kick the average actor from my door,' I may have said that I would not let such men as I was describing enter my door. I have many worthy friends among the profession, and I never meant in any way to reflect upon the moral character of my brother professionals. I have never left the stage, and might even now be persuaded to play if the proper inducements were offered. My book on the stage contains many eulogies of actors, and endorses the stage as a moral institution. This whole controversy, which puts me in a wrong light and does me a great injustice, comes from a misunderstanding, and the case is very similar to that of the late controversy of Julian Hawthorne with Mr. Lowell-a mistake in words, or a misapprehension of the spirit of the expression."

THE London Truth echoes what I recently said about the Queen's “commanding" certain actors to give her private performances, and says she has an unconquerable objection to paying a public visit to any theatre. It seems to me that the Queen is a much over-petted and spoiled old lady.

* **

IN describing the last act of Verdi's" Otello," the same paper says that Desdemona enters her bedchamber and sings first a simple but lovely setting of the "Willow" song, and afterwards, as she goes to sleep, a beautiful "Ave Maria." A passage for all the double basses of the orchestra seems to imply that Othello is taking off his boots, and he presently enters, storming and raging. Of course, he cannot smother his wife before inviting her to a duet; but the murder eventually comes off. Othello afterwards dies, and nobody else is killed.

**

ON the first night of "Francillon," the curtain having fallen on a great success, a pretty young woman rushed up to M. Dumas, as he was leaving the theatre, full of enthusiasm, and exclaimed: “Oh, M. Dumas, I must kiss you!" He gravely bowed his head and received the kiss. "But you don't know who I am, do you?" she continued. No," said he, "I don't. But my experience with you is mighty agreeable, nevertheless."

I HAVE had several letters asking if Miss Ada Rehan is the wife of Mr. John Drew, and requested to answer in the columns of THE THEATRE. She is not his wife.

*

**

MR. DALY is now doing the largest business of his managerial career. The receipts of his

IN spite of the assertion that has often been made to me that an actor finds the frequent performance of "kissing" on the stage as meaningless and unaccompanied by any emotion, there is a great deal of familiarity to be observed that is not only uncalled for, but which seems to be entered into with a zest that if it were not enjoyed ought to be resented by the player as well as by the public. A stranger to Mr. Goodwin's methods asked me, during the performance of "The Skating Rink," if Mr. Goodwin was not especially devoted to Miss Grubb. "If he is not," said he, "there is a vulgarity displayed in the contact of faces which ought not to be permitted on a highly moral stage." My friend was, apparently, unaccustomed to the ways of burlesque. I can see no real healthy reason myself why a woman permits a man on the stage to handle her like an animal. Yet Mr. Goodwin is not SO offending in this respect as many others.

*

**

MARGARET MATHER, the actress and protégé of J. M. Hill, was married in Buffalo, February 15th, to Emil Habercorn, leader of the orchestra of the Union Square Theatre. She has bought a residence in Buffalo, where she will make her future home.

**

THE death is announced of Pierre Eugene Grange, the French playwright.

**

THE season of Lent does not seem to have diminished the attendance at the theatres. It is almost impossible to obtain good seats at either Daly's, Madison Square, or the Fifth Avenue. The churches are not particularly well attended. But perhaps this is owing to the reason that the people do not have time to think of God nowadays. In the smaller cities society turns to the solemn season with thoughtful regard. Trophonius.

ART CHAT.

THE STEWART COLLECTION.

II.

THERE are some dozen paintings in the Stewart collection which may well be studied together as representing a certain class of modern art, which might be called, for want of a better term, pictorial figure painting. These pictures are by Meissonier, Gérôme, Zamacoïs, Fortuny, Boulanger, Kaemmerer, and Knaus.

Friedland, 1807," is Meissonier's chef d'œuvre. "On which," he says himself, "I have bestowed all the science and experience I have been able to acquire in my art.' And in relation to which he has a conviction that the value of the work will increase with time."

It is a painting eight feet by four and a half, representing Napoleon, then at the zenith of his glory, surrounded by his enthusiastic troops during the battle of Friedland, for which Mr. Stewart is understood to have paid $60,000. The canvas is in a poor state of preservation, being cracked in a hundred and one places. It was painted in 1875, and it enjoys a great notoriety. I can well imagine the interest it must excite in the mind of the ordinary spectator. The movement and action in the horses in the foreground is certainly imposing, and the perfection to which the detail is carried out is marvelous. In this respect Meissonier is the master-workman of the 19th century.

