o another technic, takes the
trouble to acquire it and becomes a stage influence to reckon with. _The
Pigeon_, the most genial outcome of his dramatic art, is a delightful
play: and _The Eldest Son_, _The Fugitive_ and _The Mob_, if none of
them have been stage successes, stand for work of praiseworthy strength.

On the side of poetry, and coming a little before the Irish drama
attracted general attention, Stephen Phillips proved that a poet could
learn the technic of the theater and satisfy the demands of reader and
play-goer. Saturated with literary traditions, frankly turning to
history, legend, and literature itself for his inspiration, Mr. Phillips
has written a number of acting dramas, all of them possessing stage
value, while remaining real poetry. His best things are _Paolo and
Francesca_ and _Herod_, the former a play of lovely lyric quality and
genuinely dramatic moments of suspense and climax; the latter a powerful
handling of the Bible motive. Very fine too in its central character is
_Nero_; and _Ulysses_, while less suited to the stage, where it seems
spectacle rather than drama, is filled with noble poetry and has a last
act that is a little play in itself. Several of Mr. Phillips' best plays
have been elaborately staged and successfully produced by representative
actor-managers like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Sir George Alexander.

Still with poetry in mind, it may be added that Lawrence Binyon has
given evidence of distinct power in dramatic poetry in his _Attila_,
and the delicate Pierrot play, _Prunella_, by Messrs. Housman and
Granville Barker is a success in quite another genre.

Israel Zangwill has turned, like Barrie, Galsworthy and Bennett, from
fiction to the play, and _The Children of the Ghetto_, _Merely Mary
Ann_, _The Melting Pot_, _The War God_ and _The Next Religion_ show
progressively a firmer technic and the use of larger themes. Other
playwrights like Alfred Sutro, Sidney Grundy, W. S. Maugham, Hubert
Davies, and Captain Marshall have a skillful hand, and in the cases of
Maugham and Davies, especially the latter, clever social satire has come
from their pens. Louis R. Parker has shown his range and skill in
successful dramas so widely divergent as _Rosemary_, _Pomander Walk_ and
_Disraeli_.

It may be seen from this category, suggestive rather than complete, that
there is in England ample evidence for the statement that drama is now
being vigorously produced and must be reckoned w