sting British Drama does not
demand or deserve criticism by such cultured experts.

There are few of us fully qualified, according to the standard put
forward in these lines, and it may be added, without anything in the
nature of mock-modesty, that the author is well aware of the fact that
he cannot be reckoned among the few.

His Knowledge of Fashionable Society

A passage in _Lady Huntworth's Experiment_ did not earn the laugh
deserved by it. Captain Dorvaston was supposed to read a passage from
_The Special Monthly Journal_, to this effect: "The shield bore for
device a bar sinister, with _fleur-de-lys rampant_"; then he said, "That
ain't heraldry." Lady Huntworth replied, "Yes, it is; Family Heraldry,"
and he laughed. The passage in the play brought forward vividly the
thought that those who really live in the aristocratic world may smile
at our high-life dramas just as they do at the stories that appear
concerning the nobility in obscure "family" papers. There is, and during
a long time has been, a mania among playwrights for putting aristocratic
characters upon the stage. It may be that this is due to the
snobbishness of players, who, in comedy, love to represent a lord: they
can be kings and queens only in tragedies; or to that of the audience,
which likes to see the representation of the nobility; or, again, it may
be caused by the snobbishness of the dramatist and his wish to suggest
that he knows all about the "upper succles."

It need not be assumed that we are much worse in this respect than our
neighbours across that Channel which some desire to have destroyed and
so nullify the famous John of Gaunt speech. In books and plays the
Gallic writers are almost as fond of presenting the French aristocracy
as are our dramatists and novelists of writing works concerning the
British Peerage. Even putting the actual peerage aside, the question is
important, whether the pictures in fiction--particularly in drama--of
what one may call Belgravia or Mayfair are correct. We critics hardly
know; and it may be a solecism to suggest that the same applies to the
studies of the Faubourg St Germain. Perhaps that famous faubourg has
lost its distinction.

The question may seem a little difficult yet must be asked: How do our
dramatists and the French manage to get a first-hand study of the real
aristocracy? Of course, nowadays, there are a large number of houses
owned by people with titles, and sometimes very noble titles