What a pity he had not genius for something more than mere work. Oh, if he only had an eye for true values, a feeling of breadth at least in his backgrounds! Then, too, his brush work is hard, his color dry, without a suggestion of juciness or mellowness to it. Why, do you know in this picture he has painted the haunches of the bay and sorrel horses, and the faces of the cavalrymen, in exactly the same manner! And how little sunlight there is in the picture! What a pity some of that article could not be borrowed from Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" and inoculated into it. Surely the drawn swords brandished in the air are not made to play their due part as they should in such a scene as this. I fail to see the steel sparkle or glitter in one single instance; they are but so many streaks of white or gray, like so many pasteboard swords.

All the same, the art world would not be injured by the addition of one or two more Meissoniers. Good workmen are always worthy of their hire, and if the "1807" brings over $60,000 at the sale, Meissonier's "science" will be but properly rewarded.

Of the other examples of this artist, the horseman "At the Barracks" is by far the

| best. It is indeed artistically in many points better than "1807." There might be said, without exaggeration, to be more life in the repose of the figures in this picture than in the violent action of the cavalrymen in the other. The picture entitled "Charity," in which a woman's figure is introduced-a rare condescension on the artist's part-is, because of the miserable color in the foliage of the trees, quite objectionable. There is also a watercolor portrait of the artist himself. These are the four Meissoniers.

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GEROME is a painter with a broader mind than Meissonier, and fully his equal in technique. He has a true artist's feeling for chiaroscuro. His values are never wanting. Besides this, his work is often dramatic, and when of an archæological character always very correct, thus teaching history. His Pollice Verso," or The Gladiators," is well known from photographic copies. It is grotesquely striking; the gladiator, with his half armor and enormous helmet, standing with his foot upon the chest of his vanquished combatant, and the latter appealing to the mercy of the vestal virgins, who, with thumbs turned down, tell us of their adverse judgment.

Gerome's great fault is the introduction of unnecessary detail in many parts of his canvas, his composition thus lacking simplicity. This is seen in the "Pollice Verso" to no slight detriment of the picture. Yet, to balance this fault, Mr. Gerome has one grand trait which give all his compositions a decided original character. Whenever he has any principal figures which must be salient points in his picture, he either groups them in outré positions or clothes them in quaint or curious habiliments, so that the eye shall not escape them. This can be seen in "The Gladiators." "The Chariot Race" in the Circus Maximus, is interesting and instructive archæologically. recalls, on looking at it, the much more powerful work in Mr. Walter's gallery in Baltimore, “The Christian Martyrs," the scene of which was also laid in the Circus Maximus. was an effective work. But the tinyness of the chariots in this Stewart picture make the composition almost amusing.

One

That

Gerome is represented at his best as a colorist in a third work of more homely character, an interior with two life-like figures in seventeenth century costumes, one reading a play to the other. It is entitled "Vue Collaboration."

I will speak of the other painters of this group next week, especially of Zamacois, the prince of them all.

Ernest Knaufft.

DRAMATIC MEANDERINGS.

DR. JOHNSON defined art as the power of doing something which is not taught by nature or instinct;" John Stuart Mill says "art is but the employment of the powers of nature for an end," while Shakespeare insists that

"There is an art which doth mend nature."

The essence of art in its broadest sense is all in production, in contradistinction of nature. Art and Nature are the two great teachers which comprehend everything. Art, in its more restricted meaning, must refine, exalt and elevate our thoughts and actions, and not merely tickle our fancy.

TO LAY claim to the name of dramatic artist, and to hold that the functions and aims of dramatic art are simply to amuse, evidences an inconsistency which is, to say the least, remarkable. The theatrical manager who treats the theatre as a purely commercial speculation has surely mistaken his calling-he ought to have embarked in the business of a pawnbroker. The pretence of those who are interested in the success of the present day farcetrash and in the musical nudities, that the public demand such, is the sophistry of the greedy lust for wealth. The public is no more the director-general" of public entertainments than the vehicle is the leader of the horse, even if the horse is blind.

* **

ANY one connected with the management of a theatre who insists that its patrons of to-day refuse to be taught anything from the stage, simply demonstrates his ignorance.

