n, or a
Scotchman, or some kind of an Englishman. But we could not. He remains
an American in England in 1886, as he was in Chicago in 1873. He
declined to change either his citizenship or his name; "G.
Washington--Father of his Country--Phipps."

The peculiar history of the play is my only justification for giving you
all these details of its otherwise unimportant career. I only trust that
I have shown you how very practical the laws of dramatic construction
are in the way they influence a dramatist. The art of obeying them is
merely the art of using your common sense in the study of your own and
other people's emotions. All I now add is, if you want to write a play,
be honest and sincere in using your common sense. A prominent lawyer
once assured me that there was only one man he trembled before in the
presence of a jury--not the learned man, nor the eloquent man; it was
the sincere man. The public will be your jury. That public often
condescends to be trifled with by mere tricksters, but, believe me, it
is only a condescension and very contemptuous. In the long run, the
public will judge you, and respect you, according to your artistic
sincerity.

NOTES

This lecture was originally delivered in March, 1886, in the Sanders
Theater, before the Shakspere Society of Harvard University; and it was
repeated before the Nineteenth Century Club in New York in December,
1889. On the latter occasion two other dramatic authors were requested
to debate the points made by the speaker; and as a result he added a few
supplementary remarks:

The Nineteenth Century Club looks for a discussion, I believe, on
the subject brought forward in the paper of this evening. If the
word "discussion" implies "argument," I fear there is nothing in
the mere struggles of a dramatist in his workshop to justify that
difference of opinion which is necessary to an argument. My
American colleague, Mr. Brander Matthews, must feel like a man
whose wife persists from day to day in saying nothing that he can
object to, thereby making his home a desert and driving him to the
club. As for the great Irish dramatist, this paper leaves him still
wishing that some one would tread on the tail of his coat. But,
with all true Irishmen, the second party in a quarrel is merely a
convenience, not a necessity. Whenever Mr. Boucicault feels that a
public discussion is desirable for any reason, h