To sum up the arguments: Shakespeare's dramatic art, which is unique of its kind, cannot to-day be properly understood or appreciated on the stage for the following reasons: (1) Because editors print the plays as if they were five-act dramas, which they are not; (2) because actors, in their stage versions, mutilate the "fable," and interpolate pictorial effects where none are intended; (3) because, also, actors use a faulty and artificial elocution, unsuited to the poet's verse. These causes, combined, oust Shakespeare's original plays from the theatre, and impose in their place pseudo-classical dramas which are not of his making, nor of his time. To remedy this evil it is necessary to insist that the early quartos alone represent Shakespeare's form of construction and his method of representation, and that for the purpose of determining the text these same quartos should be collated with the first folio, with occasional reference to modern editions. Cheap facsimiles of the quartos as well as the folio should be accessible to actors, and from these an attempt should be made to standardize stage-versions of Shakespeare's most popular plays, and these stage-versions should be the joint work of scholars and actors. Perhaps what is important for the general public to recognize is that the acting-versions of Shakespeare's plays, the interpretation given to his characters, and the actor's "readings" have altered but little during the last two hundred years, so that the performances given on the stage to-day are chiefly founded upon traditions which never came into touch with Elizabethan times. More and more, therefore, must it be realized that if an actor wishes to interpret the plays intelligently, he must shut his eyes to all that has taken place on the stage since the poet's time, turning to Shakespeare's text and trusting to that alone for inspiration. THE CHARACTER OF LADY MACBETH. _I should never think, for instance, of contesting an actress's right to represent Lady Macbeth as a charming, insinuating woman, if she really sees the figure that way. I may be surprised at such a vision; but so far from being scandalized, I am positively thankful for the extension of knowledge, of pleasure, that she is able to open to me._--HENRY JAMES.