But if London rejected "Misalliance," this did not kill the play; it is no more dead than Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" is dead because on its first appearance Vienna sneered at the work of one whose talent outshone that of its own musicians. The Viennese winced and got over their dislike; in the same way Londoners will come to think well of "Misalliance." It is true that we are indebted to its author for at least one popular success, which future historians of the stage will declare was an epoch-making play, being the first of its kind to arrest the attention of the man-in-the-street, and bring him into the theatre to listen to nothing more exciting than a "talk." But the success of "John Bull's Other Island," so far as the public was concerned, had less to do with the merits of the play than the demerits of the audience. The City man woke up one morning to find himself famous, as he thought, and hugely enjoyed his notoriety. What did it matter if a company promoter was silly and cunning so long as he was always amusing and successful! This, as they thought, was the profound wisdom that Mr. Shaw meant to preach to the world! What a strange instance of egotistical vanity! And when the same play was performed in Dublin, the enjoyment of the audience was no less marked, but with this difference--that the laughter was all against Broadbent and not with him. Whether the Englishman was successful or not, he was a "fathead," because no Irishman was silly enough to put his pocket before his politics or to prefer his neighbour's omniscience to his own. Yet this play is not the less virile and wholesome because company-promoters think themselves flattered by it. It is not Mr. Shaw pandering to his audience, but vanity looking at itself in the looking-glass.