Sir,――This stir about The _Tempest_ seems a storm in a teacup. Both “Mr. W. Kennedy, of Hampstead,” who naturally takes high ground, and your dramatic critic would have acted more justly to my forthcoming piece had they waited to see what it was before attempting to excite public prejudice against my work. There is an important distinction between what is commonly understood by “burlesquing Shakespeare,” by which is meant taking his lines and sentiments and giving them an absurd turn, and writing what is now-a-days styled a “burlesque version” (which is really an extravaganza) of a fairy tale which Shakespeare has immortalised, especially when Shakespeare himself has given the keynote for the fun, as he has done in _The Tempest_, no doubt with a full consciousness of its humour. As the lawyer’s wisdom is popularly supposed to reside mainly in the wig, so the poet has made all Prospero’s magic art lie in his book, wand, and magic robes, without which he is powerless. When he does not wish to be professionally engaged he puts aside his “magic properties” and says “lie there my art.” When he is renouncing conjuring he buries his books of legerdemain, and has done with it for ever, retaining no sort of power independently of this magic receipt book, or as I shall struggle not to call it, in deference to Mr. Kennedy, of Hampstead to whom a pun on anything Shakespearian must appear quite too-too dreadful, his “spelling book.” Caliban is aware of this, and directs his efforts to possessing himself of this book. This perfectly admissible view of Prospero, together with the notion that he himself gives as to Ariel’s true character, has furnished me with the materials for an extravaganza at the Gaiety, which will be entitled _Ariel, or, the King of the Caliban Island_, of which the critics and public will form their judgment when it appears. _En attendant_, to raise a prejudice against my work is clearly unjust. Let me have fairplay even for an extravaganza founded on a Shakespearian fairy tale. “Atlas,” in the _World_, had an unfair note on this subject. I have written to him much as I have to you, but with a special “P.S.,” which I trust he will have the generosity to publish, pointing out that “Atlas” should be the last to brand as a crime burlesquing anything Shakesperian, as in his own paper a few weeks ago appeared the story of _Hamlet_ travestied, and adapted to “nineteenth century” readers.――Yours faithfully, F. C. BURNAND. ――――:o:――――