77); the subtle humours of J. L. Toole, and the frolic
charm of Marie Wilton (Lady Bancroft), the most original comic actress
of her time. (A. W. W.)

_Recent English Drama._--In England the whole mechanism of theatrical
life had undergone a radical change in the middle decades of the 19th
century. At the root of this change lay the immense growth of population
and the enormously increased facilities of communication between London
and the provinces. Similar causes came into operation, of course, in
France, Germany and Austria, but were much less distinctly felt, because
the numerous and important subventioned theatres of these countries
remained more or less unaffected by economic influences. Free trade in
theatricals (subject only to certain licensing regulations and to a
court censorship of new plays) was established in England by an act of
1843, which abolished the long moribund monopoly of the "legitimate
drama" claimed by the "Patent Theatres" of Drury Lane and Covent Garden.
The drama was thus formally subjected to the operation of the law of
supply and demand, like any other article of commerce, and managers were
left, unaided and unhampered by any subvention or privilege, to cater to
the tastes of a huge and growing community. Theatres very soon
multiplied, competition grew ever keener, and the long run, with its
accompaniments of ostentatious decoration and lavish advertisement,
became the one object of managerial effort. This process of evolution
may be said to have begun in the second quarter of the 19th century and
completed itself in the 3rd. The system which obtains to-day, almost
unforeseen in 1825, was in full operation in 1875. The repertory
theatre, with its constant changes of programme, maintained on the
continent partly by subventions, partly by the mere force of artistic
tradition, had become in England a faint and far-off memory. There was
not a single theatre in London at which plays, old and new, were not
selected and mounted solely with a view to their continuous performance
for as many nights as possible, anything short of fifty nights
constituting an ignominious and probably ruinous failure. It was found,
too, that those theatres were most successful which were devoted
exclusively to exploiting the talent of an individual actor. Thus when
the fourth quarter of the century opened, the long "run" and the
actor-manager were in firm possession of the field.

The outlook was in many ways far fro