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 PN 4765.W78 
 
 Press and the stag 
 
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 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027237563 
 
The Press and the Stage 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER 
 
 Delivered before the Goethe Society, at the Brunswick 
 Hotel, New York, January 28, 1889 
 
 LOCKWOOD & COOMBES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1889 
 
This Edition is Strictly Limited to 230 Copies. 
 
 TH0W9 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDINQ COMPANi; 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
ALBERT M. PALMER 
 
 WHOSE WISH CAUSED IT TO BE WRITTEN 
 
 AND WHOSE FRIENDSHIP MADE IT WELCOME 
 
 THIS ORATION IS DEDICATED 
 
 WITH A GRATEFUL SENSE OP HIS SERVICES 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN STAGE 
 
 AND WITH CORDIAL RESPECT FOR HIS TALENTS 
 
 SCHOLARSHIP AND TASTE 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This Oration is a reply to Mr. Dion Boucicault and 
 other censors of the American Newspaper in its rela- 
 tion to Dramatic Art. It was written in compliance 
 with the request of an old friend, Mr. Albert M. Palmer, 
 that I would participate in an amicable discussion of this 
 subject at a meeting of the Goethe Society, of New York. 
 The meeting was held in the Music Hall of the Bruns- 
 wick Hotel, on Monday evening, January 28, 1889. 
 Mr. Parke Godwin presided. Mr. Boucicault stated 
 his case against the press, and this reply thereupon 
 was spoken by m.e. Mr. BoucicauW s oration, modified 
 by the omission of his charges and insinuations asper- 
 sing the integrity of the press, was subsequently pub- 
 lished in the North American Review {March, 1889). 
 My response appeared in Harper's Weekly {March 23, 
 1889). This oration, as now reprinted, is precisely what 
 it was when delivered, except that a few names of per- 
 sons and titles of plays have been introduced into it, in 
 addition to those then mentioned, and except that one 
 section, the eleventh, has been added, to dispose of Mr. 
 Boucicault' s incidental aspersions and complaints. Those 
 aspersions and complaints were printed by Mr. Bou- 
 cicault in the North American Review as long ago as 
 the autumn of 1879, and they have been nourished and 
 cherished by him ever since. It seems a pity that they 
 should not be lulled to rest. 
 
 In a letter addressed to m,e on January i, 1889, in an- 
 ticipation of our meeting and our public controversy as 
 
 S 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 to the press and the stage, Mr. Boucicault made the fol- 
 lowing statement of his belief and opinion : 
 
 ' ' The position I assume is that the newspaper press 
 has practically displaced the public in the exercise of 
 judgment and the formation of the stage ; that in ac- 
 cepting this office it has incurred its responsibilities ; that 
 this service of opinions to the public has paralyzed the 
 freedom and strength of public judgment ; that actors 
 seek to occupy high places by force of press advertise- 
 ment ; that the journalist, as a rule, is incompetent as a 
 specialist in dramatic affairs, and encourages a trivial 
 kind of drama and buffoonery ; that the few journalists 
 conspicuous by their capacity are too few to make head 
 against this influence, and protest vainly, while the tor- 
 rent of ribaldry and charlatanism sweeps into bathos, 
 and imposture sits on the dramatic throne. And of this 
 state of things no great drama, no great actor, can possi- 
 bly come, and none has come — not one. Burlesque and so- 
 ciety m.elodrama monopolize the stage. So since 1850 not 
 a single work of any enduring life has been added to dra- 
 matic literature : the age is barren. These are a few of 
 the results T attribute largely to the agency of the press.'''' 
 This arraignment of the press by Mr. Boucicault is a 
 sufficiently comprehensive and specific if not a very 
 novel expression of antipathy toward the character and 
 influence of newspapers in their relation to the stage, and 
 there are many who sympathize with it and who habit- 
 ually denounce " the critics." Mr. Boucicault is a man 
 of ability, experience, and extensive reputation, and he 
 has many followers. His statement of belief and opin- 
 ion accordingly may be heard as one of the current voices 
 of censure, and may be accepted and considered as a rep- 
 resentative utterance of discontent with a social power. 
 Fort Hill, Staten Island, ytr tj/- 
 
 New York, March 3, 1889. 
 
 6 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 I. 
 
 It seldom happens that any practical good results 
 from controversy. "The pain of dispute," said Jou- 
 bert, "exceeds by much its utility: all disputation 
 makes the mind deaf." It is perfectly true that nothing 
 in this world is ever settled until it is settled right. But 
 adjustment is seldom accelerated by disputatious talk. 
 The satirical poet of " Hudibras," writing in that im- 
 mortal jingle which records so many truths with such 
 felicity of language, has noticed that " a man convinced 
 against his will is of the same opinion still. " Time and 
 experience modify and sometimes change our convic- 
 tions ; but nothing else, practically, modifies or changes 
 them. " I have heard many speeches," said a member 
 of the English Parliament, " that affected my feelings — 
 never one that changed my vote." Those persons who 
 believe that the public is always naturally right and the 
 press always perversely wrong, or that whenever the 
 public. is wrong it is because the press has made it so, 
 or that the stage is a celestial institution and the dra- 
 matic critic a pestilent ass, would continue to hold their 
 belief, " though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." 
 When the ordinary human mind is confronted with a 
 perplexing subject, or baffled by a difficult problem, or 
 lost for the consolation of a fixed belief, it is always 
 
 7 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 pleasant to make a mental landing upon a distinct prop- 
 osition. "If your sermon barrel should run low," was 
 the advice of an old parson to a young beginner in the 
 pulpit, " and you are hard up for a subject, pitch into 
 the Pope ! " In this period of civilization, in which 
 certainly the newspaper plays an incessant, conspicuous, 
 and active part, it is perfectly natural, when anything 
 goes wrong or anybody is discontented, that the indig- 
 nant censor should pitch into the press. It is the ob- 
 vious alternative — the safe, easy, ordinary, conventional 
 resort of the self-complacent moralist. No doubt he has 
 his grievance. The press is far from perfect. I cannot 
 think, however, that it sins much against the stage, or 
 that it sins at all in the particular manner that has been 
 indicated by Mr. Boucicault's indictment. Indeed, 
 while I follow, with ever-increasing wonder, the airy, 
 absolute, and oracular statements of this learned judge 
 I cannot avoid a passing memory of Lord Melbourne's 
 remark about the most eloquent of English historians. 
 " I wish," said that wise, humorous, and able states- 
 man, " I only wish that I could be as sure oi anything 
 as Tom Macaulay is oi everything .'' 
 
 II. 
 
 On March 4, 1841, a new comedy called " London As- 
 surance " was produced in London, at Covent Garden, 
 then managed by Madame Vestris. It was a comedy 
 of the epigrammatic school. It preserved in a modern 
 dress the tradition of Wycherley and Farquhar and 
 Vanbrugh. Its persons were not of a lovable kind, but 
 they were mostly sparkling persons and the play was 
 richly charged with animal spirits, frolic audacity, pun- 
 gent satire, and sensuous life. The author of it, a young 
 
 8 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 man who had acted under the name of Leigh Morton, 
 was a beginner in dramatic authorship and in acting 
 and was then only on the threshold of his career. The 
 play with which he thus launched himself upon the river 
 of fame had a bounteous acceptance, was brilliantly suc- 
 cessful — no authoritative voice in the press assailing it 
 except that of George Henry Lewes * — and it has kept 
 its place upon the stage from that day to this. Within 
 the next two theatrical seasons this same young author 
 (like Farquhar, a gay, careless, and brilliant Irishman; 
 like Vanbrugh, a trained architect and civil engineer; 
 and like Wycherley, a writer of sparkling epigram, 
 a rover in the fields of French theatrical literature, 
 and a consummate interpreter of artificial manners 
 and sentimental intrigue) had produced the bright and 
 tender comedy of " Old Heads and Young Hearts," 
 and the more dashing and dazzling comedy of " The 
 Irish Heiress." These were followed by " Alma Ma- 
 ter," "Curiosities of Literature," "Woman," "Used 
 Up," "Lolah; or, The Wreck-Light," and "Mother 
 and Son." In 1845 this writer had already taken a 
 place among men not only of auspicious promise but of 
 solid performance. In that year he perceived that the 
 public taste in theatrical matters, recoiling from a pro- 
 tracted strain of tragedy, had undergone a change. 
 Macready, the regnant spirit of that epoch in dramatic 
 affairs, had tried his great ventures, had retired from 
 management in the English capital, and had made his 
 first visit to America. The field was clear, and it 
 seemed not unlikely that the popular craving might be 
 satisfied by melodrama. Yet melodrama of the earlier 
 type — such as "The Miller and His Men" and "The 
 
 * Westminster Review, 1841. 
 9 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Foundling of the Forest," artificial in theme, wooden in 
 character, and vapid in dialogue — could not any longer 
 be deemed vital or be trusted to attract. This young 
 author, quick to discern his opportunity and skilful to 
 improve it, thereupon shaped the old melodramatic 
 form entirely anew, introduced into it the comedy 
 elements of human interest, truthful characterization, 
 and brilliant dialogue, gave to it domestic sincerity and 
 sweetness, without discarding its romantic color, and 
 produced in rapid succession and with ever-increasing 
 success "The Willow Copse," "The Corsican Broth- 
 ers," "Faust and Margaret," and "The Vampire." 
 These pieces, partly paraphrased but partly original 
 and wholly original in their English form and treatment, 
 gave new evidence of exceptional ability, and firmly 
 established their maker's reputation. From that time 
 onward, through a period of more than thirty years, his 
 professional prosperity knew "no retiring ebb." Play 
 after play followed from his pen and fortune after fortune 
 was poured into his lap. Strong in the consciousness 
 of natural power and in the wealth that soon began to 
 accrue from its exercise, he presently struck a shattering 
 blow at the pecuniary tyranny that had long been main- 
 tained by dramatic managers over dramatic authors. 
 From l86i to 1866 he steadily " advanced that war," 
 till at last the victory perched upon his banners and it be- 
 came a recognized and settled principle that " the play's 
 the thing," and that the author of the play must be paid, 
 and well paid, for his artistic creation. For "The Willow 
 Copse " (and nobody who ever saw Mr. Charles W. 
 Couldock as Luke Fielding can hear the name of that 
 play without a thrill) its author had received only ;^ioo, 
 while for his version of "The Corsican Brothers " he 
 had received only £60. Buckstone had received only 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 £ioo for " Green Bushes," and Douglas Jerrold had re- 
 ceived only ;^ioo for " Black-eyed Susan." The revo- 
 lutionary author to whom I refer, after he had made his 
 gallant fight for the practical interest of dramatic author- 
 ship, received ;^6,Soo for one play (" The Flying Scud ") 
 and ;£'S,200 for another play (" After Dark "). I need 
 not trace his line further. I speak of an author who has 
 held the attention of the public for nearly fifty years, 
 whose name is a household word equally in Melbourne, 
 London, New York, and San Francisco. I speak of 
 the author of " The Colleen Bawn," "The Octoroon," 
 " The Long Strike," " Arrah-na-Pogue," " Kerry," 
 " Daddy O'Dowd," " Belle Lamar," and "The Shaugh- 
 raun." I speak of a brilliant actor and a consummate 
 master of the art of dramatic writing, who for nearly 
 half a century has received from the public, in every part 
 of the English-speaking world, every possible practical 
 tribute, and from the press which he now arraigns the 
 most ample privilege and the widest, the kindest, the 
 most liberal — I had almost said the most pusillanimous 
 — consideration. I speak of a man who has had the 
 opportunity (having conquered it by his talent and de- 
 served it by his mental equipment) to use the stage ex- 
 actly as he pleased, and upon whom more than upon 
 any other single dramatic writer of our time rests the 
 responsibility for its defective condition, whatever that 
 defective condition may be.* Can any one seriously 
 believe that a public which has paid to this dramatic 
 author fully $2,000,000 for his writing and his acting is 
 wholly devoid of a practical appreciation of excellence ? 
 Can anyone seriously believe that a press which, while 
 
 * "I have seen a good deal of rubbish in the shape of drama; I have 
 contributed not a little to it myself." — Dion Boucicault, in letter to 
 the Pall Mall Gazette, London, January, 1869, 
 
