in justification of the Censor as could possibly be found, not only in the public interest but also in the interest of the author. Clever it was, no doubt, but I should not envy the feelings of anyone who produced it before an audience who considered themselves called upon and in a position to judge and express an opinion upon its morals and its taste, as well as its dramatic value. I have played in a great many London 'first nights,' pleasant and painful, and I think I know full well what would happen in such a case both during the progress of the play and at the final fall of the curtain. At all events, I gravely fear that it could never, under any circumstances, have been a successful money-making play.

Not long ago I had a professional engagement to play for some months in a play which was well constructed and dramatic enough for anything, but contained certain unpleasant features and, at times, skated over very thin ice. Numbers of times during my association with that play I have seen ladies and gentlemen leave the theatre (more especially younger members of the audience), and I know of many good, solid, paying playgoers who could never be induced to bring their families to see it when they had learned the character of the story. Result: the play was in some places a moderate success only, and in others a very positive failure.

I now desire to step out of my course' briefly to allude to something which took place just before my time, although I knew and enjoyed the friendship of the prime mover therein in later years, and played with him in many of his finest performances. Probably one of the very brightest spots in English stage history, as well as one of the very worthiest managements that ever shed a lustre on the British drama, was the association of Messrs. Phelps and Greenwood at Sadler's Wells Theatre. No one ever dreams of alluding to their achievements nowadays. London soon forgets. And yet 'tis well at times to stop and think. For eighteen years, from 1844 to 1862, this management drew all London to an out-of-the-way theatre. There, with a fine, sound company, each member eager and encouraged to do his or her best, plays produced well enough only, no speeches, no paragraphs, no interviews, no booming, just dignified, sincere, straightforward service of the public year in and year out, they reached the great heart of that public and held it firmly to the end. They produced all of Shakespeare's plays but four, and their répertoire would mean a list of all the finest plays in our language including many first productions, and, although other West-end managers were more the vogue of fashion, and were even favoured by royalty itself, there was never any doubt as to where the great public found its dramatic home and its money's worth. And just as one wonders at their achievements in the direction of productions, so one is almost lost in admiration at the art and versatility of the leading actor. I can read of no one actor on the English-speaking stage who ever played

VOL. LXIV-No. 379

I I

as many parts, and as wide a range of parts, as well as Samuel Phelps. No one has ever proposed a monument to him. He did not need it. His monument is in the hearts of all his contemporaries amongst London playgoers who remember him and his work, and who, whenever one of the great parts is mentioned will say, 'Ah! I saw Sam Phelps play that at Sadler's Wells.' London stood bareheaded for miles when we laid him to rest on that dull November morning in 1878. Those who did not know him felt they had lost a personal friend, and those who had the privilege of his friendship knew that an incomparable artist and noble-minded, worthy citizen had gone to take the wages of a life of truth and honest worth. An artist with the finest ideals I have ever met in any branch of art, it may be truly said of him :

Take him for all in all,

We shall not look upon his like again.

Here was indeed a genuine 'public educator'! One who did it without announcement or ostentation, but, like the American author's famous insect, 'got there all the same.'

I trust I may be pardoned this slight digression, especially as it brings me back directly to my text. Phelps and Greenwood produced nothing but theatrical plays, pulsating with humanity, interest, poetry, and dramatic incident and situations. In short, plays—not lectures, treatises, or problems; just plays.

I have a second strong reason for this digression, because I believe thoroughly that 'what has been done could be done again.' Given a London theatre of fair size, and not weighted down with middlemen's profit rental (the most glaring curse of the modern London stage) and a fair capital, and I firmly believe I could within twenty-four hours give a list of a hundred fine plays that would each run a month or six weeks to good business without authors' fees at all. Here would be programmes for about eight years. The plays need not be produced extravagantly. Let the poet's fancy and the dramatist's quality, aided by the brains of the artists depicting them, all have a chance to show at their best, as in the case of Sadler's Wells. In a very short time the theatre would be in possession of a useful stock of scenery and properties. The absence of authors' fees would be equivalent to a prima facie profit of from 5 to 10 per cent., which in itself would constitute a good interest on the capital invested, and the public would soon find out for themselves where they were catered for after their hearts' desire, as they have found out in one notable instance in London to-day, and are testifying their approval in no uncertain manner. But the plays must be plays. Could such a scheme be put in motion I would be willing to prove my sincerity of purpose by devoting what years of a working actor's life remain to me to its furtherance, and I fancy many more hopeless schemes are constantly being brought forward, and often, I fear, with disastrous

results to the investors as well as the artists engaged. At all events, I should consider it a far more hopeful project than a national or subsidised theatre if for no other reason than that I firmly believe it would be self-supporting, and, in the end, very profitable.

Of course, such a scheme would be ignored by the advanced or 'educating' section of the dramatic Press, but that might be a 'blessing in disguise or, possibly, a consummation devoutly to be wished.' Who amongst my readers saw the late John McCullough's production and performance of Virginius at Drury Lane in 1881 ? This is one of the finest acting plays imaginable, and one of the greatest mentalities of that day wrote of this event that it was 'three hours spent in the absolute atmosphere of ancient Rome.'

