plays and he has co-labored with other authors in the writing of many more. He has exerted a powerful influence upon the Stage in every part of our country. He has battled successfully against the iniquitous Theatrical Trust and in a great measure contributed to the curtailment of its oppressive power. He has developed and made efficient several stars who, without his assistance, would never have gained the prominence which, with it, they have attained. He has established and now (1917) maintains one of the finest theatres in the world. To have done all this,--to have raised himself from indigence and obscurity to honorable distinction and actual leadership in an intellectual calling, to have made his way by force of character, native talent, indomitable resolution, patient, continuous, indefatigable labor; to have borne, with unshaken fortitude, hardships, trials, disappointment, enmity, and calumny, and to have risen above all the vicissitudes of fortune,--this surely is to have shown the steadfast man of the old Roman poet and to have merited the reward of prosperity and the laurel of fame. His eminence in his vocation, accordingly, and the obligation to him of the Theatre and the Public do not require the claim of imaginary achievements to enhance his reputation. There never was any need that he should have claimed that he had introduced a new style of acting. I do not doubt, judging from what I have read of his many impersonations, that Betterton, who performed on the London stage more than two hundred years ago, could and did exemplify “quiet acting” as thoroughly as John Mason does, performing on the New York stage to-day. Changes, modifications of all kinds, have occurred, many varieties of personality have been exhibited, in many varieties of speech and bearing, but the radical, structural change in method that has been effected, the change from extravagance and elaborate artifice to refined simplicity, has not been wrought by any one person but by many persons, actuated by the same influences that have changed the physical investiture of the Theatre, and by the advance of intelligence, sense, and taste. It is peculiarly deplorable that the authority of Belasco should even _seem_ to sustain such carping criticasters as I have indicated (writers who, ignorant of theatrical history and, apparently, of much else, seek to exalt the Present by impudent disparagement of the Past), because many of that tribe have, recently, taken to publishing idle and stupid detraction of Belasco himself, on the ground that he is “unprogressive” and belongs to “the old fashion.” He has done more by a single production such as “The Darling of the Gods” than the whole swarm of his detractors has ever done, or ever will do, in a lifetime of scribbling, and his name will live as a beacon of achievement, in life as well as in the Theatre, generations after they are all vanished and forgotten, like wind-blown dust. CONCERNING MATTERS OF FACT.