blended with that boldness and energetic tone which is so essential to the success of dramatic productions. Then we have his nautical pieces, which indicate a thorough knowledge of a sailor's life, and so original and striking are his sea phrases that James Fenimore Cooper expressed the highest opinion of Mr. Steele's ability as a writer upon such subjects." Among his numerous plays written between 1835 and 1845 were the following:-Clandare; Kasran, or The Crusaders, a melodrama, partially founded on Thomson's poem of "Edward and Elenora"; The Lion of the Sea, or Our Infant Navy, a nautical melodrama; The Brazen Drum, or The Yankee in Poland; Washington and Napoleon; A Night Down Town, an Ethiopian opera which made a great hit; Stewart's Triumph; The Fawn's Leap; The Grecian Queen; and many others. CHARLES EDWARDS LESTER, author of a number of successful books, produced, February 21, 1848, a play called Kate Woodhull, which possessed popular elements, the plot being founded upon incidents of the French Revolution. It kept the boards for over a week, which was no inconsiderable run in New York at that period. BENJAMIN A. BAKER, a successful actor and manager, wrote a play, New York in 1848, which was originally produced February 15, 1848, introducing for the first time the since renowned character of "Mose." Chanfrau's personation of the New York "b'hoy" was received with the utmost applause. The author elaborated this character, adding another act and several new parts, the complete piece being thus represented during a run of seventy nights under the title, A Glance at New York, Mr. Baker afterward wrote Mose in China, and Mose in California. Mr. G. H. RODWELL produced in January, 1850, a play in New York called Spirit of Gold, and Mr. Sperry, of Baltimore, produced in Feburary of the same year a local satirical comedy entitled Extremes. The latter play proved very successful, and was acted to enthusiastic audiences for twenty-one nights. On June 29 a new drama, called The New York Fireman; and The Bond Street Heiress was produced with a success that carried it through a career of forty nights. A comedy entitled Upside Down, or Philosophy in Petticoats, by J. Fenimore Cooper, was produced in New York during the same month, but failed to strike the popular fancy. In the same year a new American play, Fortunes of War, by J. Wallack Lester, was successfully acted at Brougham's Lyceum Theater. Isaac J. Pray also deserves notice for a tragedy, Pætus Calccina; and H. O. Purdy for his comedy, Nature's Nobleman. C. P. S. Ware was another well-known playwright of the day. Aiken's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin was brought out during the season of 1852-1853, at Purdy's National Theater, with great success, and had an uninterrupted run of two hundred nights. During the season of 1853-1854, John Brougham's Game of Life was represented, as well as J. E. Durivage's amusing comedy, Our Best Society, which was founded upon George William Curtis' sparkling "Potiphar Papers." The American plays introduced during the following season were Durivage's A Nice Young Man, G. C. Foster's Nowadays, Barnett's Our Set, T. B. De Walden's The Upper Ten and Lower Twenty, and two more comedies by Brougham, My Cousin German and A Gentleman from Ireland. From this time forward until the beginning of the war the following plays (not noticed elsewhere) succeeded each other :-Cornelius Matthews' False Pretences; Brougham's delightful burlesque, Pocahontas; Mrs. Bateman's Self; De Walden's Wall Street; E. G. P. Wilkins' Young New York, and Henrietta; G. H. Miles' Mary's Birthday, and Mohammed; Watts Phillips' The Dead Heart; John Savage's Sibyl; and others too numerous to mention," or at least not sufficiently important. LIVING AMERICAN DRAMATISTS. In dealing with American dramatists who are living, we shall be obliged to mention some names which were more conspicuous a quarter of a century ago than they are at present, and which would, naturally, be included in the early record of the American Drama. It is quite impossible to mention all those who have written for the stage during, let us say, the last five years. Their number is formidable. It will be impossible, in fact, to avoid overlooking certain writers who have a claim, without doubt, to notice. Our purpose is, it may be explained, catholic to the point of philanthropy. We propose to make up a list of living dramatists who are good, bad or indifferent. So long as any one of them is the author of a play, known or popular, his name shall be set forth generously. Certain persons whose pretensions are too plainly absurd will be omitted from the list. In this way we