I get up from reading the best works of our best living writers, and go to the theatre, here. What do I see? The play that I have seen before in Paris. This may do very well for my servant, who does not understand French, or for my tradesman, who has never had time to go to Paris,--but it is only showing _me_ an old figure in a foreign dress, which does not become it like its native costume. But, perhaps, our dramatic entertainment is not a play adapted from the French Drama. Perhaps, it is something English--a Burlesque. Delightful, I have no doubt, to a fast young farmer from the country, or to a convivial lawyer's clerk, who has never read anything but a newspaper in his life. But is it satisfactory to _me_? It is, if I want to go and see the Drama satirised. But I go to enjoy a new play--and I am rewarded by seeing all my favourite ideas and characters in some old play, ridiculed. This, like the adapted drama, is the sort of entertainment I do _not_ want. I read at home many original stories, by many original authors, that delight me. I go to the theatre, and naturally want original stories by original authors, which will also delight me there. Do I get what I ask for? Yes, if I want to see an old play over again. But, if I want a new play? Why, _then_ I must have the French adaptation, or the Burlesque. The publisher can understand that there are people among his customers who possess cultivated tastes, and can cater for them accordingly, when they ask for something new. The manager, in the same case, recognises no difference between me and my servant. My footman goes to see the play-actors, and cares very little what they perform in. If my taste is not his taste, we may part at the theatre door,--he goes in, and I go home. It may be said, Why is my footman's taste not to be provided for? By way of answering that question, I will ask another:--Why is my footman not to have the chance of improving his taste, and making it as good as mine? The case between the two countries seems to stand thus, then:--In France, the most eminent imaginative writers work, as a matter of course, for the stage, as well as for the library table. In England, the most eminent imaginative writers work for the library table alone. What is the reason of this? To what do you attribute the present shameful dearth of stage literature? To the dearth of good actors?--or, if not to that, to what other cause?