 II 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 not always unanimous in his praise, has celebrated every- 
 one of his achievements and recognized every particle 
 of his merit — not only pouring forth its own incense 
 with lavish prodigality, but freely opening its columns 
 to his own epistolary elucidations of himself, which 
 would fill a volume — is, in fact, the foe of genius and the 
 despoiler of art? " Give me," cried Dion Boucicault, 
 on an occasion not far remote — " give me what every 
 man yearns for more than fortune — the conviction that 
 he has done some little good in his time." Has Mr. 
 Boucicault done no good in his time ? Has his time 
 been mistaken in recognizing any good in his career ? 
 Over and over again the public has honored Mr. Bouci- 
 cault. Over and over again the press has declared 
 that those Irish plays of his are the most superb 
 things of their kind that have ever been written. Was 
 that an error and a falsehood ? Is the public ver- 
 dict of admiration for Mr. Boucicault's art a mere echo 
 of the insincere or stupid opinion of a mendacious or 
 ignorant press ? Can Mr. Boucicault, remembering his 
 record and his experience, maintain that the stage is de- 
 graded and the public judgment fettered and paralyzed 
 only because a few incompetent reviewers of the theatre 
 sometimes write trivial articles about it ? Have the trivial 
 articles ever debarred him from one atom of the success 
 that he deserved ? Never once. The late Lester Wal- 
 lack told me that the most prosperous play ever pro- 
 duced in his theatre, after its removal to Thirteenth 
 Street in 1861, was " The Shaughraun ; " and besides its 
 remunerative career in America, that piece was acted 
 for one hundred and nineteen nights at the Adelphi, in 
 London, in the season of 1875-76. Mr. Boucicault no 
 doubt remembers that just before "The Shaughraun" 
 was produced he proclaimed to me that a conspiracy of 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 hostile critics had been formed against him to ruin it. 
 But the public judgment about Mr. Boucicault's ex- 
 cellent play was not paralyzed. One practical critic, 
 indeed, a pious Hibernian at Louisville, Kentucky, where 
 they speak of a play as if it were a vaccination and 
 question whether it will " take," indicated his censure 
 of the amiable Conn by dropping a bad egg upon Mr. 
 Boucicault in the wake scene, which probably he deemed 
 sacrilegious ; but that was the full extent of the disap- 
 proval. And surely one bad egg, however well directed, 
 and even though it fall as the portentous sequel to a 
 conspiracy of dramatic critics, ought not to make a man 
 misanthropical for life in his views of the American 
 press. 
 
 " Tis but the fate of place, 
 And the rough brake that virtue must go through." 
 
 III. 
 
 / The public, it is alleged, takes its critical opinions 
 
 I from the press, and is mentally impaired, or fettered, or 
 
 \ otherwise injured by that impartment. Now the illogi- 
 
 I cal character of this assumption ought to be apparent, 
 
 j and I think is apparent, from the obvious fact that to a 
 
 considerable extent the public is the press ; and surely 
 
 it cannot be said to paralyze itself. The newspapers 
 
 would not exist if the people did not like them and want 
 
 them, and the people would not like them and want 
 
 ' them if their own minds were not reflected in them. The 
 
 public not only receives impressions, it also imparts 
 
 them. All persons like to read what is written in the 
 
 vein of their own conviction and preference, and they 
 
 are usually intolerant of everything else. No one but a 
 
 philosopher finds pleasure in reading the opinions of his 
 
 adversary. " She cannot abide to be contradicted," 
 
 13 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 says Cuddie Headrigg, in the immortal novel of " Old 
 Mortality," " and I think nobody likes it if he could help 
 himself." * It is not upon exceptional cases, but upon 
 general conditions, that the reflex institutions of society 
 — of which the press is one — are established and are 
 made to prosper. The late Dr. Brandreth, who for a 
 long time conferred a searching influence upon this com- 
 munity through the happy medium of pills, was once 
 heard to state, while gazing at the incessant procession 
 of pedestrians in Broadway, the cardinal principle of his 
 opulent and beneficent career. " Nine out of every ten 
 of those people " (such were the golden words of the 
 sapient doctor) " are fools, and my pills are not made 
 for the tenth man." It is not meant that virtuous wis- 
 dom ought to prey, or does prey, on helpless folly ; it is 
 only stated that sagacious enterprise flourishes by meet- 
 ing expectation. A newspaper, like a theatre, must 
 j mainly owe its continuance in life to the fact that it 
 j pleases many persons ; and in order to please many per- 
 I sons it will — unconsciously perhaps — respond to their 
 ' several tastes, reflect their various qualities, and repro- 
 ' duce their views. In a certain sense it is evolved out of 
 the community that absorbs it, and therefore, partaking 
 of the character of the community, while it may retain 
 many merits and virtues, it will display itself as in some 
 respects ignorant, trivial, narrow, and vulgar. The elder 
 James Gordon Bennett, the founder of the New York 
 Herald, once said, ' ' I wish my paper never to be more 
 than half a day in advance of public opinion on any 
 t subject whatever." I believe it never was. There is no 
 use in making music for deaf-mutes : you will get neither 
 
 * " She has rather forgotten herself in speaking to my leddy, that canna 
 weel bide to be contradickit (as I ken naebody likes it if they could help 
 themselves), especially by her ain folk." — Old Mortality, Chapter viii. 
 
 14 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 a hearing nor a response. If every speaker has his au- 
 dience, so every audience has its speaker, and that is 
 why there are so many newspapers. We should all read 
 one paper, and one only, if we were all of one mind and 
 if that one paper reflected it. As matters stand, society 
 creates many journals, colors them, and is colored by 
 them, and so perpetuates the attrition of its life. It is 
 a reciprocal process. But with due qualification the 
 press is not the cause of the mental condition of the pub- 
 lic, but rather is one of its effects ; and when you will 
 condemn the press you do not go to the root of the dis- 
 ease unless you make a clear analysis and a lucid state- 
 ment of what you will condemn it for. To arraign the 
 newspapers for crippling the public judgment of the 
 stage, when in fact the majority of them merely echo 
 that judgment, is firing in the air. Besides, if we talk of 
 judgment — of an intellectual process applied to matters 
 of art — we talk of a faculty that is not possessed to any 
 considerable extent by either the public or the press, 
 never has been possessed by them, and probably never 
 will be. Why should the prattle of a theatrical audience, 
 which is absolutely vapid and innocuous when it is 
 let loose in the lobby, be considered a potent mischief 
 and a bane to the very people that uttered it, merely 
 because it gets into print ? Those who vacantly glance 
 over it in their favorite newspaper the next morning 
 have not in the meantime risen in the scale of intellect- 
 ual being and become any wiser than they were when 
 they uttered it the night before. Have you ever ob- 
 served the talk of the average theatrical audience when 
 the play is ended and the crowd is leaving the house ? 
 Have you ever meditated upon its inanity and its igno- 
 rance ? I recall a fragment of conversation that I once 
 heard as I was leaving the theatre after a performance of 
 
 15 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Hamlet by Edwin Booth. The interlocutors were a 
 grave elderly gentleman and a richly dressed and fash- 
 ionable young lady. " I once saw Mr. Macready in this 
 piece," said the former. " Did you ? " she answered ; 
 " what part did he play ? " 
 
 Enlighten and elevate the coarse and silly public if 
 you wish to reform the coarse and silly newspaper- 
 You cannot in fact produce the slightest effect upon 
 either of them, but at least you will be rational in your 
 censure, and you will "free your mind "in the right 
 direction. 
 
 IV. 
 
 You are told, if not directly yet by logical implication, 
 that there was a time when the intelligent public exer- 
 cised its prerogative of judgment upon the stage — a time 
 when yet the incompetent press had not deprived that 
 public of this great boon and privilege of theatrical 
 criticism. This is a fine flight of fancy, but it is noth- 
 ing more. In one form or another the press has dwelt 
 sporadically and intermittently upon this earth for more 
 than twenty-five hundred years — ever since, in fact, the 
 y^c^a Z'wrwa was published in Rome, 691 years B.C.* I 
 have not made a close personal examination of those re- 
 cords, but if I were to do so I should confidently expect to 
 find that Marcus Horatius Flaccus Cacoethes Scribendi 
 
 * ' ' The Romans not only had plenty of books, but they had a manu- 
 script daily newspaper, the Acta Diurna^ which seems to have been a rec- 
 ord of the proceedings of the Senate. We do not know how it was written 
 nor how it was published, but it was frequently mentioned by contemporary 
 writers as the regular official medium for transmitting intelligence. It was 
 sent to subscribers in distant cities, and was sometimes read to an assem- 
 bled army. Cicero mentions the Ada as a sheet in which he expected to 
 find the city news and gossip about marriages and divorces." — "The In- 
 vention of Printing," by Theodore L. De Vinne, p. 44. 
 
 16 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 took an early opportunity of apprising the Roman public 
 that ' ' the want has long been felt of an able, independent, 
 high-toned, fearless journal, which should advocate the 
 best interests of the stage and conscientiously labor for 
 the elevation of the drama, the decline of which has long 
 been observed with so much anxiety and painful regret." 
 That the press could at any period have existed without 
 this holy purpose is inconceivable — a condition contrary 
 not only to all we have read of historic fact but to all 
 we know of human nature. Newspapers the world over, 
 whatever else they may have neglected, have never 
 neglected to toil for the redemption of the stage. His- 
 tory, perhaps, affords no finer or more touching example 
 of unselfish zeal and long-suffering devotion than may 
 be contemplated in the traditional and chronic solicitude 
 of the journalist for the actor. To tell us that the press 
 was ever regardless of the theatre, or that it ever re- 
 frained from admonishing, or directing, or " elevating" 
 that institution, is simply to presume upon our innocent 
 credulity. The misguiding preceptor who would tell us 
 that would tell us anything, and we ought not to wonder 
 at his temerity when he goes still further and assures us 
 that the public has ever been enslaved by the newspaper 
 as to its critical rights and faculties. No doctrine could 
 have a more sapient sound or less sense. The question is 
 one of fact, and it must I think be determined by individ- 
 ual observation and experience. As a matter of fact the 
 public, in considering the stage, does not take its critical 
 opinions from the press or from anything else. The 
 success of an actor with the majority of spectators, and 
 perhaps with all spectators, does not depend upon rea- 
 son but upon feeling. It is not the intellectual attribute 
 of the stage that attracts toward it so many even of in- 
 tellectual persons ; it is the sensuous element that at- 
 
 17 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 tracts them. They are weary of the realm of thought ; 
 they long for the realm of emotion, for actual, tangible, 
 breathing life. If an actor is able to impress his hearers / 
 agreeably, if he can diffuse a personal charm, he will 
 succeed, and this result he will accomplish even though 1 
 in a technical sense his acting may be defective. All I 
 the newspaper censure in the world cannot invalidate 
 the power of genius, the fascination of beauty, or the 
 alluring grace of a sympathetic temperament ; while, on 
 the other hand, all the newspaper applause in the world, 
 although it may impart to the actor a certain temporary 
 vogue and notoriety, cannot establish his reign in the 
 public favor. That he must capture for himself, not so 
 much by the merit of what he does as by the virtue of 
 what he is, if he obtain it at all. Recognition is like 
 love ; and of this it has been well and truly said — ^by the 
 almost forgotten poet Alexander Smith : 
 
 " Love gives itself — and, if not given, 
 No genius, beauty, worth, or wit, 
 No gold of earth, no gem of heaven 
 Is rich enough to purchase it." 
 
 For while the power of thinking — the faculty of judg- 
 ment, the clear, comprehensive, minute, intellectual«vis- 
 ion — is very rare, the instinct that apprehends a bene- 
 faction through the feelings is almost universal. " I do 
 not like thee. Dr. Fell." So it goes with that repellent 
 physician, and we turn away from his presence and seek 
 him no more. But of another it is written (by the poet 
 Emerson) : 
 
 " Surely he carries a taUsman 
 
 Under his tongue ! 
 
 Broad are his shoulders and strong. 
 
 And his eye is scornful, 
 
 Beautiful, and young." 
 i8 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Or, in the words of Shakespeare : 
 
 "He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, 
 And sundry blessings hang about his head, 
 That speak him full of grace." 
 
 V. 
 
