I stuck them on, and cut them out, I painted them with colors bright; I scattered tinsel-specks about, And made them things of beauty, quite-- Not joys forever--ne'ertheless, They've vanished just as snowflakes melt. None can restore the bliss, I guess, I once derived from Park and Skelt. How I revered the artist's skill Who did my heroes represent-- With scowls the very soul to thrill-- With one leg straight and one leg bent! I loved his ladies full of grace, And on their beauties fondly dwelt:-- My first pictorial love could trace Her pedigree to Park and Skelt. Ah me! 'tis many a year since I Those dear old plates--a penny plain And two-pence colored--did espy; I ne'er shall see their like again! The world's with disappointment rife, And I have far too often felt That actors now are less like life Than those I bought of Park and Skelt! IV WHY FIVE ACTS? WHY FIVE ACTS? I In the eighteenth century, both in England and in France, every stately and ponderous tragedy and every self-respecting comedy obeyed the obligation imposed by long tradition and duly stretched itself out to the full measure of five acts, no more and no less. It felt bound thus to distend itself, even tho its theme might be far too frail for so huge a frame, and even tho the unfortunate author often found himself at his wit's end to piece out his play's end. Any one who has had occasion to read widely in the works of the eighteenth century playwrights cannot fail to feel abundant sympathy for the harassed poet who plaintively called on Parliament to pass a law abolishing fifth acts altogether. This unduly distressed dramatist was an Englishman; but about the same time a Frenchman, weary of contemplating the frequent emptiness of the contemporary tragic stage, sarcastically remarked that, after all, it must be very easy _not_ to write a tragedy in five acts. Yet if tragedy was to be written at all, it had to have five acts, since a smaller number would not seem proportionate to a truly tragic subject. But why five acts? Why has five the number sacred to the tragic muse? Why did even the comic muse demand it? Why does George Meredith, discussing comedy, declare that "five is dignity with a trailing robe; whereas one, or two, or three acts would be short skirts, and degrading." Why not three acts, or seven? Why was it that any other number of acts was unthinkable--or at least never thought of?