shall come, probably, very close to an accurate presentation of a troublesome matter. An approximate list, then, of American dramatists now. living includes the following names: Bronson Howard, George H. Jessop, Joaquin Miller, Charles Dazey, Frederic Marsden, A. E. Lancaster, Julian Magnus, Milton Nobles, Frank Rogers, Frank G. Maeder, Robert G. Morris, J. J. McCloskey, Steele Mackaye, W. H. Gillette, Sydney Rosenfeld, Charles Gayler, John Habberton, A. F. Schwartz, W. D. Eaton, W. D. Howells, William Young, George Hoey, Elliott Barnes, Clay M. Greene, William Gill, Leonard Grover, B. E. Woolf, Bartley Campbell, Augustin Daly, Mrs. William Henderson, C. W. Tayleure, Oliver Doud Byron, John A. Stevens, George H. Boker, Edgar Fawcett, A. R. Cazauran, Lester Wallack, Henry Guy Carleton, Olive Logan, A. C. Wheeler, Mme. Selina Dolaro, Bret Harte, A. C. Gunter, T. R. Sullivan, Julia Ward Howe, Mark Twain, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Stanley McKenna, George Fawcett Rowe, Frank Spencer, Kate Field, Edward Harrigan, David R. Locke (Petroleum V. Nasby), Miss Anna Dickinson, Miss Laura Don, David Belasco, and probably fifty others, most of them writers of the least possible consequence. There are several persons who make a business of preparing sketches, musical farces, and various kinds of theatrical entertainments; but their names are of no account. Indeed, many names placed in the list above might with propriety be left out. Yet the list may stand, on the whole, as a fairly representative one. be Among those in the list who wrote in what may called the first period of American play-writing are Frank G. Maeder, Charles Gayler, C. W. Tayleure, George H. Boker, Lester Wallack, and Julia Ward Howe. About 1850, C. W. Tayleure made his version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Mr. Boker's dramas Leonara di Guzman and Francesca da Rimini were produced between 1850 and 1860. Mr. Tayleure's Fashion and Famine was given in 1854-55. In 1857, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's tragedy Leonora was performed. Charles Gayler's Love of a Prince and Taking the Chances were done at about the same time. In 1858-59 Mr. Wallack's drama The Veteran was produced; this was followed, in the next year, by the same author's Central Park. Mr. Charles Gayler's best play, The Magic Marriage, was brought forward in 1861-62. Of these writers, Mr. Maeder is still doing work for the stage; Mr. Gayler has recently taken up his labor again, and the others are no longer heard of as dramatists. Mr. Boker's Francesca da Rimini has been revised, however, for Mr. Lawrence Barrett, and is now a popular drama. Mr. Wallack, who has not written for years, revives his Rosedale from time to time. Mr. Gayler's plays are seldom seen. Mr. Tayleure was never more than an adapter. Yet, for that matter, Mr. Wallack's plays -with the exception of Central Park-are adaptations. PLAYS PRODUCED FROM 1862-1878. We will sketch rapidly a part of the work accomplished by American dramatists now living between 1862 and 1878. Mr. Augustin Daly began to write for the stage, apparently, between 1862 and 1863. He then adapted a drama by Mosenthal, under the title of Leah, for Miss Bateman. Mr. Lester Wallack's very popular play, Rosedale, was performed in 1863-64, and ran then 125 consecutive nights. Rosedale is a skillful adaptation of a novel by Col. E. B. Hamley, called Lady Lee's Widowhood, and one of its situations is reproduced from What will he Do with It. Olive Logan's Eveleen was produced at Wallack's Theatre in 1863-64 About this time, Mr. Maeder was coming into a kind of prominence as a popular writer of plays. Most of his pieces were of a sensational sort; but a few of them were marked by promising talent. Mr. Maeder collaborated with Mr. T. B. McDonough in writing Shamus O'Brien, which was produced in 1865. Augustin Daly's Griffith Gaunt and Olive Logan's Armadale-both adaptations from novels -were brought forward in the same year. Augustin Daly now turned his attention to melodrama, and put together A Flash of Lightning and Under the Gaslight, which are not more than most things of this class—the class of terrific and physical theatrical actions. Such plays are not dramas; they are merely movements. Mr. Maeder's Black Sheep was produced in 1869-70. This is an adaptation of a novel by Edmund Yates. Charles Gayler's Fritz-a silly and very successful piece-thanks to Mr. J. K. Emmet, who performs in it, was given to the public in the same season. Olive Logan's five-act comedy, Surf, was presented at the Fifth Avenue Theater in January, 1870. Surf is a combination of farce and melodrama. Between 1870 and 1878 