 I FEEL and understand (because I have struggled 
 against it) the dejection that creeps upon the mind when 
 the evening shadows ,begin to gather, when the winds of 
 twilight whisper in the fading leaves, when the embers 
 are dying on the hearth-stone and the night is coming 
 down. How touchingly that great poet Tennyson has 
 said it, in his noble testamentary sequel to "Locksley 
 Hall : " 
 
 " Poor old voice of eighty, crying after voices that have fled ! 
 All I loved are vanished voices, all my steps are on the dead ; 
 All the world is ghost to me, and as the phantom disappears 
 Forward far, and far from here, is all the hope of eighty years." 
 
 But no man should mistake his individual dejection for 
 the failure of human progress. For him, indeed, little 
 by little the lights are put out and the world grows dark. 
 No doubt you remember those pathetic words with which 
 Sir Walter Scott, when he came home to die in his be- 
 loved valley of the Tweed, greeted the gentle scenery 
 of that sylvan retreat : 
 
 " The quiet lake, the balmy air, 
 
 The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree — 
 Are these the same that once they were, 
 Or is the dreary change in me ? " 
 
 The sun was shining gloriously upon the turrets of 
 Abbotsford when I stood beneath them only a little 
 
 19 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 while ago, and the ripple of the Tweed that sounded in 
 his dying ears was as sweet and gay and careless as ever. 
 The world goes on for others although it may cease for 
 us ; and we may be very sure that it is a better world 
 for them than any vanished world of ours which now 
 begins to seem so lovely because it is lost and gone. 
 Whenever we listen to the voice of the Past, and hear 
 again the old refreshing assurance that the Present is a 
 failure, we ought I think to reflect that every Past was 
 once a Present, and that each succeeding Present has 
 resounded with the same wail of lamentation for the 
 glories of departed days ; and thus we shall perceive 
 that the golden time exists just as much now as it ever 
 did — and just as little. 
 
 Mr. Boucicault justifies the inference that he thinks 
 the stage is in a deplorable state, and that the press — 
 by depriving the public of its right and power of theat- 
 rical criticism — has placed it there. But if there was 
 a time when the public still possessed and exercised that 
 right and power, there must also have been a time when 
 the press dealt with the stage in an altogether wiser and 
 more reticent manner than it employs now. It is not 
 Surprising that persons who are not acquainted with the 
 history of the stage in America should fall into errors of 
 this fantastic kind ; but it does seem remarkable that a 
 veteran observer — one who combines in himself all the 
 offices of author, actor, theatrical manager, journalist, 
 and dramatic critic — should choose to adopt them ; and 
 it would be inexplicable but for what we know of the 
 illusory tendency of reminiscent age. For, as a simple 
 matter of fact, the stage is a much more powerful and 
 prosperous institution to-day than ever it was before, at 
 any period in the history of this country, while the 
 treatment which it receives from the press — allowing 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 equally for folly in the mass of popular newspapers and 
 for whatever incompetence may exist in the select jour- 
 nals of the higher class — is, upon the whole, abler and 
 more practical, helpful, and thorough than any that was 
 ever accorded to it in " the palmy days." 
 
 VI. 
 
 The stage in America has existed about one hundred 
 and fifty years. One of the causes which especially 
 promoted its growth on this continent was the sudden 
 and brilliant ascendency obtained in London by David 
 Garrick. That marvellous actor first arose prominently 
 upon the scene in 1741, being then in the twenty-sixth 
 year of his age, and in the following year he appeared 
 with great renown at Drury Lane, of which theatre he 
 became in 1747 the manager. His success was so pro- 
 digious that it soon overwhelmed the fortunes of every 
 other theatrical notability of the time ; and this force it 
 was that dispersed the more ambitious players during 
 a considerable period, driving them into the north, to 
 York and Edinburgh, into Ireland, and even across the 
 Atlantic into America. That admirable scholar Judge 
 C. P. Daly, in a valuable paper that he read before the 
 New York Historical Society many years ago, noted the 
 existence of a building which was called " the Play- 
 house" in this city as early as 1733 ; but the earliest 
 theatrical proceedings of which he could find any record 
 were those of certain actors who came here from Phila- 
 delphia in 1750, two years before the historic advent of 
 Hallam in that famous performance of "The Merchant of 
 Venice," September 5, 1752, at Williamsburg, Virginia, 
 which has commonly been regarded as marking the for- 
 mal advent of the acted drama in the Western World. 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 , The pioneer though should be deemed the founder, 
 ; and the pioneer in this case was the Irish comedian 
 \ John Moody, who came over from England to Jamaica 
 ; in I74S, established a theatre there, and conducted it 
 ' with prosperity for four years. Once on the adjacent 
 islands it soon reached the mainland and long before 
 the close of the eighteenth century it had become a 
 recognized American institution. The student readily 
 perceives however a sharp and signal contrast between 
 its condition then and its circumstances now. In those 
 days a narrow margin of land along the Atlantic sea- 
 board was thinly settled with European colonists, some 
 of them immigrants, others the descendants, born upon 
 the soil, of immigrants who had come over at an earlier 
 time. At its northern extremity this margin of land 
 terminated in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, which 
 then included much of the territory now comprised in 
 the State of Maine. At its southern extremity so much 
 of it as existed under British jurisdiction ended in the 
 two Carolinas and Georgia. A Spanish settlement 
 flourished in Florida and a French settlement in Louis- 
 iana. The breadth of the actually inhabited country was 
 not at any point more than three hundred miles. In 
 Canada the cities of Quebec and Montreal had been 
 founded, and French settlements existed along the' 
 St. Lawrence River. The rest of the American con- 
 tinent was a wilderness. The English population of 
 the Atlantic sea-board colonies was about one million 
 persons. The principal towns were New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Boston, Albany, Baltimore, Annapolis, Wil- 
 liamsburg, and Charleston, and into each of these 
 towns the theatre gradually made its way. The players 
 from Jamaica (a manager named David Douglas having 
 succeeded John Moody there in 1749) came across in 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 1758, and gave performances in Philadelphia, Newport, 
 Perth Amboy, Charleston, and Albany. During the 
 war of Independence there was no theatre in America, 
 the cessation of theatrical exhibitions having been en- 
 joined by the Continental Congress ; nor were dramatic 
 performances given here, except by parties of English 
 military in the garrison towns. After the war had 
 ended the actors came back. The West Indian com- 
 pany had continued to act in Jamaica, and capital 
 players, such as Wignell, Henry, and Lewis Hallam the 
 younger, had joined it, and this troop now returned to 
 New York as "the old American company," thus dur- 
 ing a number of years keeping the current of theatrical 
 activity in continuous flow. Down to 1792, although 
 the stream ran with some bickering, no serious jar oc- 
 curred in the harmony of its music. New York was the 
 centre and there was but one important theatre within 
 its limits. In 1792 Wignell broke away, and in 1794, 
 at Philadelphia, he opened the Chestnut Street Theatre 
 — long the most splendid play-house in America, and the 
 scene of many brilliant and memorable exploits. The 
 Park was its rival in New York, and presently it had 
 another rival in the Boston Theatre, at Boston ; but 
 that was all. When the present century came in it 
 found two or three companies of actors oscillating by 
 means of a stage-coach between two or three sparsely 
 populated, incommodious, and radically provincial 
 towns. As the century proceeded the hand of advent- 
 urous industry began to uproot the wilderness and to 
 sow new cities on the plain, bearing westward the ban- 
 ner of the republic, beneath which marched " the 
 wrinkled front " of war and the civilizing arts of peace. 
 As material prosperity was increased, the stage, though 
 slowly, advanced to a better and better estate. Actors 
 
 23 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 of authentic power, such as William Twaits, Francis 
 Blissett, Mary Duff, Henry J. Finn, George Frederick 
 Cooke, Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth, and Edwin 
 Forrest, appeared and prospered. Strolling companies 
 sailed down the Ohio and the Mississippi upon flat- 
 boats, shooting birds and beasts upon the banks, for 
 food, as they glided along the forest-fringed waterways 
 of the continent. Gilfert, Hamblin, and Wallack ap- 
 peared in the East, Sol Smith in the West, Caldwell in 
 the South. Confronted with obstacles, impeded by 
 hardship, oppressed by bigotry, but stanch and reso-' 
 lute through all manner of obloquy and distress, the 
 dramatic art — which advances with human development i 
 because it is a part of human nature — moved steadily on 
 in its upward course. In due time came the steamboat, 
 the railway, and the telegraph. New States were ad- 
 mitted to the Union, and a vast population, thronging 
 from the Old World and teeming in the New, swarmed 
 over the prairies, burst through the gorges of the Rocky 
 Mountains, and poured itself down their golden slopes 
 to the Pacific coast. In one stanza of his noble poem 
 commemorative of Daniel Webster and contrastive of 
 the youth with the age of that illustrious American, the 
 poet Holmes has epitomized this vision of superb na- 
 ^ tional growth : 
 
 " His land was but a barren strip. 
 
 Black with the strife that made it free : 
 He lived to see its banners dip 
 Their fringes in the Western sea." 
 
 If Wignell, or Henry, or Powell, or Dunlap, or any 
 other dramatic chieftain of " the palmy days " could re- 
 visit the glimpses of the moon, what would his astonished 
 ghost behold ? There are at present in the United States 
 
 24 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 and Canada 3,410 theatrical towns — places, that is, in 
 which theatrical performances are habitually given. Dis- 
 tributed through these towns there are 5,212 theatres, \ 
 not every one an especially equipped theatre, but every \ 
 one adapted for theatrical business and customarily used 
 for it. The number of actors in this country is 2, 527 ; 
 the number of managers is 365 ; the number of stars 
 and combinations that were, in 1888, on their profes- 
 sional travels through this land is 249 ; the number of 
 persons directly and indirectly employed in the industry 
 * of the stage is not less than 50,000 ; and it is safe to say 
 that the persons who continually derive pleasure in vari- 
 ous forms, and often intellectual or emotional benefit, 
 from the theatre may be numbered as millions. 
 
 VII. 
 
 How has the press treated this extensive and important 
 and ever-growing institution, artistic and industrial, and 
 how should the press treat it ? Manifestly it is idle to 
 declare, when a social institution is constantly growing 
 better and not worse, that it suffers under the ill treat- 
 ment of the press. For what signifies the attitude of 
 the press when no harm ensues from it ? The belief, in- 
 deed, may be urged that better plays would be written 
 and better performances would be given if the news- 
 papers would devote more attention to the stage and 
 would make that attention of a more thorough and cap- 
 able kind. But Art originates and expands, not from 
 outward instillation but from inward impulse. An in- 
 crease of attention to the stage and a change from vul- 
 gar frivolity to scholar-like gravity in the manner of 
 treating it would in many papers create a public discon- 
 tent and lead to the alienation of readers and of busi- 
 es 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 ness. Furthermore even the intellectual and advanced 
 press is under no obligation to give instruction in either 
 the art of writing plays or the art of acting them. You 
 do not go to a newspaper for tuition in the languages 
 and mathematics ; you go to a school. The province of 
 the press is, first, to make a complete and truthful record 
 of the news of the day, keeping always within the limits 
 of decency and discretion ; and, secondly, to comment 
 on that news in a rational, able, and vivacious manner, 
 and in that vein of reflection, whatever it may be, which 
 it is believed will most conduce to the public good. 
 With reference to the stage, its moral aspect, its intel- 
 lectual quality, its spiritual drift, and its artistic and in- 
 dustrial prosperity are the proper objects of attention. 
 Beyond this point the ministrations of the press are su- 
 perfluous and may become injurious. Vanity is a prin- 
 cipal agent in human affairs. Sheridan was undoubtedly 
 right when he said that it ought to be numbered among 
 the passions. Certainly it does not need encouragement. 
 No doctrine could be more ignorant in its oversight of 
 inspiration, or more destructive in its ignoble influence 
 upon human character, than the doctrine that considera- 
 tion for the praise of critics should be valued and trusted 
 as a main-spring of production or of excellence in any 
 form of art. It is only an insatiable greed of being in 
 the public eye that would demand from the respectable 
 press of America a greater prominence than the stage 
 already occupies in its columns. That press has served 
 the stage, and is constantly serving it, with ardent sym- 
 pathy, with copious generosity, with thoughtful devotion, 
 and — I need not say that I have other men in mind, and 
 not myself, when I add — with entirely competent scholar- 
 ship and talent. An actor must take himself very serious- 
 ly indeed, and must cherish a most extraordinary and 
 
