_Scene. A place without._ Rinaldo _discovered dying. Enter_ Marco_._ _Mar._ What ho, Rinaldo! Lo, the hornéd moon Dims the cold radiance of the westering stars, Pale sentinels of the approaching dawn. How now, Rinaldo? _Rin._ Marco, I am dying, Struck down by Tomasino's treacherous hand. _Mar._ What, Tomasino? _Rin._ Tomasino. Ere The flaming chariot of Phoebus mounts The vaults of Heaven, Rinaldo will be dead. _Mar._ Oh, horror piled on horror! Lo, the moon---- And so on. The result was called--and I think rightly--"a tragedy." The alternative to these tragedies was a farce, in which everybody went to an inn and was mistaken for somebody else (causing great fun and amusement), the heat and burden of the evening resting upon a humorous man-servant called _Trickett_ (or something good like that). And whether the superior people of the day said that English Drama was dead, I do not know; but they may be excused for having thought that, if it wasn't dead, it ought to have been. Fortunately we are doing better than that to-day. But we are not doing as well as we should be, and the reason generally given is that we have not enough theatres. No doubt we have many more theatres than we had a hundred years ago, even if you only count those which confine themselves to plays without music, but the mass-effect of all these music-hall-theatres is to make many people think and say that English Drama is (once more) dead. It is customary to blame the manager for this--the new type of manager, the Mr. Albert de Lauributt who has been evolved by the war. He existed before the war, of course, but he limited his activities to the music-hall. Now he spreads himself over half a dozen theatres, and produces a revue or a musical comedy at each. He does not care for Art, but only for Money. He would be just as proud of a successful production of _Kiss Me, Katie_, as of _Hamlet_; and, to do him justice, as proud of a successful production of _Hamlet_, as of _Kiss Me, Katie_. But by "successful" he means "financially successful"; no more and no less. He is frankly out for the stuff, and he thinks that it is musical comedy which brings in the stuff.