MRS. SIDDONS AS QUEEN KATHARINE, ETC. 81 



G. J. Bell did pursue the plan, and wish he had pursued it 

 further. 



In reading of Mrs. Siddons one cannot but regret that her 

 genius should have been employed in representing a Mrs. 

 Beverley or even a Lady Randolph. It is a standing reproach 

 to our literature that outside the roll of Shakespeare's characters 

 a great actor can hardly find a great part. When we reflect 

 that West and Haydon have been followed at no distant time 

 by Millais, Leighton, Burne-Jones, and Watts, we cannot but 

 hope that in a sister art a similar revival may occur. The time 

 seems ripe, for the novel is in decadence, and coming writers 

 must win distinction in a new field. A man who has sufficient 

 talent to make a good novel would probably succeed in writing 

 a good play if he went to work in the right way ; but the art 

 of the playwright has not been studied by our leading authors 

 for many generations. This art is that of selecting proper 

 subjects for stage representation and giving them such a form 

 as will enable the actors to move their audience. The success 

 of a play in stirring an audience depends less than is usually 

 supposed on style, on the delineation of character, or even on 

 the invention of an ingenious and probable plot. Plays succeed 

 which are glaringly defective in all these respects ; for instance, 

 the ' Lady of Lyons.' The one necessary condition for success 

 is that the scene represented shall move the audience; the 

 emotion may be sad or merry, noble or ignoble, but emotion 

 there must be. If this element be wanting, no depth of 

 thought, no beauty of language, no variety of incidents will 

 save the play. The skilled playwright knows what scenes will 

 stir the hearers, and how best to frame each scene and the whole 

 play with this purpose. If with this knowledge he possesses 

 originality of conception and beauty of style, his plays become 

 part of the literature of his country ; without these higher 

 qualities he remains a mere playwright, but we go to see his 

 plays, built up as they are of old worn-out materials. The 

 playwright is familiar with the materials used in his art ; he 

 knows the stage well on both sides of the footlights ; he mixes 

 with actors, managers, stage-managers, scene-painters, and 

 stage-carpenters. From ^Eschylus downwards, all great drama- 

 tists have had this practical knowledge of the instruments at 



VOL. I. G 



