theatre ; subsidised plays would do but little for the welfare of 

 the di-ama. While the receipts at theatres were much higher 

 now than in former times, the expenses were likewise largely 

 increased ; large salaries had to be paid to leading actors and act- 

 resses, and the perfection of scenery and detail at which the best 

 managers aim could only be accomplished by lavish expenditure 

 of capital. The fees to authors of established reputation are now 

 of great value. True dramatic instinct is very rare, yet without 

 it the author with the noblest ideas and the most beautiful form 

 of expression will write a play fit for the study perhaps, but unfit 

 for the stage. The plays of Tennyson, Byron, and Browning 

 were full of intrinsic beauties, and breathed the poetry of passion, 

 but, with one or two exceptions, they had met with scant recog- 

 nition from the theatre going public. The performances last 

 week in the London theatres might be thus classified : — Poetic 

 drama, one ; comedy, one ; melodrama, four ; farcical comedy, 

 seven ; comic opera, two ; burlesque, three ; pantomime, one. 

 The single comedy now on the list is an adaptation from the 

 French. There is no English author now-a-days who can write 

 comedies like " The Eivals," or " The School for Scandal." The 

 most popular form of the drama of to-day was farcical comedy. 

 Burlesque was on the decline, the reason probably being that the 

 authors of to-day do not write in the same witty and elegant 

 style as then- predecessors of the class of Planche, Frank 

 Talfourd, and WiUiam Brough. Mr. Thursby then named the 

 chief dramatists of to-day, and gave his opinion on their merits 

 and their faults. Tennyson, Wills, Gilbert, H. J. Byron, James 

 Albery, G. R. Sims, H. A. Jones, A. W. Pinero, and others were 

 thus passed in review. The tone the stage was to take in the 

 future depended on the tone and taste of the public. There was 

 every hope that the tide was setting in favour of what was good 

 and wholesome, high and noble ; such development everyone 

 would do well heartily to encourage. 