 26 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 overweening estimate of the importance of his avocation, 
 who at this late day, and in the face of the benefits that 
 the stage receives from the press, can come forward with 
 the dissatisfied inquiry "of Laertes, " Must there no more 
 be done ? " What more would you have ? Not Disraeli 
 or Gladstone, with the weight of the British Empire up- 
 on his shoulders ; not Daniel Webster, saving his country 
 for ten years from the scourge of civil war, ever occupied 
 even half the space in the newspaper press that has been 
 allotted these many years to Edwin Booth or Henry 
 Irving, or evet engrossed half the enthusiasm of affection, 
 the conscientious thought, the tender sensibility, or the 
 intellectual effort that have been lavished upon those ad- 
 mirable actors. But with many members of the stage iti 
 is an infirmity to overrate their profession — to regard it 
 as an end and not as a means in human civilization. I ' 
 have lived all my life with actors, and no man of my time, 
 I venture to think, has shown himself more their friend ; 
 yet I am often amused at this histrionic weakness. The 
 actor's idea of the stage is indicated not inaptly by a 
 story told of old Peter Richings, who used to impersonate 
 General Washington in a drama that ended with the 
 apotheosis of that patriot, Peter as the hero being rep- 
 resented in a blaze of scenic glory, with Hail Columbia, 
 played by Miss Caroline Richings, standing beside him. 
 There came a night when two mischievous low come- 
 dians, wishful to guy the scene, crept into this picture 
 just before the flats were drawn off to disclose it. But 
 the vigilant eye of the Father of his Country promptly 
 discovered them. " Get out of this," cried Peter, from 
 his eminence in the empyrean ; " this is HEAVEN ; no- 
 body is allowed here but Caroline and me." 
 / Have you ever considered the spectacle that is pre- 
 sented by the press of this country whenever the ap- 
 
 27 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 proach of a new actor is announced ? If I may lightly 
 employ the sublime Miltonic figure, " far off his coming 
 shines." First there is a rumor that he has been en- 
 gaged. Then a regretful doubt is cast upon the rumor. 
 Then the expeditious cable flashes over a scornful re- 
 pudiation of the doubt, coupled with the cordial assur- 
 ance that the engagement is really made. Then comes 
 the sketch of his illustrious life, wherein are set forth 
 all the glowing details of his great successes beyond the 
 sea. A little later the opinions of the foreign press be- 
 gin to mingle with the stream of local news. A few 
 anecdotes, sentimental or humorous, illustrative of his 
 fascinating character, come next and do not come amiss. 
 Presently our diligent journals apprise us that he has 
 eaten his farewell dinner and uttered with deep emotion 
 his farewell speech, and that his barque is now actually 
 upon the sea. The list of his theatrical company, the 
 catalogue of his scenery, and the names of his plays and 
 characters are next in order, and are duly supplied. 
 The interval of the voyage is devoted to recapitulation 
 and to a sympathetic portrayal of the views of his man- 
 ager as to the expediency of raising the prices and of 
 the lively excitement with which the ticket-sellers await 
 his approach. No sooner does his ship cast anchor in 
 our bay than a tug-boat streaming with banners and 
 filled with newspaper reporters arrives at quarantine to 
 "meet him and receive him," while not improbably a 
 committee from the Lotos Club or the Lambs awaits 
 him on the steamship pier to ask him to dinner. For 
 several ensuing days the newspapers teem with what 
 are called interviews — frightful compounds of platitude 
 and triviality, through which their writers loom forth as 
 prodigies of impertinent curiosity and vulgar insolence, 
 while the honored stranger is indeed fortunate if, with 
 
 28 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 all the laborious courtesy of his patient and wary replies, 
 he escapes emblazonment as a preposterous ass. At 
 length, sustained and cheered by the acclamation of a 
 great multitude, he steps upon the scene and plays his 
 part, and the next day every considerable newspaper in 
 the land gives a column to his exploit. From that time 
 onward his advance through the continent is a triumphal 
 progress. The luxurious Pullman car whirls him from 
 city to city. The stateliest mansions throw wide their 
 doors for his reception. The brightest spirits of the 
 club, the studio, and the boudoir throng around him 
 with every proffer of hospitality that kindness can sug- 
 gest or liberal prodigality provide. Statesmen are his 
 companions. Fair ladies crown him with laurel. Poets 
 embalm his great name in the amber of their verse. 
 The boys buy his picture and " make up " on his model. 
 The girls cannot live without his autograph. Nothing 
 is left undone that by any possibility of chance can make 
 him happy ; and as he thus speeds onward in the glit- 
 tering track of the occidental star the vigilant newspaper 
 — the sleepless eye, the tireless hand, the ceaseless voice 
 — faithful to the last, w^hether he buys a cravat, or plants 
 a tree, or restores a monument, or endows a college, or 
 loses a pocket-handkerchief, still follows his renowned 
 footsteps and still keeps amply full the daily chronicle 
 of his illustrious deeds. 
 
 These services might be done with better taste, but in 
 themselves they are harmless. " Where virtue is these 
 are more virtuous." They mark the prodigious benefit 
 of publicity which the journalist confers upon the actor. 
 But the benefaction of the press to the stage does not 
 pause at pubhcity. In England they have had the news- 
 paper continuously for two hundred and twenty-six 
 years. In America we have had it continuously since 
 
 29 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 1704. In i860 the number of individual newspapers 
 published in the United States had exceeded 40,000, 
 and the annual issue of them amounted to 928,000,000 
 copies. At present the number is much larger, for 
 within the period of one generation our population has 
 increased from 31,000,000 to more than 60,000,000 of 
 inhabitants, and each of our principal industries has 
 been augmented in a corresponding degree. Almost 
 every newspaper that is published gives some attention, 
 more or less friendly and intelligent, to the subject of the 
 stage. In London — the two theatres that monopolized 
 theatrical industry in the time of Garrick having given 
 place to the forty theatres that promote it in the time 
 of Irving — there are sixty important newspapers that 
 " make a feature" of theatrical news and criticism. In 
 nine large cities of this republic — New York, Philadel- 
 phia, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, St. 
 Louis, and San Francisco — there are one hundred and 
 sixteen important newspapers (by which is meant news- 
 papers of probity, dignity, conscientious principle, and 
 sensitive and responsible wealth) that devote a special 
 department to the stage. The work of the American 
 magazine in this direction has not been fully tabulated ; 
 but since 1840 more than one hundred articles, of stan- 
 dard literary authority and value, upon actors and the 
 theatre have appeared in those publications, while in 
 the list of authors who have written about the stage, and 
 written with intent to strengthen and advance it, stand 
 the eminent names of Henry N. Hudson, Gulian C. 
 Verplanck, Henry W. Bellows, Richard Grant White, 
 Henry Giles, Edwin P. Whipple, Thomas R. Gould, 
 Charles T. Congdon, Howard Furness, Lawrence Bar- 
 rett, Augustin Daly, Joseph Norton Ireland, and George 
 William Curtis. And upon this roll of honor I should 
 
 30 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 not hesitate to write, as competent expositors and salu- 
 tary helpers of dramatic art, these other names, which 
 are of past and present workers for the newspaper press 
 of America : William Leggett, James Oakes, Charles 
 C. B. Seymour, Fitz-James O'Brien, William Henry 
 Hurlburt, Edward G. P. Wilkins, Curtis Guild, Charles 
 A. Dana, J. R. Towse, Stephen Fiske, George W. 
 Hows, John D. Stockton, Clarke Davis, Henry Sedley, 
 H. E. Krehbiel, Henry Watterson, Theodore Hagen, 
 A. W. Thaxter, Charles Fairbanks, W, W. Clapp, John 
 A. Harrington, Edmund Remack, Henry Neill, Shelton 
 Mackenzie, John R. G. Hassard, Benjamin E. Woolff, 
 Henry A. Clapp, Elwyn A. Barron, T. C. De Leon, Ed- 
 ward Fuller, G. E. Montgomery, Frederick A. Schwab, 
 George P. Goodale, Lawrence Hutton, Brander Mat- 
 thews, Franklin File, Kate Field, A. E. Lancaster, and 
 William Henderson. 
 
 vni. 
 
 You are told that no " great " actor has appeared and 
 that no " great " play has been written since 1850, and 
 that this melancholy sterility is likewise due to the 
 blighting influence of the newspaper press. The term 
 "great" is a relative term and one that is not always 
 used with discretion. Greatness, in any period and 
 under any circumstances, has always been rare. It is 
 of elemental birth and is independent alike of its time 
 and its circumstances. Theorists who assure you, as the 
 historian Froude has assured you, that Shakespeare was 
 the result of his time, talk phantasy. He was the con- 
 sequence of heredity — if you like, of Adam and Eve — 
 but not of social conditions antecedent to the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. The active existence of a circle of 
 
 31 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 dramatic critics could neither have repressed his devel- 
 opment nor caused it ; nor would such a circle affect 
 such a mind now, if such a mind were born. Neither is 
 it environment that causes the production of great plays ; 
 it is inspiration, working upon a special faculty congen- 
 ital in the author ; and even this cannot be implicitly 
 trusted. Not more than twenty out of Shakespeare's 
 thirty-seven plays are great plays, or have survived as 
 of any practical use to the stage at present ; and out of 
 more than six thousand plays that were published in 
 England down to the close of the last century only about 
 fifty are ever acted or ever should be acted now. Your 
 great play is almost as exceptional as your great genius. 
 Let us be content with good actors and good plays. I 
 might remind the despondent Mr. Boucicault that since 
 1850 — at which time several of them were unborn or 
 were children, while the others were only on the thresh- 
 old of professional life — he has seen the rise of Edwin 
 Booth, Joseph Jefferson, Henry Irving, Walter Mont- 
 gomery, Edward A. Sothern, Edwin Adams, John 
 McCuUough, John L. Toole, Lawrence Barrett, H. J. 
 Montague, George F. Rowe, W. J. Florence, John T. 
 Raymond, James Lewis, Harry Beckett, John Drew, 
 Charles R. Thorne, Jr. , Frederick C. P. Robinson, W. 
 J. LeMoyne, James H. Stoddart, George Clarke, Gen- 
 evieve Ward, Kate Bateman, Ada Cavendish, Julia 
 Dean, Madge Robertson Kendal, Marie Seebach, Hel- 
 ena Modjeska, Richard Mansfield, Mrs. John Wood, 
 Laura Keene, Fanny Janauschek, Agnes Robertson, 
 Ellen Terry, Adelaide Neilson, Mary Anderson, Clara 
 Morris, Ada Rehan, Mary Taylor, Mrs. Bowers, Fanny 
 Davenport, Rose Coghlan, Agnes Booth, and Lily Lang- 
 try, not to mention Adelina Fatti and the other heroines 
 of the lyric stage, which certainly is implicated in this 
 
 32 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 discussion ; and I might declare, what certainly I think, 
 that some of these names will be written in dramatic 
 history with those that are noblest and brightest in the 
 scroll of histrionic greatness. I might also afiSrm my^ 
 belief that there are plays by Westland Marston, G. H. 
 Miles, T. W. Robertson, Herman Merivale, James Al- 
 bery, Tom Taylor, W. S. Gilbert, W. G. Wills, George 
 H. Boker, Bronson Howard, Augustin Daly, Steele 
 Mackaye, William Young, John Brougham, and Dion 
 Boucicault (all of which belong to this bereft period 
 of the last forty years), which are as well entitled to 
 be esteemed "great plays" as any that survive from 
 the historic hands of Fenton, Hughes, Farquhar, Col- 
 man, Holcroft, Goldsmith, Douglas Jerrold, or Sheridan 
 Knowles — excellent writers, no doubt, but writers to 
 whose dramatic productions it was never in their own 
 time deemed necessary to refer ' ' with bated breath and 
 whispering humbleness." But it is enough to indicate the 
 godd actors and the good plays that have arisen during 
 this period, and to declare the simple truth, which can- 
 not successfully be controverted, that every one of them 
 has had the sympathy, the admiration, and the prosper- 
 ing favor of all reputable newspapers throughout Am- 
 erica. The press critics have not written as Coleridge 
 and as Lamb used to write ; but they have written quite 
 well enough for the majority of their readers ; and it 
 would be exceedingly difficult to specify a single in- 
 stance in which a greater fulness of success could have 
 been achieved as a consequence of any dififerent style or 
 measure of critical treatment. I cannot immediately 
 remember all the good plays of our time that every re- 
 spectable journal in this land has welcomed with praise 
 and honor, but I will mention a few of them : " The 
 Ticket-of-Leave Man," " Caste," " Our Boys," "Pique," 
 