One more instance. It is the fashion nowadays to decry The Lady of Lyons, a play laid down on the true great lines of dramatic construction, which has made incalculable money and pleased incalculable thousands of playgoers. Doubtless it appears tawdry as pronounced by a modern school of performers, who are apparently afraid of or unable to delineate romance of any kind; but does anyone recall Mrs. Kendal's performance of Pauline in the later days of Hollingshead's management at the Gaiety Theatre in 1877? I doubt if an audience was ever more deeply moved. I can safely say I have never seen one. But then Mrs. Kendal knew how the play and part were meant to be played, and was not afraid to exercise the actor's art in carrying out the intention of the author. I was engaged in both the performances cited, so I am not writing from hearsay knowledge.

It is curious to find the story of The Lady of Lyons cropping up as the absolute basis of a modern light comedy, but such is the case at the present time.

It may be assumed from the foregoing notes that I am one who believes that art and commercial success cannot go hand in hand in the matter of plays, or that I am advocating a transpontine style of melodrama. Nothing can be farther from the fact. I believe and advocate just the opposite.

Practically all the foibles, failings, vices, and plague spots of our frail human nature have been dealt with by the older dramatists, but it is in the treatment of a subject for the stage that its strength or weakness lies. The writers of the past dealt with these subjects in a lofty, grand manner, and by means of literature and poesy, fancy and wit, covered up the sting in the charm of artistic atmosphere. It is when these subjects are handled by the modern ardent (not to say blatant) realist that they become morbid, sordid, ugly, sometimes filthy, always unamusing, unentertaining, and-what is worse from the point of view of these notes-dull, deadly dull; and, as before stated, drive the paying public out of the theatre habit.

Sir Henry Irving told me in conversation during my last en

gagement with him in 1901, that in the later days of his management he produced a play at the Lyceum by a very distinguished man of letters with great Press influence behind him. The cast included Miss Terry, Sir Henry himself, and the full strength of the Lyceum company. A clever play, but one that the public did not want, and one night it was played to less than forty pounds, gross receipts. Whether the artists of the past were greater than those of to-day or not is a moot question, but certainly no one at the present time can draw unless the play is popular. To-day, more than ever, the play's the thing.'

In conclusion, it would be impertinence for me to tender advice to the tried dramatists of to-day. But I may mention that at least four of them, in the course of conversation, have expressed views which startlingly coincide with my own.

To the budding and oncoming writer for the stage I would appeal, and urge with all the possible strength of conviction begotten of experience, do not be misled by the false doctrines of inexperienced or bigoted theorists who constantly misrepresent the views of the paying audience.' What the public wants (and always has wanted) is a well-made play, with action, situation, romance (or comedy as the case may be), human nature, and human sympathy. What they do not want is a lecture, a problem, a treatise, or a dramatised disease. Leave such subjects to be discussed by the various learned societies which are formed for that purpose. If you have ideas for a theatrical play, write it. As before stated, the public loves a theatrical play, and more than often pays well for it. One success in that direction may make you rich. The managers will seek and court you. The actors and their families will bless you. And don't be surprised if the magic word art (with a big A) follows in due course, because on the stage as elsewhere 'Nothing succeeds like success.'

J. H. BARNES.

SOME RECENT PICTURE SALES

No phase has been more remarkable in the annals of picture sales of the past decade than what may be justly termed the triumph of modern artists, English and Continental, during the last season or two. It has for long been the custom of a few ill-informed writers, who fail to distinguish between 'pot-boilers' and serious art, to shout, with strident voice, of the 'slump' in modern art. It does not seem to be recognised that the enormous prices paid thirty or forty years ago for the 'popular' works of artists of the early and mid-Victorian period were largely due to a meretricious vogue, and that no change in fashion can galvanise into life the taste for such pictures. The story-telling canvas of those days was easily painted and rapidly sold, and even the high price which it for a very brief period realised in the auction room can never have deceived anyone into the belief that the thing was either art or that it was permanent. It would be as absurd to rank works of this description with modern art as it would be to describe the novels of G. W. M. Reynolds and Hall Caine as literature. They are the flotsam and jetsam of art, the redundancies brought into existence by an uncultured taste, and they pass into fruitless oblivion like seed sown in stony places.

Tastes will always differ as to what constitutes art. The verdict of one generation is not always ratified by those which follow. There are, however, certain broad principles which must always count. It will be curious to see, twenty years hence, how far the taste and tendencies of to-day are ratified-or the reverse. It is certainly a very remarkable fact that nearly all the sales of the season just concluded have been of modern artists: not one important collection of old masters has come under the hammer. Roughly speaking, during the 1907 season, pictures by the old masters and of the Early English school produced-chiefly at Messrs. Christie's-110,000l. It will be seen from the tabulated statement which follows that from January to July ten sales alone have approximately produced the huge and unparalleled total of 340,000l.-nearly all of which has gone in the purchase of pictures by artists working within the limits of the first three-quarters of the last century, and this in spite of the depression in trade, Old-age Pensions, the Beer panic, and the thousand and one other things which pessimists tell us are taking this country to the dogs!