Probably the foremost English playwriter of to-day is Mr. A. W. Pinero, whether tried by the test of popular success in the theatre, or by the literary quality of his printed dramas. He learned his art as Shakespeare learned his, by practical experience as an actor, and by years of obscure work as a hack writer for the playhouses, adapting from the French, dramatizing novels, scribbling one-act curtain-raisers and all kinds of theatrical nondescripts. There is a long list of failures and half successes to his account before he emerged, about 1885, with a series of three-act farces, “The Magistrate,” “The Cabinet Minister,” “The Schoolmistress” and the like, which pleased every one by their easy, natural style, their fresh invention, the rollicking fun that carried off their highly improbable entanglements, and the _bonhomie_ and knowledge of the world with which comic character was observed and portrayed. Absurdity is the kingdom of farce; and, as in the topsyturvy world of _opera bouffe_, a great part of the effect in these plays is obtained by setting dignified persons, like prime ministers, cathedral deans and justices, to doing ludicrously incongruous actions. Thus, the schoolmistress, outwardly a very prim and proper gentlewoman, leads a double life, putting in her Christmas vacation as a _figurante_ in comic opera; anticipating, and perhaps suggesting, Mr. Zangwill’s “Serio-Comic Governess.” To these farces succeeded pieces in which social satire, sentimental comedy, and the comedy of character were mixed in varying proportions: “Sweet Lavender,” “The Princess and the Butterfly,” “Trelawney of the Wells,” and others. Of these, the first was, perhaps, the favorite, and was translated and performed in several languages. It is a very winning play, with a genuine popular quality, though with a slight twist in its sentiment. Pinero’s art has deepened in tone, until in such later work as “The Profligate,” “The Benefit of the Doubt,” “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” “The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith,” and “Iris,” he has dealt seriously, and sometimes tragically, with the nobler passions. His _chef d’oeuvre_ in this kind, “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” is constructed with consummate skill, and its psychology is right and true. This is a problem play (it is unfortunate that we apply this term exclusively to plays dealing with one particular class of problems), and its ethical value, as well as its tragical force, lies in its demonstration of the truth that no one can escape from his past. The past will avenge itself upon him or her, not only in the unforeseen consequences of old misdeeds, but in that subtler nemesis, the deterioration of character which makes life under better conditions irksome and impossible. The catastrophe comes with the inevitableness of the old Greek fate-tragedies. In this instance, it is suicide, as in “Hedda Gabler” or Hauptmann’s “_Vor Sonnenaufgang_.” Though criticised as melodramatic,