 33 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 "The Two Orphans," "Young Mrs. Winthrop," "The 
 Henrietta," "The Man of Airlie," "Divorce," "False 
 Shame," "Forget-Me-Not," "The Two Roses," "The 
 Favorite of Fortune," "Jessie Brown," " Dan'l Druce," 
 " Charles the First," " All For Her," " Enoch Arden," 
 "Victor Durand," " Pendragon," "Through the Dark," 
 "The White Pilgrim," "Engaged," and "Clancarty." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Judges who believe with Mr. Boucicault that the 
 press misguides and injures the public by its treatment 
 of the stage must, logically, accept one of two alterna- 
 tives. Either they think that dramatic criticism should 
 cease altogether or they think that it should be abler 
 and more abundant. The former expedient is visionary 
 — for, as remarked by Mrs. Candour, " people will talk ; " 
 and the talk of people, whether in print or in private, 
 seems to be an essential factor in carrying on the affairs 
 of life. Some time ago, indeed, I read of a man, resi- 
 dent in the western part of New York, who had not 
 spoken a single word for nine years, and who wrote 
 upon a slate, when he was asked the reason of his silence, 
 " I shall wait till I think of something good enough to 
 say." His example no doubt was wholesome, but to 
 this ideal of more than Spartan fortitude the human race 
 in America is at present unequal. The talk will flow on 
 and the stage, like everything else, will be discussed ; 
 and at least its business will be prospered by the discus- 
 sion. But with reference to the second alternative — 
 better dramatic critics and more of them (which seems 
 to be Mr. Boucicault's doctrine) — while there is no 
 objection to the aspiration as a war-cry, one would like 
 
 34 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 to know some convincing reason for that sanguine be- 
 lief in the efficacy of dramatic criticism. What does 
 any observer suppose that it might accomplish, more 
 than it has accomplished, or more than it does accom- 
 plish ? 
 
 It is my desire neither to exaggerate nor to depreciate 
 the influence of dramatic criticism, but I have never been 
 able quite to understand the superlative practical value 
 of it, as proclaimed by many persons. To my mind the 
 newspaper article on the stage never settles anything. 
 If well written it may interest the reader's thoughts, ex- 
 cite his curiosity, increase or rectify his knowledge, and 
 possibly suggest to him a beneficial line of reflection or 
 study. That is all. Newspaper commendation may ac- j 
 celerate the success of a play already recognized as good, 
 and newspaper ridicule may hasten the obsequies of a . 
 play already so bad that its failure is inevitable. But t 
 criticism establishes no man's rank, fixes no man's opin- 1 
 ion, dissuades no man from the bent of his humor. The \ 
 actor whom it praises may nevertheless pass away | 
 and no place be found for him. The actor whom \ 
 it " slates " does not expire, neither does he repair 
 to the woods. Far more likely he goes to Boston 
 and writes a reply. In the early days of " The Black 
 Crook," when it had become known to me, from 
 the police, that one form of vice had been much in- 
 creased, through the influence of that spectacle, in the 
 neighborhood of Niblo's Theatre, I thought it was my 
 duty (as the dramatic reviewer for the New York Tri- 
 bune) to denounce that exhibition ; and I did denounce 
 it, " in good set terms." The consequence was an im- 
 mediate and enormous increase in the public attendance, 
 and my friend Henry D. Palmer, one of the managers 
 of the " Crook," addressed to me these grateful and ex- 
 
 35 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 pressive words : " Go on, my boy ; this is exactly what 
 we want." Since then I have been reticent with fulmi- 
 nations in the presumed interest of pubhc morality. At 
 the present moment two amiable and handsome young 
 people (Mr. Kyrle Bellew and Mrs. Cora Potter) are dis- 
 porting at a neighboring theatre as Shakespeare's Antony 
 and Cleopatra. A more futile performance, in every 
 possible point of view, probably was never given ; and 
 I believe the critical tribunals of the town have mostly 
 stated this truth — in some cases with considerable viru- 
 lence. Yet this performance draws crowded houses, 
 and no doubt it will continue to draw them, here and 
 all over the country. Many other elements enter into 
 this subject aside from the question of dramatic art. 
 I The critic of the stage should do his duty, but he will 
 I be wise not to magnify his office, and he certainly be- 
 ! comes comical when he plumes himself upon the practical 
 \ results of his ministration. I know that he exists in the 
 midst of tribulations. He must pass almost every night 
 of his life in a hot theatre, breathing the bad air and 
 commingling with a miscellaneous multitude ennobled 
 by the sacred muniment of liberty but largely unac- 
 customed to the use of soap. He must frequently and 
 resignedly contemplate red and green and yellow night- 
 mares of scenery that would cause the patient omnibus- 
 horse to lie down in his tracks and expire. He must 
 often and calmly listen to the voice of the national ca- 
 tarrh, in comparison with which the aquatic fog-horn or 
 the ear-piercing fife is a soothing sound of peace. He 
 must blandly respond to the patent-leather smile of the 
 effusive theatrical agent, who hopes that he is very well 
 but inwardly wishes him in Tophet. He must clasp the 
 clammy hand and hear the baleful question of the gibber- 
 ing " first-night " lunatic, who exists for the sole purpose 
 
 36 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 of inquiring : " What do you think of this ? " He must 
 preserve the coolness and composure of a marble statue, 
 when every nerve in his system is tingling with the 
 anxious sense of responsibility, haste, and doubt ; and 
 he must perform the delicate and difficult duty of criti- 
 cal comment upon the personality of the most sensitive 
 people in the world under a pressure of adverse condi- 
 tions such as would paralyze any intellect not specially 
 trained to the task. And when he has done his work, 
 and done it to the best of his ability and conscience, he 
 must be able placidly to reflect that his motives are im- 
 pugned, that his integrity is flouted, that his character 
 is traduced, and that his name is bemired, by every filthy 
 scribbler in the blackguard section of the press and of 
 the stage, with as little compunction as though he were 
 the " common cry of curs." These trials however 
 need not turn his brain. He should not suppose, as he 
 often does, that an attentive universe waits trembling on 
 his nod. He should not flatter himself with the delusion 
 that he can make or unmake the reputation of other 
 men. It often happens that his articles are not read at 
 all ; and when they are read it is quite as likely that 
 they will incite antipathy as it is that they will win 
 assent. He should not imagine that he is Apollo stand- 
 ing by a tripod, or Brutus sending his son to the block. 
 He is, in reality — if we consider the probable effect of 
 his words upon the mind of the public in general — 
 firing a pop-gun. He is writing a newspaper article 
 about a theatrical performance : but both the perform- 
 ance and the article will be forgotten on the day after 
 to-morrow. He should not forget that an actor whom 
 he dislikes may nevertheless be a good actor, and that 
 an actor whom he admires may nevertheless be a bad 
 one. Human judgment is finite and it ought always 
 
 37 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 to be charitable ; * and the stage, which is the mir- 
 ror of human life, affords ample room for an honest 
 
 1 difference of opinion. There is no reason in the world, 
 furthermore, why the dramatic critic, merely because he 
 happens to hold that office, should straightway imbibe a 
 hideous hatred of all other unfortunate beings who 
 chance to labor in the same field. He would be much 
 better employed in writing those wise and true and 
 beautiful dramatic criticisms which he thinks ought to 
 be written than he is when uttering querulous and bitter 
 and nasty complaint and invective because they are not, 
 as he considers, written by his contemporaries in his own 
 line. Let him improve his own opportunity and leave 
 others to their devices. All the good that he can really 
 accomplish is done when he sets the passing aspects of 
 the stage instructively, agreeably, and suggestively be- 
 fore the public mind, and keeps them there. He is not 
 required to manage the theatres or to regulate the 
 people who are trying to earn a living by means of the 
 stage. It is no essential part of his province to instruct 
 
 I actors as to their business — to point out that Charles 
 Surface should appear with a shaven face, or that Lord 
 Ogleby should wear shoe-buckles. The efforts of dra- 
 matic artists are to be met where those efforts impinge 
 upon the public mind — at those points where acting 
 becomes a subject of public interest by exerting an in- 
 fluence upon the mental condition of the people. The 
 primal obligation of the critic is that of sympathetic and 
 judicious favor. The most important part of his function 
 is the perception and proclamation of excellence. To a 
 man of fine intelligence and gentle feeling nothing in the 
 
 * " It seems curious that persons connected with the drama and writing 
 the history of dramatic performers should indulge themselves in the ex- 
 position of the errors of the actors so profusely." — Fennell. 
 
 38 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 world is so delightful as a free impulse to the apprecia- 
 tion of nobleness in human capacity and beauty in hu- 
 man life. When he feels this and can act upon it then 
 indeed criticism becomes a blessing. Justice is exalted, 
 strengthened, and honored by the judicious praise of 
 merit. Homage rendered to worth is at once the sign 
 of advanced civilization and an influence to advance it 
 still further. " To be useful to as many as possible," 
 says the wise thinker Walter Savage Landor, " is the 
 especial duty of the critic, and his utility can only be 
 attained by rectitude and precision." The newspaper 
 article accomplishes all that should be expected of it 
 when it arouses and pleases and benefits the reader, 
 clarifying his views, and helping him to look with a 
 sympathetic and serene vision upon the pleasures and 
 pains, the joys and sorrows, the ennobling splendors and 
 the solemn admonitions of the realm of art. 
 
 As I glance thus at the duties and infirmities of the 
 average dramatic critic I seem to hear the pensive voice 
 of my vigilant Hibernian adversary murmuring to me, 
 in the words of Sir Anthony Absolute, " You are a tru- 
 ly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every third 
 word you say is on my side of the question." But the 
 structural weakness in Mr. Boucicault's indictment 
 against the press is that he confounds the lower press 
 with the higher ; holds the latter responsible for the de- 
 fects and iniquities of the former ; and arraigns the 
 whole press for a fault that largely affects only a part of 
 it, and really is original in his own self- elected client, the 
 miscellaneous public. The commonplace, vapid, ribald, 
 
 39 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 vulgar newspapers which properly offend Mr. Bouci- 
 cault, by their incompetent and boorish treatment of 
 art, would not exist if there were not commonplace, 
 vapid, ribald, and vulgar people, in great numbers, to read 
 them and support them. To introduce learning, taste, 
 and thought into the theatrical notices published by 
 those newspapers would only be to astonish or puzzle or 
 disgust their readers. Learning, taste, and thought are 
 not objects of desire with the riff-raff population that 
 wants to hear of Kyrle Bellew's lunatic lover, or Lillian ' 
 Russell's tights, or Sadie Martinot's dresses. It does] 
 not signify what such people think about art, or what ; 
 such papers say about it — if they say anything. They' 
 are out of the question. It is with the higher press and 
 the higher press alone that we should concern ourselves 
 in this inquiry ; and I think that censors like Mr. 
 Boucicault are either unacquainted with the work of the 
 higher press in the service of the stage, or that they 
 undervalue it. They might indeed urge, with some 
 show of truth, that the higher press has not yet entirely 
 freed itself from the belittling influence of the coarse and 
 ignorant multitude. Whenever a good newspaper dis- 
 appoints or offends the finer intelligence and sensibility 
 of the community you will find that the reason of it is 
 resident in some form of subserviency to popular ca- 
 price. The conscientious enthusiast and the blatant 
 demagogue are alike in this — that they both magnify 
 the mob. There is scarcely a newspaper in the United 
 States that is absolutely free from a practical remem- 
 brance of the doctrine of Mr. Jefferson Brick : " We air 
 a great people, sir, and we must be cracked up." Flat- 
 tery of the people is a cardinal principle of the time. 
 Instead of being told of their faults and admonished to 
 surmount their obstructive vulgarity and inordinate con- 
 
 40 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 ceit they are constantly assured that the world never 
 before saw such wonderful and lovely beings — that the 
 crow sings as sweetly as the nightingale, and — by prac- 
 tical surrender to their folly — that a coarse and low 
 curiosity is as well entitled to be gratified as an honor- 
 able instinct or a noble aspiration. "A man's a man 
 for a' that." He is — and often a most offensive man. 
 The American press, like almost everything else in the 
 Republic, suffers under an excess of Democracy. It is 
 possible to have too much of a good thing. The nau- 
 seating frivolity of many of the publications that are 
 made about the stage arises from the indirect operation 
 of this power. Mr. Boucicault's dissatisfaction is nat- 
 ural, but his censure should be clearly defined and it 
 should descend upon the real offender. He is just, fur- 
 thermore, in deploring that the task of writing dramatic 
 criticism should so often be entrusted to extremely 
 young and incapable persons. Youth commonly as- 
 sumes omniscience, and in youth we mistake our exu- 
 berant delight in our own sensations for the thrill 
 that should be caused by the actor : we supply the 
 feelingj and we imagine that the actor has imparted it. 
 I do not, however, believe in age merely as age. It is 
 the youthful spirit in age that makes it potent, and if 
 that spirit be only preserved (as it is in the evergreen 
 alacrity of Mr. Boucicault), time imparts to it a benefi- 
 cence that nothing else can give. Goethe's words, as 
 usual, cover the whole ground: "At last, after great 
 preparation, he disclosed to me that true experience is 
 just precisely when one experiences what an experi- 
 enced man must experience in experiencing his expe- 
 rience." 
 
