In acting _Dennison_, Herne, while often heavy and monotonous, gained sympathy and favor by the simplicity of his demeanor, his facile assumption of manliness, and his expert simulation of deep feeling; but he did nothing that had not been done before, and much better done, by other actors,--in particular, by Edwin Adams in _Enoch Arden_, and by William Rufus Blake and Charles Fisher in _Peggotty_ and kindred parts, of which the fibre is rugged manliness and magnanimity. Katherine Corcoran, playing _Chrystal_, gave a performance that was interesting more by personality than by art. She had not then been long on the Stage. She was handsome, graceful, and winning, of slender figure, with an animated, eagerly expressive face, blue-gray eyes, silky brown hair, and a sweet voice. In calm moments and level speaking she was efficient. In excitement her vocalism became shrill and her action spasmodic. Scenery of more than common merit, painted by William Voegtlin, was provided to embellish the play, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. One picture, in particular, representing a prospect of a tranquil seacoast, was excellent in composition, true and fine in color, and poetic in quality; another effectively portrayed a broad expanse of troubled sea, darkening ominously under a sombre sky tumultuous with flying scud. Herne somewhat improved the play in the course of his protracted repetitions of it, after he parted from Belasco, but he always retained in it the “real” trappings which Belasco had introduced. Both those actors, as playwrights, were conjunctive in favor of “limbs and outward flourishes,”--the “real tubs” of _Mr. Crummles_. FAILURE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.