Until our dramatists act firmly on the view that their duty is to write plays interesting when rendered by a good, starless company, they will only produce as a rule _bravura_ pieces of little artistic value. By all means let them write strongly emotional parts, if they can; but they are not worthy of their royalties if their characters do not generally lie within the range of a fair number of actresses. There is a grotesque mixture of vanity and modesty in the mind of an author who thinks his work worthy of performance by an actress of genius and at the same time believes it to be too weak to succeed without her help. It will be answered, probably, that Shakespeare's plays demand players of genius and yet certainly are not mere _bravura_ pieces. There is truth und untruth in this--truth that our public will not patronize Shakespeare when acted by average performers; untruth in the proposition that they cannot adequately be represented by players without genius. We have unfortunately got into the very bad habit of going to see his works not for their intrinsic interest but for the sake of the acting and mounting. It is not _Hamlet_ but Mr Smith as the Prince of Denmark; not _Romeo and Juliet_ but Miss Brown and Mr Jones as the lovers of Verona, and so on, which form the attraction; and the works are cut and played out of balance in order to meet the demand. The author would have resented a suggestion that his characters are so superhuman as to need marvellous performance: these remarks are without prejudice to the question whether even with the aid of great players Shakespeare's dramas reveal a fair proportion of their merits on the stage. The outcry concerning the alleged dearth of good actresses is very commonly uttered and exceedingly ill-founded. It is wise to avoid the thorny question how far the recognized leading ladies of our first-class theatres are satisfactory--yet it may be said that a successful playwright recently complained that as a body they were not, and that, despite his protests, he was compelled to have his works performed by the ladies in possession--and judicious to shirk the proposition, sometimes put forward, that some of these do not hold their positions by mere force of merit. Putting, then, aside the actresses enjoying grandeur in London, and leaving out of account a still more remarkable group which includes Mrs Kendal, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Miss Olga Nethersole--whom we too rarely see in town--and even ignoring what may be called "recognized leading ladies" who are "resting" reluctantly, there remains a powerful group of young actresses of experience and talent fully competent to satisfy the reasonable requirements of these gentlemen who are complaining of the "dearth." Since this was written a number of young ladies then on the boards but not accepted as leading ladies have made their way to the front. Character Actresses