 41 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 XI. 
 
 There are a few petty and futile charges against the 
 press, made by Mr. Boucicault and re-echoed by his ad- 
 herents, upon which it seems essential to bestow a pass- 
 ing comment. Those charges declare that the press is 
 unjust to the stage, because it publishes articles about 
 the play on the morning after the play is produced ; that 
 the critics disagree in opinion upon the play, and thus 
 indicate that there is no standard of judgment ; that the 
 publishers of newspapers fetter the writers for them, and 
 prevent the expression of the truth ; and, in general, 
 that the press is influenced by bribery. These allega- 
 tions were made by Mr. Boucicault in his address to the 
 Goethe Society, although they do not appear in the 
 draft of it that was afterward printed in the North Am- 
 erican Review ; and they had been made by him at an 
 earlier time. They are either speciously misleading or 
 distinctly and absolutely untrue. 
 
 The evening papers and the weekly papers constitute 
 an important section of the press. The evening papers 
 do not print their articles about a play until the after- 
 noon of the day succeeding an evening performance ; the 
 weekly papers print usually five or six days later. With 
 reference to the morning newspapers it should be ob- 
 served that the custom of going to press at an early 
 hour has only recently been adopted by them and is not 
 invariably enforced. In former times an interval of 
 three hours usually occurred between the fall of the final 
 curtain at the theatre and the moment when no more 
 copy could be taken by the newspaper. Much may be 
 done in three hours ; and even the hurried words of a 
 
 42 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 writer who is competent to discuss a given subject at all 
 are often preferable to the studied phrases of a writer 
 who requires days of incubation before he can say any- 
 thing. Furthermore a very little of the dramatic per- 
 formance may sometimes suffice for the need of the 
 newspaper : nobody -should be required to eat a bad 
 egg in order to ascertain that it is unfit to eat : and cer- 
 tainly it seldom happens that any dramatic performance 
 is given which involves considerations of such colossal 
 magnitude that they cannot be disposed of in three 
 hours of practised labor. An expert in this avocation 
 (and surely no one but an expert should be trusted in 
 it) can write a satisfactory column, in any newspaper, 
 within one hour and a half or at latest within two hours. 
 It is hard work but it can be done and the imperative re- 
 quirements of morning journalism sometimes exact the 
 doing of it. When Mr. Boucicault's play of " Arrah-na- 
 Pogue" was first produced in New York (at Niblo's The- 
 atre, in August, 1865), the article about it that appeared 
 in the New York Times the next morning, written by 
 Charles C. B. Seymour, was written in my presence, 
 after the fall of the last curtain. It nearly filled one 
 column. It was written in exactly forty minutes — and it 
 could not have been better (for it was an excellent article) 
 if its author had worked on it for forty days. The com- 
 petence of service depends upon the man who undertakes 
 to render it. Mr. Boucicault has often favored the public 
 with an expression of his contempt for newspaper writers. 
 This is sad, but even this can be endured ; and it seems 
 just possible that upon this subject Mr. Boucicault is not 
 the most competent of judges. Such English writers 
 as George Augustus Sala, WilHam Beatty-Kingston, 
 Clement Scott, Joseph Hatton, Joseph Knight, Charles 
 Dunphie, Percy Fitzgerald, William Archer, Austin 
 
 43 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Brereton, Moy Thomas, Edmund Yates, Walter Hemes 
 Pollock, Frank Marshall, Ernest A. Bendall, L. F. Aus- 
 tin ; or such American writers as Henry E. Krehbiel, 
 John Foord, Noah Brooks, Hart Lyman, D. D. Lloyd, 
 Edwin Dithmar, A. C. Wheeler, John Cockerill, A. F. 
 Bowers, William Laffan, Henry A. Clapp, Benjamin E. 
 Woolfif, Clarke Davis, Isaac H. Bromley, Stephen Fiske, 
 and Henry Watterson would probably surprise Mr. Bou- 
 cicault if he were ever to become acquainted with the 
 feats of composition which they are obliged to perform, 
 and do perform, night after night, in the service of the 
 press. The vanity of actors may not be satisfied, but 
 fortunately the better sense of the community is not con- 
 trolled by the vanity of actors. Our journals are for our 
 readers — most of whom (to their serious loss and injury, 
 I think) do not visit the theatre at all — and our readers 
 are contented when they receive an entertaining account 
 of theatrical novelties, providing always that they re- 
 ceive it at once. It should be added that the custom of 
 the morning papers, all over America, is to publish not 
 only an immediate article about the new play or the new 
 actor, but a second, a third, or a fourth article, at suc- 
 ceeding intervals of time. No man in any other profes- 
 sion or pursuit in the world gets the same amount of 
 attention from the press that the actor gets. It is comic 
 to find him complaining that he gets it too promptly or 
 that he does not get enough of it. 
 
 It might indeed be wished that the press would some- 
 what relax its impetuosity of haste in the treatment not 
 alone of this subject but of every other. Dignity, always 
 a grace, is sometimes salutary as a virtue. American life , '■Jit" i^ 
 will never become entirely rich and noble and essentiallyi \}>v 
 sound and right until it ceases to be feverish. At present ,v^ | ^ >, 
 we dwell amid strife and clamor — tolerating, among other ■f/^ 
 
 44 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 evils, a Babel of discordant and hideous noises which 
 would deafen or destroy any people furnished with sen- 
 sitive ears, and which, in individual cases, does render 
 existence a torment — and our press not infrequently 
 tumbles over its own feet in its frantic desire to speak 
 the first word. " Don't hurry, gentlemen," said the 
 great French surgeon, N^laton, to his assistants, when 
 about to perform an operation requiring instant skill and 
 instant and absolute success in order to preserve a 
 human life — " Don't hurry ; I have no time to lose." 
 This mood of reticence and composure however is to be 
 commended to the press, not for the sake of the stage 
 but for its own sake. An intellectual power should not 
 be tied to the chariot-wheels of anybody's art or busi- 
 ness. The record of the passing day should invariably 
 be made while the day is passing ; but, with reference to 
 the question of comment, I most earnestly wish that the 
 press would assert, and practically maintain, its right to 
 remain silent as well as its right to speak. As to the 
 " gossip " which it habitually prints about the theatre 
 and the actors, that has at last begun to sicken a con- 
 siderable part of our community, and perhaps — as civili- 
 zation advances among the multitude — this nuisance may 
 trusted to accomplish its own suppression by its own 
 offensive imbecility and nauseous excess. 
 
 The statement that there is no standard of judgment 
 because critics sometimes disagree in opinion (for it must 
 be observed that they do not always disagree) has a fine 
 sound but no meaning. Disagreement is not confined to 
 critics and it does not imply a lack of standards. There 
 is a dissentient voice always and everywhere, because 
 each human being exists at a separate altitude in mor- 
 al, spiritual, and intellectual development. Ruskin and 
 Lowell are contemporary with O'Donovan Rossa. Tastes 
 
 45 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 differ and there must always be conflict of thought as 
 to ideals and as to their expression. But the standard 
 is not affected. The truth remains — and statements 
 derive their force not from being made but from being 
 true. The dissonance of opinion is mostly tempera- 
 mental and usually it is ephemeral. Things live that 
 ought to live. " Nature is above art in that." The 
 greatest names and the noblest works of which the 
 world has any knowledge were all decried in their day 
 by somebody. Greene sneered at Shakespeare and 
 talked of " bombast " and " a Shake-scene " — which is 
 paltry twaddle now. John Locke ranked Blackmore 
 above Milton, and Edmund Waller thought the "Para- 
 dise Lost" a tedious composition — yet somehow the 
 world reads Milton and does not read either Blackmore 
 or Waller. There is an ancient tract in the Lambeth 
 Palace Library in London — a publication, I believe, of 
 the venerable bard's own time — that sneers at " the mor- 
 al Gower" as "baggage;" but Gower is reverenced, 
 among scholars, as the father of English poetry. Christo- 
 pher North, writing in 1816, said of Edmund Kean," He 
 rants abominably and is no actor at all ; " and Sir Walter 
 Scott, referring to the same great man, described him as 
 " a copper-laced, twopenny tearmouth, rendered mad by 
 conceit and success ; " and this was at the very time 
 when William Hazlitt could say of him that " to see Ed- 
 mund Kean at his best is one of the consolations of the 
 human mind." Wilson and Scott were giants of intel- 
 lect, and the censure of such authorities is not a slight 
 thing ; yet the renown of the great actor has only 
 grown brighter in the lapse of time, and his name en- 
 dures to our day without one stain upon its artistic 
 glory. Critics may differ in feeling and in taste, but 
 they finally concur as to the essential fact ; and when 
 
 46 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 they do agree, as remarked by Mr. Puff in the farce, 
 their unanimity is wonderful. 
 
 With reference to the charge of dishonesty on the 
 part of the press, those who make that charge should 
 take care to prove it. This they never do. During 
 nearly thirty years of experience as a writer for the 
 press I never yet encountered the least opposition from 
 the publishers of newspapers as to the expression of 
 judgment. Mr. Boucicault has been giving forth dark 
 intimations any time within the last ten years as to his 
 dexterity in having captured " a conspicuous critic" on 
 the New York press with a "bait" which — to use his 
 own elegant expression — "had a hook in it."* But 
 this mysterious censor deals almost always in vague 
 
 * Mr. Boucicault's Hook. — Under this title the following paragraph, 
 written by me, appeared in the New York Tribune on December 28, 1879 '• 
 It is not very long since Mr. Boucicault made a public boast that he had 
 bribed what he called "a conspicuous critic " on the New York press to 
 puff some work of his own or himself. " The bait," said the eminent and 
 exemplary dramatist, "had a hook in it." This dark and invidious state- 
 ment, emanating from such an august source, has been quoted, with a pious 
 zeal and a noble joy, in some of the provincial newspapers of the country 
 — more credulous than discreet. How much importance should be attached 
 to Mr. Boucicault's defamatory ebullitions may be gathered from a contrast 
 of his recent statement with the following letter — an earlier production of 
 the same sapient pen : "A sensation article appeared in a leading Brooklyn 
 paper last week, relating my adventures with the New York press. The 
 whole story, so far as I am concerned, is in every particular a hoax. But 
 as some people might not have seen through it I feel called upon to say 
 there is not a shadow of truth in any part of the fiction. / never paid a 
 farthing for a favor from the press, and 1 7iever will, and in candor I 
 am bound to say that if I offered it I am sure it would be regarded as a gross 
 insult. I have received from time to time kind notices from the leading 
 New York journals, but I cannot help feeling that on the whole they 
 have treated me with less consideration than I am entitled to. But I have 
 never endeavored, either here or in London, to overcome any hostility a 
 journalist might please to entertain against me, knowing, as a journalist 
 
