The practise of this unnamed author is in sharp opposition to that of Shakspere and Molière, who were shrewd men of business, both of them. Shakspere was susceptible to every veering shift in popular taste, giving the public sex-plays, ‘Measure for Measure’ and ‘All’s Well That Ends Well,’ when other playwrights had stimulated the taste for that type of piece, and following the footsteps of Beaumont and Fletcher after these collaborators had won the favor of playgoers with their more or less spectacular dramatic-romances. Molière made haste to bolster the bill with a robust farce when the box-office receipts revealed to him that the ‘Misanthrope’ was not financially successful. Goethe displayed his customary insight when he told Eckermann that the greatest of English dramatists and the greatest of French dramatists, “wished, above all things, to make money by their theaters.” This wish of theirs did not interfere with the ability of Shakspere and of Molière “to express himself.” Of course, the dramatic poet desires to express himself; but if he is a born playwright, he never thinks of trying to express himself except in conformity to the conditions of the dramatic art with its triple dependence on the playhouse itself, the players and the playgoers. Professor Phelps’s unnamed author may have “profoundly influenced” both the stage and modern thought, but he was not a born playwright or he would have ever had “popular success” in mind while he was at work. If he did not value the winning of the suffrages of his constituents, why did he present himself at the polls? There are abundant facilities for self-expression in the novel and in the lyric. In the drama self-expression must take thought of the public, of its likes and its dislikes, of its many-headedness and of the variety of its tastes. The opinions enunciated by this unnamed author are contrary to the practise of Shakspere and Molière, and they are also contrary to the precepts of Lope de Vega and Corneille, who also profoundly influenced both the stage and what in their own day was “modern thought.” Lope de Vega proclaimed his deference to the Italian theorists of the theater, regretting only that the playwrights who worked according to their precepts died “without fame and guerdon.” Then he tells us (with his tongue in his cheek) that “when I have to write a play I lock in the precepts with six keys ... and I write in accordance with that art which they devised who aspired to the applause of the crowd, for since the crowd pays for the plays, it is fitting to talk foolishly to it to satisfy its taste.” Less than a quarter of a century later Corneille said almost exactly the same thing, perhaps sadly but certainly not ironically: