rality_ and _Art and
Opportunity_ have been given recently in New York and in London,
and several of the one-act plays at a memorial performance in
London in 1916, in matinee at the Punch and Judy Theatre, and
before the Drama League in New York in March and April, 1921. Of
the shorter plays, mentioned in the bibliographies following
these notes, _It's the Poor that 'elps the Poor, The Dumb and
the Blind, and The Philosopher of Butterbiggens_ have been
given the highest praise by such critics as Mr. William Archer,
who wrote, "No English-speaking man of more unquestionable genius
has been lost to the world in this world-frenzy." These true and
honest dramas represent the English Repertory theatres at their
best in this brief form, and give promise of the great and
permanently interesting "human comedy" which Chapin might have
completed had his life not been sacrificed. In spite of the
simplicity and lightness of the little play here given, there is
more shrewd philosophy in old David Pirnie, and more real
humanity in his family, than is to be found portrayed in many
pretentious social dramas and difficult psychological novels. It
is admirable on the stage, as was shown by the Provincetown
Players last winter. In the memorial performance for Harold
Chapin in London, the author's little son appeared in the part of
wee Alexander.

"Butterbiggens," Mrs. Alice Chapin, the dramatist's mother,
replied to an inquiry as to "what Butterbiggens is or are," "is,
are, and always will be a suburb of Glasgow."

There is little difficulty with the modified Scots dialect in
this play if one remembers that _ae_ generally takes the place of
such sounds as _e_ in _tea_, _o_ in _so_, _a_ in _have_, and so
on, and that _a'_ means _all_. A _wean_ is a small _bairn_,
_yinst_ is _once_, _ava_ is _at all_, and _thrang_ is "thick" or
intimate.

_Distempered_ means calcimined, or painted in water-dissolved
color on the plaster.

_Lady Gregory_: SPREADING THE NEWS

In her notes on the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which she was most
influential in building up, Lady Augusta Gregory says that it was
the desire of the players and writers who worked there to
establish an Irish drama which should have a "firm base in
reality and an apex of beauty." This phrase, which admirably
expresses the best in the play-making going on to-day, finds most
adequate illustration in the work of Synge, of Yeats, and of Lady
Gregory herself. The basis in reality of