 47 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 generality and innuendo. The " conspicuous critic " 
 is never named. Perhaps the name is "Mrs. Harris." 
 Against Mr. Boucicault's weapon of shameful insinu- 
 ation however I place Mr. Boucicault's own words — 
 written in one of those rare moments when he has chosen 
 to be explicit. On Saturday, March 8, 1873, at the 
 Clarendon Hotel, New York, Mr. Boucicault wrote and 
 signed the following statement, which was duly pub- 
 lished: " I never paid a farthing for a favor from the 
 press, and I never will, and in candor I am bound to 
 say that if I offered it I am sure it would be regarded as 
 a gross insult." Did Mr. Boucicault subsequently de- 
 part from the virtuous resolution expressed by him in 
 those heroic lines ? Has he, since then, tempted human 
 frailty and suffered a shock to his sweet and noble ideal 
 of human nature ? It cannot be ! These views of his, 
 after all, must be merely tentative and hypothetical. 
 For as late as April 9, 1879, I find him declaring, in the 
 Chicago Tribune, a very different opinion of mankind in 
 general and of the press-ridden and paralyzed theatrical 
 audience in particular. These are his golden sentences : 
 
 " I never met with any community where vice was 
 not detested and virtue beloved and cheered ; where 
 misfortune did not draw tears and sympathy ; and where 
 all that was good and kind and gentle in human nature 
 was not readily and eagerly hailed with delight, and 
 where everything that was bad was not received with 
 
 myself, that any attempt to do so would be fruitless. As to the gentlemen 
 attacked by the Brooklyn papers, I am acquainted with only two of them, 
 but I am certain that whatever has been written against me has been 
 dictated by their conscientious convictions. I am, however, like Horatio, 
 one of those whom fortune's buffets and rewards can take with equal 
 thanks. DioN BOUCICAULT. 
 
 " Clarskdon Hotel, Saturday, March 8, 1873." 
 
 48 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 execration. And that is not from any religious motive, 
 but simply because — as I honestly and sincerely believe 
 — human nature, at the bottom, is good, gentle, and 
 sympathetic, and is not what we are taught to believe — 
 sinful and bad, and requiring the assistance of the 
 Church. 
 
 " The stage has elicited one singular proof, moreover, 
 of the moral condition of human nature — the theatre is 
 the only place where bodies of people go with minds un- 
 prejudiced. They have not the prejudices with which a 
 worshipper goes to church ; they have not the bias that 
 a citizen goes to a political meeting with. The spectator 
 in a theatre is free-minded, without inclination ojie way 
 or the other, and when he pays his money at the door it 
 is so much security that he is prepared indeed to open 
 his heart and his mind freely to any emotions that we 
 may inflict upon him." 
 
 Is it only within the last ten years that — as Mr. Bouci- 
 cault now declares — " service of opinions to the public 
 has paralyzed the freedom and strength of public judg- 
 ment ? " 
 
 XII. 
 
 ' It seems to me, finally, that the actor should not read 
 contemporaneous dramatic criticism — least of all, that 
 'which relates to himself. If favorable, there is the dan- 
 ger that it may weaken his character by ministering to 
 his vanity, already sufficiently inflamed by his life of con- 
 ; stant appeal to the admiration of the public. If unfa- 
 : vorable, there is the possibility that it will restrict his 
 ' freedom, and thus impair his usefulness by wounding 
 Shis sensibility if not actually grieving his heart, and 
 
 49 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 thus depressing his spirits and paralyzing his energy.* 
 Whether favorable or unfavorable, it can do him little if 
 any mental or spiritual good, seeing that the chance of 
 his learning anything from it, or receiving from it any 
 ennobling impulse or refreshment, anything to cheer or 
 ; strengthen him or make him more a man, is exceed- 
 Jingly slight. His avocation doubtless is prospered by 
 it through its stimulant though transient effect upon the 
 public mind, but there is no good reason why he should 
 permit its access to himself. In my literary life (if I 
 may venture to use a personal illustration), which has 
 extended over a period of thirty years, I have acted 
 upon the precept now suggested. Within the last twenty 
 years, as author and as editor, I have published many 
 books, and they have been widely circulated, and, as 
 the publishers inform me, copiously reviewed ; yet dur- 
 ing that time I have not read ten articles about them of 
 any description whatever. In 1854, when as a youth I 
 had the honor and the privilege often to sit by the fire- 
 side of the poet Longfellow, and to enjoy the benefit of 
 his affectionate good-will and his wise and kindly talk, I 
 learned this lesson from his lips : " It is the province of 
 the poet to give pleasure ; it is the province of the critic 
 to give pain. I never read adverse criticisms. Scores 
 of articles are sent to me, about my works. If a review 
 
 * In regard to various pert, loquacious, and ill-conditioned writers who 
 are continually pouring into the newspaper press of this period the trickling 
 slime of their acrid animosity it may be said that probably they sometimes 
 do succeed in momentarily wounding the sensitive feelings of persons who 
 do not know them for what they are worth, or who have not grown indif- 
 ferent to newspaper prattle. But in fact the success of the strongest of 
 them never passes beyond the limit denoted in Dr. Johnson's excellent re- 
 mark to the satirical Beauderck: "You never open your mouth but with 
 intention to give pain ; and you have often given me pain, not from the 
 power of what you said but from seeing your intention." 
 
 5° 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 is pleasant in tone at the beginning I read it through ; 
 but if I perceive that the intention is to wound I drop 
 the thing into my fire, and that is the end of it. In this 
 way one avoids useless pain. Never read attacks on 
 yourself and never answer them." That wise counsel 
 was not lost on me, and it has never been forgotten. 
 Pleasure, as the result of human praise, or pain, as the 
 result of human censure, is possible only to the man who 
 still retains illusions with, regard to his fellow-men. I 
 have learned my lesson, — and critical commentary, how- 
 soever directed, has, to my individual taste, become ex- 
 ceedingly tiresome. I little thought in those days of 
 golden drift and dream that I should ever be a toiler in 
 the field of criticism. But, looking backward upon 
 critical labors extending through many toilsome years, I 
 can with a clear conscience declare that I have never 
 assailed anything that I did not believe was an injury 
 to art or to the public ; that I have never aimed a 
 blow at reputation, or intentionally wounded a human 
 heart, or said one word about anybody of which I was 
 not at all times ready and eager to bear the personal re- 
 sponsibility. Often and often, remembering the words 
 of my honored and beloved counsellor and friend — that 
 "it is the province of the critic to give pain" — I have 
 resolved that it should, on the contrary, be the business 
 of my criticism to give pleasure if possible by affording 
 just and kindly recognition, and to do good by stimulat- 
 ing public interest in noble things. My method has been 
 to endeavor to augment public sympathy with actors, 
 whenever I saw that actors were engaged in pure and 
 high and worthy works. Criticism however should be 
 written for the public and not for the artist ; and when 
 I say that the artist is wise to leave it unread I do so be- 
 cause I conceive for him, in the conduct of his life, an 
 
 SI 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 ideal that far transcends all consideration of the press — 
 an ideal that makes his own conscience to be his tribu- 
 nal, his love of art to be his inspiring impulse and sus- 
 taining cheer, and his sense of well-doing to be his 
 sufficient reward. Humble and gentle, certainly, the 
 true servant of art will ever be. But let him also be 
 self-reliant when the emergency comes, proud in his 
 conscious power, and satisfied in the knowledge that he 
 has done his best. " The only report of a duel," said 
 Lord Norbury, "should be the report of the pistols." 
 " In the reproof of chance," says Shakespeare " lies the 
 true proof of men." Do not leave the question of ex- 
 cellence to be settled by commentators. Settle it your- 
 self. Nothing can be more petty and puny than the 
 custom of running after newspapers to catch an echo of 
 everything you say and do. Appreciation, in the broad 
 and grand sense of that word, is the one thing not to be 
 expected, because it is the one thing that almost never 
 comes. How many human souls do you really com- 
 prehend ? How many do you suppose really compre- 
 hend you ? Each of us is alone. But for each of us 
 there is refuge, comfort, sympathy, hope, the divine 
 blessing of beauty and the sublime power of patience in 
 the service and the companionship of Art. 
 
 ' ' For she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of common life 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 
 Is full of blessings." 
 
 S2 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 DRAMATIC CRITICISM IN THE PALMY DAYS. 
 
 In 1791 Anthony Pasquin — an inveterate blackguard, 
 to be sure, but a close observer and a prominent theat- 
 rical critic of his time, in New York as well as in Lon- 
 don — wrote this statement (in his "Life of John Ed- 
 win," vol. ii., p. 39) : "This is an age which blissfully re- 
 ceives dross for bullion and extravagance for truth." 
 Mr. Pasquin was writing about the stage when he made 
 that remark — so that the decadence of the drama would 
 appear to have been in full blast even in "the palmy 
 days." Yet that was the admirable period before the 
 press had pre-empted the critical function and paralyzed 
 the public judgment. A few specimens of American 
 dramatic criticism as it was written about that time 
 may here perhaps be advantageously cited. The fol- 
 lowing are occasional passages culled from the Mirror 
 of Taste and Dramatic Censor, published in Philadel- 
 phia in 1810-1811 : 
 
 " Mr. Robinson's country boys and old men are 
 excellent. His attempts at tragedy and genteel com- 
 edy will, we fear, never be successful. Mr. Young 
 pleases us in all he undertakes. His conception is just 
 and his gesticulation worthy of example. In Mr, Col- 
 
 53 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 lins we see much of the naivete of Suett and Blis- 
 set. He bids fair to be an excellent low comedian 
 of a certain cast. Mrs. Twaits approaches very near 
 excellency in several walks of the drama. Her figure 
 is too petite to give effect to heroic character, but her 
 voice is good and her stage business soignd. Mrs. 
 Young is the most attractive actress. There is some- 
 thing in her manner which charms the eye, while the 
 ear is at times offended. This is easily accounted for 
 — she is very handsome— her countenance is the picture 
 of innocence ; her deportment modest and unaffected ; 
 but she wants study ; and there is some little defects in 
 her speech which we fear it will be difificult to remove. 
 Mrs. Poe is a pleasing actress, with many striking de- 
 fects. She should never attempt to sing. . . . 
 Mr. Cooper's dying scene was well done. There was 
 a fine practical imitation of the anguish of a wounded 
 man, and in the writhing of the body when he received 
 his wound, and in his manner of falling there was much 
 effect : but in the subsequent part — in the actual dying, 
 comparison would rather injure Mr. Cooper." [This 
 was a notice of Cooper as Richard III. What follows 
 is an intellectual tribute to Mrs. Mason as Beatrice.] 
 " It must naturally be gratifying to us, and we confess 
 that it makes us proud too, to find the public sentiment 
 in unison with ours. That we are seldom at variance 
 with it is a truth of which we are not ashamed to boast ; 
 and it is with no common exultation we state that, 
 without the exception of a single individual, the opin- 
 ion we have from the outset expressed of this admirable 
 actress is the opinion of everyone, and there are many 
 with whom we have conversed upon the subject. This 
 comedy (' Much Ado About Nothing ') is from the first 
 to the last one uninterrupted tissue of wit and comic hu- 
 
 54 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 mor. It is all Shakespeare. Like certain islands in 
 the Eastern Sea it is illumined with a continual uninter- 
 mitted series of coruscations of lightning." Elsewhere 
 this same learned gentleman summarily remarks : 
 " McKenzie's lago was a very poor affair. Spiller's 
 Cassio was not at all exceptionable. Jefferson's Ro- 
 derigo liketh me not." 
 
 Upon a mental ebullition of that order there is but 
 one comment to be made. My dear old friend Arte- 
 mus Ward, in his paper on Shakespeare's Tomb, re- 
 lates that " when the boys' kind teacher went to Lon- 
 don to accept a position in the ofifice of the Metropolitan 
 Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils 
 to deliver a farewell address. ' Go on, sir,' he said, 
 ' in a glorious career. Be like a eagle and soar, and 
 the soarer you get the more we shall all be gratified. 
 That's so.' And," continues the amiable humorist, 
 "my young readers who wish to know about Shake- 
 speare better get these vallyble remarks framed." 
 
