newspaper critic is, and always has been, incapable of discharging these functions. I speak from a personal acquaintance with the most distinguished of these gentlemen that have misguided London, Paris, and New York during the last thirty years.

The dramatic critic should be thoroughly acquainted with the principles and craft of dramatic composition, the art of acting, a student in dramatic literature, and an experienced spectator of performances. If he has not this storage in his mind he is no more than one of the audience, perverted by a little knowledge. In a theatrical performance there is a perfect fusion of the author and actor. It is a nice appreciation only that can detect whether the merit of the author or the craft of the actor creates the effect, or how much applause is due to the one or the other. Again it requires a fine perception to follow a scene and discover through the misconception of the actor what the author really meant. Again, actors will from mere wantonness or idleness fail to deliver the words of their parts, and substitute their own; dramatic critics should be able at once to detect this impertinent chatter, distinguished by its flippancy from the more careful composition of the author's work. Yet I have known many instances where eminent newspaper critics have failed conspicuously in their judgment of plays at a first performance, attributing merit to the dramatist that properly belonged to the actor, and praising the performer for effects that really belonged to the author; sometimes eulogizing gross artistic vices, thereby encouraging the actor in his worst faults, and striking, as it were, his vices into his constitution.

It has happened to me to address an eminent artist on the morning after a first performance with the complaint that not only had he misrepresented the character confided to him, but that he had altered it and had interpolated language of his own to the detriment of the play. He answered this reproach by directing my attention to the columns of the London "Times," where his performance was eulogized, and the success of the play attributed largely to his buffoonery.

The editor of a newspaper regards the drama as a popular and trivial resort, and issues directions to his subordinate who "does the theatre" to be kind and say everything pleasant. This kindness is fatal to the best interests of the drama. The critic "must

be cruel only to be kind." Again, the theatres occupy a large space in the advertising columns of the press, and the newspaper is a commercial, not a literary enterprise. So the proprietor must take care of his customers, and the hired scribe writes as he is bid. As a low state of health is liable to let in a score of maladies, so a low state of the drama has developed the commercial manager. This person in most instances received his education in a bar-room, possibly on the far side of the counter. The more respectable may have been gamblers. Few of them could compose a bill of the play where the spelling and grammar would not disgrace an urchin under ten years of age. These men have obtained possession of first-class theatres, and assume to exercise the artistic and literary functions required to select the actors, to read and determine the merit of dramatic works, and preside generally over the highest and noblest efforts of the human mind. The great theatres of London are filled by men of this class who have thus succeeded to the curule chairs of John Philip Kemble, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Macready, George Colman, and Charles Kean. To the commercial manager we owe the introduction of the burlesque, opera bouffe, and the reign of buffoonery. We owe him also the deluge of French plays that set in with 1842, and swamped the English drama of that period.

For example: the usual price received by Sheridan, Knowles, Bulwer, and Talfourd at that time for their plays was £500. I was a beginner in 1841, and received for my comedy, "London Assurance," £300. For that amount the manager bought the privilege of playing the work for his season. Three years later I offered a new play to a principal London theatre. The manager offered me £100 for it. In reply to my objection to the smallness of the sum he remarked, "I can go to Paris and select a first-class comedy; having seen it performed, I feel certain of its effect. To get this comedy translated will cost me £25. Why should I give you £300 or £500 for your comedy of the success of which I cannot feel so assured?" The argument was unanswerable and the result inevitable. I sold a work for £ 100 that took me six months' hard work to compose, and accepted a commission to translate three French plays at £50 apiece. This work afforded me child's play for a fortnight. Thus the English dramatist was obliged either to relinquish the stage altogether or to become a French copyist.

But the most irreparable loss inflicted on the stage by this management was the loss of tradition. From the earliest days there existed in the leading theatres of London groups of actors inhabiting Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket Theatres, these being especially entitled to perform the highest class of drama, for which they had the monopoly, and consequently companies of artists were selected for the object of cultivating legitimate comedy and tragedy. These actors were the lineal artistic descendants of the great tragedians and comedians who preceded them on the same stages. The prompt-books were heirlooms of the art. From hand to hand, from mouth to mouth, the movement and gestures of every scene and every play were transmitted from generation to generation. The way in which Garrick or Betterton acted a certain part was compared with the manner and treatment of their predecessors in it, and the best parts of each performance were retained and employed by John Philip Kemble. He in turn was studied by Cooke and Young, who transmitted their traditions to Kean and Macready. The grouping of the actors on the stage, their relations to each other, their movements and gestures, all the product of the careful study of two or three centuries, formed this artistic treasure which we call tradition; and all this is utterly lost. The commercial manager having disbanded these leading companies of artists, all the wealth of the past has been dispersed.

Some thirty-five years ago I saw "Twelfth Night" played at Covent Garden Theatre in London. Miss Ellen Tree played Viola; Farren was the Malvolio; Keeley, Harley, Bartley, and Mrs. Humby filled the comic parts. I forget the cast, however, but I remember perfectly the action and movement of the play. A few weeks ago the same comedy was performed in New York. Miss Neilson was the Viola. It was sadly misrepresented from beginning to end. The actors knew their parts, but did not understand their characters. The movement presented a confusion not unlike an amateur performance, where each person betrays an awkward circumspective doubt that there is something wrong somewhere. There had been, in truth, no skilled interpreter of the play to regulate the movement, no stage manager to instruct the performer how his or her part should be played. It was a muddle, where both audience and actors were equally in helpless ignorance of

the author. The following day the New York press dilated on the perfection of the performance, being the most ignorant of the three. These, my dear R―, appear to be some of the reasons for the decline and fall of the drama of late years. There are three constituent factors in the drama: the author who writes, the actor who performs, and the public that receives. Of these three the public is the most important, for it calls into existence the other two as infallibly as demand creates supply. When our people shall demand the highest class of dramatic entertainment, a Shakespeare and a Garrick will appear. Until then, my dear friend, the world will rest contented with such poor things as you and

me.

DION BOUCICAULT.

WE stated in a preceding paper that the permanent army of the Caucasus, including the Cossacks of the Kuban, has long been understood to amount to nearly 170,000 men of all arms, and, with the supports available, it was reasonable to assume the capacity of the Russians to operate in Armenia with as many troops as the supplies and communications permitted, and that they would at every important point be superior in force to their antagonist. The result has not supported this assumption, but has shown either that the available Russian strength in the Caucasus has been vastly overrated, or that a very large portion of it was retained within their own territory to oppose the Turkish expeditions to SugkhumKalé and other points on the coast, and to put down the insurrection of the native tribes, or that it has been unskilfully applied. On the 23d of April columns crossed the frontier from Poti, moving upon Batoum, from Alexandropol upon Kars, and from Erivan upon Bayazeth. The attempt to cut the communication from Batoum into the interior was immediately successful, and the subsequent attacks by the Russians at that point were probably intended to drive the Turks as close in upon the town as possible, so that their own position might be shortened and more men made available for other operations. On the left, Bayazeth was occupied on the 26th, and the Erivan column moved by Dijadin and Kara-Killissa, in the direction of Toprakh-Kalé and Deli-Baba. The central column moved on Kars. Early in May another column moved from Akhaltzik upon Ardahan, and on the 17th of that month breached the works and carried the place by assault. The headquarters of the central column were now at Mazra, near Kars, which was invested, and a cavalry force thrown towards the Saganlugh. About the same time the left column reached Utsch-Kilissa, in the valley of the Murad Euphrates, with its advanced guard at Jeranos and Chamur, where a mountain road from Kagysman

North American Review, July-August, 1877, p. 35.