interesting and amusing me in my
armchair, interesting and amusing me once more
in my stall. The men who can really invent
and observe for the reader, inventing
and observing for the spectator also. What
is the necessary consequence? The literary
standard of the stage is raised; and the
dramatist by profession must be as clever a
man, in his way, as good an inventor, as
correct a writer, as the novelist. And what,
in my case, follows that consequence? Clearly
this: the managers of theatres get as much
of my money at night, as the publishers of
books get in the day.

Do the managers get as much from me in
England ? By no manner of means. For
they hardly ever condescend to address me.
I get up from reading the best works of
our best living writers and go to the theatre,
here. What do I see? The play that I
have seen before in Paris. This may do
very well for my servant, who does not
understand French, or for my tradesman,
who has never had time to go to Paris,—
but it is only showing me an old figure in
a foreign dress, which does not become it
like its native costume. But, perhaps, our
dramatic entertainment is not a play adapted
from the French Drama. Perhaps, it is something
English—a Burlesque. Delightful, I
have no doubt, to a fast young farmer from
the country, or to a convivial lawyer's clerk,
who has never read anything but a
newspaper in his life. But is it satisfactory to
me? It is, if I want to go and see the
Drama satirised. But I go to enjoy a new
play—and I am rewarded by seeing all my
favourite ideas and characters in some old
play, ridiculed. This, like the adapted drama,
is the sort of entertainment I do not want.

I read at home David Copperfield, The
Newcomes, Jane Eyre, and many more
original stories, by many more original authors,
that delight me. I go to the theatre, and
naturally want original stories by original
authors, which will also delight me there.
Do I get what I ask for? Yes, if I want
to see an old play over again. But, if I
want a new play? Why, then I must have
the French adaptation, or the Burlesque.
The publisher can understand that there
are people among his customers who possess
cultivated tastes, and can cater for them
accordingly, when they ask for something
new. The manager, in the same case,
recognises no difference between me and my
servant. My footman goes to see the play-
actors, and cares very little what they
perform in. If my taste is not his taste, we
may part at the theatre door,—he goes in, and
I go home. It may be said, Why is my
footman's taste not to be provided for? By
way of answering that question, I will ask
another:—Why is my footman not to have
the chance of improving his taste, and making
it as good as mine?

The case between the two countries seems
to stand thus, then:—In France, the most
eminent literary men of the period write, as a
matter of course, for the stage, as well as for
the library table; and, in France, the theatre
is the luxury of all classes. In England, the
most eminent literary men write for the
library table alone; and, in England, the
theatre is the luxury of the illiterate classes
—the house of call where the ignorance of the
country assembles in high force, where the
intelligence of the country is miserably
represented by a minority that is not worth counting.
What is the reason of this ? Why has
our modern stage no modern literature?

There is the question with which I
threatened you. To what do you attribute
the present shameful dearth of stage literature ?
To the dearth of good actors ?—or, if
not to that, to what other cause ? Of one
thing I am certain, that there is no want of a
large and a ready audience for original
English plays, possessing genuine dramatic merit,
and appealing, as forcibly as our best novels
do, to the tastes, the interests, and the
sympathies of our own time. You, who have
had some experience of society, know as well
as I do, that there is in this country a very
large class of persons whose minds are stiffened
by no Puritanical scruples, whose
circumstances in the world are easy, whose time is
at their own disposal, who are the very
people to make a good audience and a paying
audience at a theatre, and who yet, hardly
ever darken theatrical doors more than two
or three times in a year. You know this;
and you know also that the systematic neglect
of the theatre in these people, has been forced
on them, in the first instance, by the shock
inflicted on their good sense by nine-tenths
of the so-called new entertainments which
are offered to them. I am not speaking now
of gorgeous scenic revivals of old plays—for
which I have a great respect, because they
offer to sensible people the only decent substitute
for genuine dramatic novelty to be
met with at the present time. I am referring
to the " new entertainments " which are, in
the vast majority of cases, second-hand
entertainments to every man in the theatre who
is familiar with the French writers—or
insufferably coarse entertainments to every
man who has elevated his taste by making
himself acquainted with the best modern
literature of his own land. Let my servant,
let my small tradesman, let the fast young
farmers and lawyers' clerks, be all catered
for! But surely, if they have their theatre,
I, and my large class, ought to have our
theatre too? The fast young farmer has his
dramatists, just as he has his novelists in the
penny journals. We, on our side, have got
our great novelists (whose works the fast
young farmer does not read) why, I ask
again, are we not to have our great dramatists
as well?

With high esteem, yours, my dear Sir,
A. READER.