In the days of Æschylus the Athenian audience was made up of God-fearing, conservative people who could be moved to awe by the contemplation of religious ideas, and by pictures of lofty moral sufferings. But as time went on, the people became bored by the old Greek religion, and it required more highly colored pictures to satisfy them. In the days of Sophocles there is a certain amount of religious feeling left in the people, though one feels that Sophocles is making use of it for artistic purposes. In Euripides’ day, however, everything has been used up in the way of big moral ideas, and the emphasis is laid on the suffering. Mental agony is manipulated by a skilled hand. The taste is refined, the logic is perfect, the art is wonderful; but the dramas of Euripides were felt in his own day and thereafter to be a little corrupt. People blame Euripides instead of blaming the insensibility of the Athenian theatre-goer who required this sort of enginery to make him weep delicious tears. The thing to be noted in both of these instances--from the English and the Greek stage--is the part played by the audience. It is only through a tacit consent on all hands that a certain game shall be played, that very highly-finished, complex and perfect works of art are produced. There is so much to be conveyed by a drama that unless the audience will agree to take nine-tenths of it for granted, the project is hopeless. The conventions! These are the precious symbols which have been developed by centuries of toil. They possess such telling value that by their aid even mediocrity can do good things, and genius, miracles. How shall we preserve them?