an unsurpassed degree of perfection, there is none under which
its advance is more notable than this. Many causes have contributed to
this result; the chief is to be sought in the multiplication of the
opportunities for mankind's study of man. The theories of the Indian
critics on the subject of dramatic character are little more than an
elaborate scaffolding. Aristotle's remarks on the subject are scanty;
nor indeed is the strength of the dramatic literature from whose
examples he abstracted his maxims to be sought in the fulness or variety
of its characterization. This relative deficiency was beyond doubt
largely caused by the outward conditions of the Greek theatre--the
remoteness of actor from spectator, and the consequent necessity for the
use of masks, and for the raising, and consequent conventionalizing, of
the tones of the voice. Later Greek and Roman comedy, unable or
unwilling to resist the force of habit, limited their range of
characters to an accepted gallery of types. Nor is it easy to ignore the
fact that the influence of these classical examples, combined with that
of national tendencies of mind and temperament, have all along inclined
the dramatists of the Romance nations to attach less importance to
characterization of a closer and more varied kind than to interest of
action and effectiveness of construction. The Italian and the Spanish
drama more especially, and the French during a great part of its
history, have in general shown a disposition to present their
characters, as it were, ready made--whether in the case of tragic heroes
and heroines, or in that of comic types, often moulded, as in the
_commedia dell' arte_ "and beyond," according to a long-lived system of
local or national selection. These types, expanded, heightened and
modified, are recognizable in some of the triumphs of comic
characterization achieved by the Germanic drama, and by its master,
Shakespeare, above all; but this fact must not obscure one of more
importance than itself. In the matter of comic as well as of serious
characterization--in the individualizing of characters and in evolving
them as it were out of the progress of the action--the modern drama has
not only advanced, but in a sense revolutionized, the dramatic art, as
inherited from its ancient masters.

Requisites of character.

Yet, however the method and scope of characterization may vary under the
influence of different historical epochs and different tenden