g contrivance,
"make-up" is curiously ineffective. Many Napoleons have appeared on the
stage, only one of them by a writer capable of even suggesting the
distinguishing qualities of the man of genius. In most cases there have
been advance paragraphs about the pictures, miniatures, statues,
statuettes, medallions, bas-reliefs, etc., consulted by the actor, and
concerning the contrivances of the wigmaker, even the bootmaker and
tailor. What has been the outcome? Merely that for half-a-minute people
have said: "What a clever make-up," and for the rest of the time one has
been no more content to accept the player as Jupiter Scapin than if he
had washed his face, brushed his hair and acted in his dress clothes.

Does Mr Cavendish Morton think players were really worse off before the
latest refinements in make-up were invented? Some of the greatest acting
triumphs of the world were accomplished when the players dressed their
parts absurdly, trusting almost exclusively to their own powers.

One is forced to wonder to what extent covering the face with the mass
of muck hinders the actor in his work. People can be trained to endure
it, but it would be interesting to see the difference in the performance
of a given part by an actor with an elaborate make-up--false nose,
etc.--and by the same actor without. Mr Arthur Bourchier, when growing a
beard for the purpose of playing Henry VIII., stated that he would have
been embarrassed by a sham beard. Can it be that the triumph that we
sometimes see, of the actress over the actor, is partly due to the fact
that she reduces make-up to the minimum?

No one denies the necessity for make-up. When young players have to
represent old people it is their duty to take advantage of the advice of
experts such as Mr Morton, and every one may find valuable hints in his
book. The really important fact is that all should be warned against
such a proposition as lies in the hideous sentence, "Is not half the
battle won when one perfectly physically realizes the character to be
impersonated?"

Gesture

Some years ago, at one of the theatrical clubs, the existence of which
is one of the many tokens of the great interest at present taken in the
drama, Mr Alfred Robbins, a very able, highly esteemed critic, gave a
lecture upon "The Value of Ballet in Dramatic Art," which was
illustrated charmingly. For, in order to show how a story could be
interpreted without words, Miss Genee, the brilliant dancer