There was a time, and not so very long ago, when the predecessors of Francis Wilson and De Wolf Hopper were set down as “low comedians,” and relegated to an artistic rank slightly superior to that of the circus clown. Every one knows the contrast in the position of the modern apostles of Momus. Attend the theaters, read the newspapers, listen to the comment of the club rooms, and you will speedily be convinced that they are the theatrical lions of the hour, that among all the constellations of the dramatic firmament their planet is in the ascendant. Nor is there anything in this state of affairs to justify the pessimistic philosopher in an outcry against the alleged decadence of the stage. The popular taste for comedy is neither a degraded nor a perverted one, and the success of its leading exponents has been won upon their merits. The comic star rises to the zenith by an ascent as difficult and laborious as that which leads to high rank in any other profession. _Ars est celare artem_, and the apparently easy spontaneity with which he develops the humor of a stage situation is the fruit of conscientious study and persistent practice. There are no more painstaking actors than the two typical burlesquers who as the Regent of Siam and the Merry Monarch have during the recent months reigned successively at the Broadway Theater, New York. Francis Wilson, who recently succeeded his brother potentate, has worked his way up from the lowest rounds of the theatrical ladder. His first appearance was with Sandford’s minstrel company in a sketch called “The Brians,” which was played in Philadelphia. Young as he was—only a boy in his teens—Wilson made something of a hit. This was enough to secure him plenty of remunerative engagements with minstrel troupes, as a member of which he traveled all over the country. He was ambitious, however, for work of a higher order, and to secure a foothold upon the legitimate stage he undertook a minor part in a company that appeared at the Chestnut Street Theater, in Philadelphia. Here again his talents declined to conceal themselves under a bushel. In the role of _Lamp_, a broken down actor in “Wild Oats,” he carried with him upon the stage an old foil, the last relic of better days, and from this seemingly unpromising article he managed to extract so much quiet humor that the audience was convulsed and the star of the piece entered a formal complaint at this interference with his supremacy. [Illustration: DE WOLF HOPPER.] The following years saw the young actor steadily advancing in his art, but experiencing various ups and downs of fortune, which wound up with the “stranding” of his company, Mitchell’s Pleasure Party, in San Francisco. Next he reappeared in Philadelphia—let us hope that he was not obliged to reach it on foot—as a member of the McCaull troupe, with which he played in his first comic opera, “The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief.”