Will such people ever learn that, in morals as in life, there is positively no such thing as inaction or unimpressionableness? The exhibition must be interesting to the listener. Then the most thoughtless auditor is taught something whether he will or not-it impresses him in spite of himself, either for good or evil. The majority of theatre patrons consists of persons under middle age, and youth is more impressionable than age. The stage appeals in one breath to the cultured and uncultured, according to the character of the representation. But, as George Herbert says, "If a shepherd know not which grass will bane and which will not, how is he fit to be a shepherd?"

**

STAGE art ought never, by disregarding its influence upon others, to be prostituted to selfish ends solely. If it is, then it is the duty of those who stand on guard to warn against it.

When the drama restricts itself to administering to wholesome recreation and earnest

THE dramatization of life must represent the vices as well as the virtues, but there is no need that it should present the indecencies. That many plays do this to a dangerous degree at this day cannot be denied.

Shakespeare's men and woman image every quality and tendency of human life. Vice, treason, corruption and their terrible results are seen side by side with virtue, purity, patriotism and exaltation, but the lesson impressed is wholly noble. When this cannot be said of a play it fails in its mission. Then it leads to moral decadence, to undermining the character of the looker-on-then it is calculated to lessen the swift discrimination between virtue and vice in the listener.

**

DRAMATIC art is based on the difference of human character; life's intercourse is a game between superiors and inferiors. The fair struggle for superiority is the divine method of enchanting us with the world. If we regarded one another with reverence, friendship and kindness, the difference in human character would be the chief elements of life's delight.

The genuine temper of dramatic art, separated from its depraved usages of to-day, can teach us more effectively than any other medium, to help those beneath us and to love the good and true around us.

*

**

THERE are a certain few in whom the secrets and powers of human nature are revealed to a greater extent than in others. In their hands the keys of power are lodged, and mankind pays tribute to them for the benefits they claim to bestow. If they, in all cases, disinterestedly used their power to free, enlighten and strengthen other men, to educate, ennoble and enrich them, the world would be far better to-day than it is.

But the majority of these use their knowledge, skill and power only to secure special

advantages to themselves. Therefore the greedy struggles, the unequal strifes, the grinding poverty of body and soul, and the misery and the crimes of the world continue. How can this fatal spell be broken? This must be made the great problem of the home, of the school, of the press, of the pulpit, and last, though by no means least, of the theatre.

**

THE theatre, in order to escape from its tawdry frivolity of to-day and take its proper place among the other factors of reform, must take up the academic spirit of earnest instruction and add to what it already possesses, moral earnestness. When the theatre does this, then all the other factors must yield to it -to the drama and to its interpreters of genius and experience—the palm for the completeness with which they pierce the secrecy of human nature and command its manifestations, while they warn from the unworthy with fear and loathing, and draw to the excellent with admiration and love.

This is contagious education, disguised in entertainment ; earnest improvement, concealed in play; edification masked in recreation.

* **

IF the theatre is worth preserving, there is but one way to hold it in its best estate against the deluge of sensuality and frivolity, and that way is for capital and intelligence to come to its rescue. Not capital injudiciously placed at the disposition of unprincipled commercial speculators-upon the faro tables of the gamblers in theatrical management, Nor must it be at the mercy of popular moods. It must be so handled that it will draw the great conservative classes. When we consider what money has lately attempted to do for opera, we wonder why some of the millionaires do not make an effort to rescue the drama.

being forced into an unjustifiable and meaningless whimsicality. Yet the eradication of any attempt upon a whilom attendant of atmospherical phenomena will always, no doubt, be met with a speedy and direct annihilation of forces. Reaching out into the vast vortex which whirls whatever may come within its inexplicable influence, there is an irresistible tendency to draw from it the drift of public sentiment. Be this how it may, it must not be confounded with the lethargic movements which have, more or less, exerted a most precious or benign control over monstrous wrongs diabolically concealed. There comes with direct and searching suddenness a query which cannot be lightly passed by. It comes as all things come; it comes like the wavelet swells the tiny pool, and it casts over society an overwhelming gloom-dark, darker and finally impenetrable. Knowing this, with deep realization, how can I be prepared to either discuss or deny? As shallow as this all may be, I do not fear to stand before you and ask : What shall we do about it? Shall we cast aside with disgust the problems which are better calculated to impair the strength of the human anomaly and grasp with energy the conundrums of existence ? It is not for me to assume a knowledge intended for the most morose and exempt of the species. The paucity of any argument on a subject which we know so little of will be immediately perceived, and appreciating as I do-permit me to say it again-the mysterious and startling power which has been so lately developed-on more than one occasion-in this branch of prevalence, it will be fairly understood how shocked I am. Groping in the woods of the unknown, scrambling, crawling, and stumbling over the underbrush which beset our footsteps and become the besetting sin, there is at least one reward, and that is the satisfaction which must come to every one alike on being informed of it. Arguing the point by analogy, I must presume on a more intelligent and exhaustive reasoning. Arguing the point by cold blank contrasts, my premises will invariably be found correct. With no other purpose in view, beyond an orderly one, I do not care either to digress or assimulate. Let this be found, then, a component but yet compact cause for delving into my resources and publishing to this extent the benefits which are bound to come from studious and exemplary researchpernicious as the system may appear.

