Last night, in a London theatre, Charlotte Bronte's words were forcibly brought back to my mind. I have once seen a great rendering of the part of Lear, but it was given by an Italian, Signor Rossi. I have seen the whole play correctly rendered, with every character a vivid realization of the poet's conception, but this was at a performance in the Court Theatre at Munich. For thirty years I have been a constant playgoer, and seen the best art this country can produce, but never can I say that I have seen English tragedy on the English stage. The cause is not far to seek. We have actors in abundance, and some of them creative artists; yet we have no tragic actors, because we have no school in which to develop them. Until we can set apart a theatre for the exclusive use of classical drama and its interpreters, we cannot hope to have tragedy finely acted. A tragedy in verse is the severest test of the artist's powers, of his physical flexibility in voice and face, of his training and sensibility. When, therefore, I heard who was going to essay the greatest tragic role that has ever been written, the result was a foregone conclusion: exit Shakespeare and enter the Producer. Yes! He is the hero of the moment, as all our newspapers have told us, only it is unfortunate, in the interests of art, that to the praise there should have been added no discernment. Macaulay has said that the sure sign of the general decline of an art is the frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty, and whatever beauty has been put into the production is undoubtedly misplaced. We can accept accuracy in scenery and costume when the play itself is historically accurate--that is to say, when it has been written to show the difference between two periods as that of British and Norman, or when it defines some distinctive characteristic of race relating to its morals or manners. But what is there in "King Lear" that suggests such a remote period as 800 B.C.? We are told in the programme that Shakespeare purposely removes the story from Christian times to give the tragedy its proper setting in "a remote age of barbarism, when man in wanton violence was at war with Nature." The story, however, belongs to one of the popular fables of European literature. Like "Cinderella," it was in all probability transplanted into our country from a foreign source. In its application it is universal, and marks no special epoch or nationality, nor is there in the story or its characters anything out of keeping with a Christian age. Have there been no ungrateful daughters, no adulterers, no bastards, no tyrants, no jealous lovers since the years B.C.? The motive for crime remains pretty much the same to-day as it did before the Christian era, and will continue to remain the same until the economic conditions of human existence are readjusted. It is contrary to history and experience to suppose that in Shakespeare's time dramatists deliberately aimed at illustrating not only