dramatists as to the way of constructing one of
their sensation-scenes. Perhaps, it may be
thought that it is too much done by recipe,
and that the resources of moonlight, and water,
and cavern, and gunpowder, are too freely and
unvaryingly drawn upon. Perhaps they are;
but, after all, it must be owned that all these are
very delightful things. A high bridge, and a
ravine and a powerful moonlight, and a rescue,
are all excellent things in their way—and as to
monotony—why the drama of sensation, is but
in its infancy. We don't know what may be in
store for us. Where we now get only pink-
nosed horses and cascades of muslin, we may
have some day locomotives fizzing about on
the boards, and balloons going up, up, up, into
——the carpenter's shop over the stage. We
must not be impatient, we must be satisfied
with electric lights, and graves yawning for
victims, and sweet effects of moonlight, for the
present, and in due time we shall have such
thrilling novelties, as will throw all those small
devices quite into the shade.

I take it that the wisest thing to do is to
adapt your tastes to the enjoyments of your day,
and to cultivate a liking for the new pleasures: it
being tolerably certain that, grumble as you may,
you will never get the old pleasures back again.
The Legitimate Drama has had its day, a fine day,
and a long day. Those who saw that day in its
prime, in its decline, in its twilight, have had a
great pleasure. It is done with. There are
those who in like manner have had great pleasure
and delight out of the old system of
travelling, by stage-coach, or by diligence. Those
pleasures, too, are at an end. It is of no use
lamenting, we must sit in the railway compartment
and congratulate ourselves on the thought
of getting to Edinburgh or Paris in twelve
hours; and we must sit also in our place at
the theatre, and congratulate ourselves on the
immense ingenuity and skill which has arranged
those wonderful effects of bridge, and moonlight,
and water, of peril, of escape, and retribution,
which cause the cold water to trickle down our
spines as we look and listen.

And other causes we have, in connexion with
this matter, for some degree of self-gratulation.
The Legitimate Drama was, no doubt, very noble,
and grand, and imposing, and the illegitimate is,
doubtless, but its unworthy descendant. Still
there were some trying things connected with
legitimacy from which we are now tolerably
free. I wonder how the most ardent lover of
the " legitimate" would like to sit by, while the
original play of Richard the Third was acted
through from beginning to end? I wonder
what such a one used to feel when the heavy
uncle of comedy used to bring two chairs
down " to the front," and seating his niece on
one of them, and himself taking the other,
began: " It is now some twenty years since
your lamented father, then in his youthful prime,
confided you, a tender and helpless infant, to my
charge." As I write these words, I actually
shudder at the thought of what those two chairs
have cost me in different ways and at different
times. What a sensation it is when the act-drop
goes up, or a carpenter's scene is drawn aside,
and a spacious apartment is disclosed with those
two chairs staring one in the face! Sometimes,
and especially in the first of these cases, they
proclaim themselves candidly, being arranged
openly in front of the float, while sometimes
they are placed at right angles, and require to
be wheeled round before they can be used for
the deadly purpose for which they are needed.
In both these cases the two chairs are of a heavy
and ponderous build, have capacious arms to
them, are stuffed, and covered with velvet. These
are the two chairs candid. They are infinitely
easier to endure, than the two chairs deceitful.
These last are ranged against the wall at
the back; they are of a light make in order that,
they may be easily dragged forward, and they
never appear in their places against that back
scene without your feeling perfectly certain—if
you are an experienced playgoer—that, sooner
or later, those terrible words, "it is now twenty
years," are coming into play. It may be that
some scene of real interest takes place in that
spacious apartment. It may even appear that
there is no explanation wanted, no explanation
possible. It does not matter—there are the two
chairs, and it will come.

And so it always proves. The interesting
scene comes to an end, the brilliant piece of
acting is over, but, alas! the scene remains
unchanged, and presently the actors with whom
you sympathised make their exit; there is a
short pause, and then on come that persecuted
niece and that dreary uncle, and in no time at
all the old miscreant is seen retiring up in
search of the two chairs; he drags them down
to the front, and——you are in for it.

Let us hope that we have done with the two
chairs and explanatory uncles. If the sensation
school will only rid us of them, it may do its
worst in other respects, and welcome.

One or two other ancient institutions of a
dramatic kind there are which somehow seem
to jar a little with one's present-day feelings,
and which may, perhaps, some day be got rid of
to one's joy and relief. The stage party, or
ball, is one of these. It lasts about ten minutes,
and the guests go through all sorts of rows and
quarrels and explanations, without in the least
astonishing those other guests who walk up and
down the gilded corridor at the back of the
stage. I wonder if the time will come when we
shall have no more of these brilliant reunions,
and when our dramatists will begin to perceive
that in ordinary life it is by no means a common
occurrence for long and passionate discourses to
be delivered, and for violent discussions,
disinheritings, cursings, blessings, and the like noisy
proceedings, to come off in the gilded saloons
of the British aristocracy?

I wonder, too, if we shall ever finally and
permanently get rid of the dressing-gown—
the old-established embroidered dressing-gown,
which has held its place so long at our stage
breakfast-tables? It is essential to our enjoyment
of the Legitimate Drama that we should