Fileur.

WILLIAM EDOUIN'S company is playing Love in Harness" under the title of "Modern Wives," at the London Royalty Theatre, and it has become very popular.

THE THEATRE IS BOLD.

(From the Ohio State Journal, Feb. 15.) Deshler Welch, the talented editor of THE THEATRE, the most attractive dramatic publication in the country, is in this city THE THEATRE is spicy, bold and readable. Its criticisms are excellent and its make-up neat and tasty.

MARECITA. I.

SINCE early dawn we were rolling along from D'Utrera to La Roda, and from La Roda to Bobadilla, towards Grenada. Thirsty and sleepy, we saw through the frame of the car window the monotonous landscapes of the Andalusian country follow one after another-hedges of cactus and aloes; woods of olive trees, throwing their shadows on the red earth; green wheat, dotted here and there with rose tinted gladiolas; little towns spreading over the hills with their gray-colored masonry.

At the railroad crossing of Bobadilla "le riz à la Valenciennes" was uneatable, and, to cap the climax, my friend and I re entered a compartment Occupied by three Englishmen who were coming from Cordova, the disagreeable personalities of whom we had already had occasion to study. The youngest was a big fellow with red hair, mute, rolled in a green checked shawl, and whom we surnamed "The Scotchman," because of his inhospitable ways; the second, thin, lively, gray haired, large mouth, eyes always on the move, tongue continually going, seemingly desiring to compensate for the muteness of his companion by perpetually talking with a loud voice. We had distinguished the insupportable talker with the name of "Old Brass." His "vis à-vis" was a little man with round shoulders, clouded eye and pointed nose, with the carriage of a retired lawyer. Most of the time he slept in his corner; occasionally awakened with a jump by the voice of his untiring neighbor, he raised his eyebrows and showed a brilliant eye, which lighted up for a moment; his lips, ornamented with a dyed, brushy mustache,

murmured an unintelligible word or two, and then he fell back into his invincible sleepiness. This fellow we had baptized with the,name "Sleepy."

Twilight was almost faded into night, and darkness was, little by little, enveloping the compartment, where flickered a lamp with uncertain light. Outside one could vaguely see in the distance the undulating profiles of the mountains of "la Vega" of Grenada, into which we were entering Bending over towards the door, "Old Brass" said to himself (in a loud voice), "Grenada! . . . We are fast approaching. A beautiful city, famous for its oranges and women!"

At these words "Sleepy" opened his eyelids, and seemed to wake up, which action immediately doubled the loquacity of his companion.

"The Gitanas girls are delightful creatures!" The eyelids of the little man opened wide, and his eyes lightened up with a phosphorescent brilliancy.

"Oh! indeed?" said he.

"Yes "No-o."

Have you seen their dancing?"

"You shall see them; they dance charmingly." Another monologue about the Gitanas girls, their home at "Monte Sacro," their manners, etc. During this time the older fellow had half fallen asleep again. Hardly could he wake himself at the station at Grenada sufficiently to transfer to an omnibus which in the blackness of the night, to the trot of four noisy mules, cursed by their driver, carried us along the muddy streets of the city and by the balustrade of the Alhambra; and when we arrived at the entrance of the hotel "Siete Suelos" we all slept profoundly, with the exception of "Old Brass," who was talking to himself over the bad state of the Spanish roads.

II.

WHAT a charming awakening the next day, the bright April sun shining upon the dewy grass, appearing like hoar-frost at the North! One can hardly take ten steps from the hotel when one is