 IL 
 
 MR. BOUCICAULT AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 The subjoined article, written by me, appeared in the 
 New York Tribune, October 14, 1879 : 
 
 The case of Mr. Boucicault, always a sad one, has 
 now become absolutely pathetic. For many years, as 
 the public is aware, this afflicted gentleman has " kept 
 the noiseless tenor of his way," walking modestly in the 
 paths of virtue and reticence, and bearing without a 
 murmur " the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy 
 takes." No such example of Christian resignation in- 
 deed had ever occurred in the history of mankind since 
 
 55 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 the days of Saint Lawrence on the Gridiron ; and it was 
 long ago well understood that if there is on earth a suf- 
 fering martyr — one compact of goodness, gentleness, 
 mildness, patience, and devotion— that " entire and per- 
 fect chrysolite " of holy worth and celestial magnanimity 
 is Mr. Boucicault. His sufferings at the hands of his 
 fellow-creatures ever since he wrote " London Assurance" 
 have in fact been prodigious and only equalled by the 
 patient sweetness of his steadfast resignation ; and all 
 the time he has been doing good deeds and never utter- 
 ing one word of remonstrance. Strength has been vouch- 
 safed to him to bear up under the weight of two or three 
 large fortunes, and he has found in some part of his soul 
 " a drop of patience " to endure several hundredweight 
 of laurels ; and even the pernicious propensity of French 
 dramatic authors to convey his works into their absurd 
 language has never proved too much for his nervous re- 
 sources. He never had a quarrel in his life ; never 
 committed a fault ; never erred in judgment or taste ; 
 never called anybody by a bad name ; and in forty 
 years never wrote a letter to the complaint column of a 
 newspaper. There is something so beautiful and admi- 
 rable in this spectacle of self-abnegation and injured virt- 
 ue that neither Marius among the ruins of Carthage nor 
 Cincinnatus at the plough nor the Count of Jones forgiv- 
 ing Mr. Sothern need evermore be mentioned as types 
 of grandeur. Mr. Boucicault has eclipsed them. 
 
 It has frequently been said however that "there is 
 a limit beyond which " and " that the worm will turn." 
 Mr. Boucicault's tortures have recently " so huddled on 
 his back" that his condition has become perfectly pitia- 
 ble and that he really cannot submit any longer to such 
 an outrageous fate. He actually finds himself now the 
 centre of " a conspiracy of impostors," and thereupon he 
 
 S6 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 will " resist both as a citizen and a man "the "reign 
 of terror " which has been inaugurated over him by the 
 "mendacious highwaymen," "literary tramps," "cut- 
 purses," and " assassins " of the press. This he will not 
 do " in any aggressive mood or offensive manner." His 
 language shall be as mild as Mr. Tupper's precepts and 
 as wholesome as ass's milk. He is " heartily sorry " if he 
 offends anybody ; but his soul is in arms, and there is 
 blood in both his eyes, and he has got a check in his 
 pocket which bears " the indorsement of a conspicuous 
 critic " and he will proceed to " strike till the last armed 
 foe expires," in " defence of the public " and for the 
 sacred cause of " sensitive natures " like his own, and 
 "hopeful lives," like those of "Rescued" and "Con- 
 tempt of Court." To this end he has put on war-paint 
 of a very hideous and frightful description and armed 
 himself with a copy of The North American Review, 
 which certainly is heavy enough to kill if ever it should 
 hit ; and thus equipped, like Pyrrhus in the play, " now 
 is he total gules." It is a tremendous transformation. 
 " The lamb," says Miss Hardcastle, " has been outrage- 
 ous this half-hour." In fact he has turned himself into the 
 raging lion — and the consequences cannot fail to be awful. 
 Where precisely the blow will fall conjecture cannot 
 determine. But The North American Review is poised 
 in the air and ready to descend, and undoubtedly there 
 will be a funeral. The "conspicuous critic" who in- 
 dorsed Mr. Boucicault's check will probably be the first 
 corpse. He has remained a considerable time unburied, 
 for Mr. Boucicault has been singing sage requiem over his 
 remains for several years now, and it really is quite time 
 that the burial rites were concluded. At all events Mr. 
 Boucicault should send round the camphor. Then after 
 the " conspicuous critic " is disposed of a small piece of 
 
 S7 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 nitro-glycerine might be dropped on the inconspicuous, 
 and that would strew the plain with Mr. Boucicault's 
 dead and gracefully lead in the golden age of dramatic 
 criticism. No " newspaper critic " Mr. Boucicault de- 
 clares ever did know anything about the drama or ever 
 was honest in the discussion of that vast and overwhelm- 
 ing subject. Critics are simply ignorant and venal beasts. 
 These are Mr. Boucicault's "sincere convictions " and 
 in waving his receptive ear across the literature, art, 
 and journalism of Europe and America for the last half 
 century he has heard but one voice upon the subject — 
 and that was the voice of entire concurrence with these 
 views. Where such unanimity of opinion exists it seems 
 singular that Mr. Boucicault suddenly should feel so 
 bad — but somebody has evidently hurt his feelings. It 
 must be the man that took " the hook." A hundred 
 dollars is what old Shingle might call " a good deal of 
 money," and when that enormous sum vanished, in 
 such a very unexpected manner, the eminent drama- 
 tist might well have turned a pale pea-green. It is a 
 good thing that Mr. Boucicault has at last been moved. 
 There must be no more " oysters " in the dramatic 
 criticism of the nineteenth century. The style of our 
 gifted contemporary The New York Herald, that some 
 time since reviewed Milman's " Fazio " as a fresh transla- 
 tion from the French, is more to his taste. When that 
 auspicious system is adopted he will smile again. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE AMERICAN DRAMA. 
 
 The subjoined article, written by me in Harper's 
 Weekly, February 2, 1889, may appropriately be in- 
 
 58 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 eluded in this book, since it relates to the condition and 
 advancement of dramatic art in America : 
 
 It is probable that the truth as to the American drama 
 may be found in that capacious and old-established nut- 
 shell with which we are all so familiar that we seldom 
 look into it. Hundreds of plays have been written in 
 the United States since Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia 
 (1759), the author of " The Prince of Parthia," presented 
 himself as the pioneer in that branch of productive in- 
 dustry, and scores of them have been acted. Dunlap, 
 the first historian of the American stage [1832], re- 
 corded two hundred and seventy-four of them, written 
 by more than one hundred authors ; and James Rees, 
 in his " Dramatic Authors of America " (1845), men- 
 tions many more. Since then, as is shown by the copy- 
 right records at Washington, the increase in the number 
 of American plays has been prodigious. In this respect 
 America relatively keeps abreast of England. There 
 the fecundity of the play-maker has been inordinate. 
 At the close of the last century about six thousand plays 
 had been published in that country — only about fifty of 
 which are ever acted now — and the product since that 
 time must have been immense, many pieces remaining 
 in manuscript. Lord Byron while he was one of the 
 directors of Drury Lane Theatre in 1815-16 caused the 
 literary archives of that theatre to be searched and sev- 
 eral hundreds of manuscript plays to be examined, in 
 the hope that he might find a good one ; but his search 
 proved fruitless, as he himself has recorded with charac- 
 teristic humor. 
 
 In every important theatre of the United States there 
 is a similar accumulation of theatrical compositions, pre- 
 sumably worthless. The usual phalanx of neglected 
 dramatic authors is on its march in this country as well 
 
 59 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 as abroad, and at the same time we do not lack success- 
 ful and prosperous dramatists. A considerable list of 
 good American plays might be furnished, and the array 
 of American dramatic authors, past and present, is by 
 no means to be despised, since it includes, among others, 
 such representative writers as David Paul Brown, R. M. 
 Bird, N. H. Bannister, Robert T. Conrad, William 
 Dunlap, Charles J. Ingersoll, Anna Cora Mowatt, Epes 
 Sargent, N. P. Willis, Cornelius Matthews, John How- 
 ard Payne, G. H. Miles, George H. Boker, Augustin 
 Daly, Bronson Howard, Charles Gayler, B. E. Woolf, 
 H. G. Carlton, Bartley Campbell, Steele Mackaye, Ed- 
 gar Fawcett, W. H. Gillette, D. D. Lloyd, Brander 
 Matthews, Dion Boucicault, G. F. Rowe, C. W. Tay- 
 leure, A. W. Young, Lester Wallack, John Brougham, 
 W. D. Howells, Edward Harrigan, and Mark Twain. 
 America, considering her brief period of experience, 
 has been in this respect sufficiently fertile, and those 
 judges who declare that there is no American drama 
 (by which is meant a body of dramatic compositions 
 written by persons who live in America) speak without 
 knowledge, and therefore without authority. 
 
 " When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter. 
 And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said." 
 
 Plays may be divided into two classes. Ben Jonson 
 noticed, with reference to Shakespeare, that " he was 
 not for a day but for all time." There are plays that 
 must endure forever, because they are the copious, 
 ample, puissant, beautiful, and, above all, inspired ex- 
 pression of elemental and universal human nature ; and 
 there are plays that cannot survive their own period, 
 because they are only the expression of something local, 
 ephemeral, and temporary. Tom D'Urfey wrote plays 
 
 60 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 by the score in good King William's time, and they are 
 as completely gone now as the dust of the old scribbler 
 himself mouldering in his forgotten grave in St. James's 
 church-yard in Piccadilly. Dryden's plays are for- 
 gotten, and Dryden was a man of genius — which he 
 misused when he devoted it to this species of work. 
 T. B. De Walden, who was working in New York about 
 twenty-five years ago [1865], made a hundred plays, and 
 they are all in the famous alms-bag of oblivion. There 
 is the same difference — or a kindred one — between 
 sterling plays and incidental plays that there is between 
 literature and journalism. The one is permanent, the 
 other evanescent. And this is why the great plays in 
 existence, and even the really good plays, are compar- 
 atively few. The piece that is meant merely for the 
 hour may, like a mustard plaster, be pungent and effec- 
 tive while the hour lasts, but that is the end of it. 
 Sordid in its nature, and usually perfunctory in its char- 
 acter and style, it possesses no intrinsic vitality ; and 
 when it ceases to be apposite it ceases altogether. Nor 
 is evanescence alone the fatal taint of the incidental 
 drama. Artificial because insincere and labored mech- 
 anism combines with triviality to render such works 
 speedily superfluous. The rewards of the stage being 
 substantial, many persons will write for the stage, be- 
 cause they want to get money. But the desire for 
 money is one thing, and the faculty of dramatic expres- 
 sion is another. Even when a good device for a local 
 hit is selected, the talent for working it out in any but 
 a bald utilitarian manner is usually wanting. 
 
 The common idea of a play seems to be — and seems 
 always largely to have been — that it consists of a series 
 of dialogues diversified by a drop curtain whenever the 
 speakers get out of breath. Few writers, even of the 
 
 61 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 high order of Thackeray, Tennyson, and Longfellow, 
 possess the faculty of telling a story by means of action 
 — of showing human life, not in narrative, but in move- 
 ment. Mr. Boucicault and Mr. Daly may be named as 
 contemporary American dramatists who conspicuously 
 possess this faculty. In five of Mr. Boucicault's plays — 
 " The Octoroon," " Jessie Brown," " The Parish Clerk," 
 "The Long Strike," and "Belle Lamar" — may be 
 found examples of this faculty as fine as any in the lan- 
 guage. The telegraph incident in " The Long Strike " — 
 speaking as to its technical dramatic value — is as fine as 
 the incident of the knocking at the gate in " Macbeth." 
 This faculty is not to be obtained by offering a reward 
 for it, nor can it be cultivated into a mind that does not 
 possess it. The dramatist, like the poet, is born, noti 
 made. Good plays will be written in America, not be-( 
 cause there is a demand for them, but because persons; 
 will from time to time be born whose native impulse! 
 propels them in that direction. There must be inspira- ; 
 tion back of all true and permanent art, dramatic orj 
 otherwise, and art is universal : there is nothing national '; 
 about it. Its field is humanity, and it takes in all the 
 world ; nor does anything else afford the refuge that is ' 
 provided by it from all troubles and all the vicissitudes ' 
 of life. Let us make our art noble, and we need not 
 trouble ourselves about the exclusively American im- 
 print. 
 
 62