several popular American plays, and a few that were not popular, were placed upon the stage. Mr. Daly, then manager of the Fifth Avenue Theatre, produced from time to time translations and adaptations of foreign writers which he described by a phrase now commonplace "dramas of contemporaneous human interest." Mr. Daly made his own adaptations, and was occasionally apt to look upon the result of his labor as new plays by Augustin Daly. His name has been attached, as an author, to a large number of foreign plays. As a matter of fact, his experience and knowledge of the stage were uncommon, and he showed great knack in readjusting, so to speak, the works of others. He never wrote a single play which can be strictly called original. Horizon-a fine drama in some respects was the nearest approach he made to original dramatization. It was not his custom to offer plays by Americans at his theaters. Yet he broke his custom to produce Saratoga, an exceedingly clever, bustling, amusing farce by Bronson Howard. The same play was afterward taken to London, where it was revised, and, under the title of Brighton, given with great success by Mr. Charles Wyndham and his company. Slight interest has been shown at any time by the management of Wallack's Theater in the American drama. About seven years ago, however, Mr. Wallack brought forward The Twins, by A. C. Wheeler and Steele Mackaye. Mr. Wheeler is an accomplished dramatic critic, who is well known as Nym Crinkle. The Twins had neither popular nor artistic success, though it was handled with bitter and unjust severity by some writers on the New York press. There was an excellent idea in the play, and The Twins was not without sparkle and intellectual merit. The play failed. Mr. Mackaye has since acquired reputation as a popular dramatist. Three American plays were produced at the Union Square Theater, and two of these were entirely successful. One was The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain ; the second was Conscience, by A, E. Lancaster and Julian Magnus; the third was The Two Men of Sandy Bar, by Bret Harte. Mr. Harte's play failed decisively, though it was afterward placed among the author's published works. The Gilded Age was written for Mr. John T. Raymond, and though it is cer tainly a weak and dull play, it presents a character in Col. Sellers which is salient, novel, and humorous. Mr. Raymond's brilliant success with this character is the success of The Gilded Age. As to Conscience, that is a very interesting, well-arranged, and wellwritten drama, the work chiefly, it is known, of Mr. Lancaster. The late Mr. Charles R. Thorne, Jr.'s acting as Eustace Lawton, in Conscience, was bold and powerful, and Miss Morris was never more natural and sympathetic than when she acted Constance. Mr. Lancaster is also the author of Estelle, which was given afterward at Wallack's Theater, and of various plays less known or not yet performed. Mr. Julian Magnus has written, in collaboration with Mr. H. C. Bunner, the editor of "Puck," a drama called Woman's Honor. Mr. Bunner published a novel recently with the same title. The American plays produced at this period at the Park Theater were: The Mighty Dollar, by B. E. Woolf; Clouds, by Frederic Marsden; Our Boarding House, by Leonard Grover. Mr. Woolf is a dramatic and musical critic in Boston, a composer, and a playwright. His musical comedy Pounce & Co. is full of bright melody and humor. Less can be said for The Mighty Dollar, which, though a better play than The Gilded Age, is still rather stupid. It is the character of Bardwell Slote, in this case, which makes the success of the The Mighty Dollar, and Mr. Florence's performance of Slote is marked by truth and drollery. A coarse-grained satire on "American institutions" runs through the play. Mr. Grover's Our Boarding House is a roaring farce, with a ridiculous suggestion of heavy melodrama in it. As a farce it is extravagantly entertaining. Mr. Grover has written, it is said, several plays, but few of them have been produced. Mr. Marsden's Clouds is his best work. The Danites, by Joaquin Miller, is one of the most successful plays in which Western life is depicted, and was first produced at the Broadway Theater, New York August 22, 1877. We have, by the way, forgotten to mention Mr. G. F. Rowe's Brass and The Geneva Cross-the second a rather strong drama, Among the numerous plays produced on the American stage from 1875 to 1878 were the following: Women of the Day; The Big Bonanza; On the Rhine, by Bartley Campbell; Weak Women; Edge Tools, by F. W. Lander; Bank Stocks, by Martha Lafitte Johnson; Parted, by C. W. Tayleure; Lispet; Pique, by Augustin Daly; The |