listening to the song,--sung for him, when he acted in this country, by Jefferson’s mother: “I have a silent sorrow here, A grief I’ll ne’er impart, It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear, But it consumes my heart.” I have seen many an audience in tears when the elder Hackett acted _Monsieur Mallet_ and when Jefferson, as poor old _Rip_, murmured the forlorn question, “Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?” No modern manager has invented “natural,”--by which I mean _artistic_,--acting. Belasco did not invent it, nor did he introduce it at the Madison Square Theatre. He was affected by what he saw around him in acting, precisely as he was affected by what he saw around him in playwriting: like other workers in the Theatre, he sought to better his instruction, and he has contributed to the development of changes (not all of them beneficial) in the Theatre. At the Madison Square, both as stage manager and dramatist, he dissipated the insipidity with which a deference to clerical management was blighting the prospects of a capital company at that house, so that from the moment he joined it its fortunes began to improve. THE EVIL OF INCOMPETENT CRITICISM. It is one of the hardships under which actors are compelled to pursue their vocation that the Theatre and its votaries are continually subject to the idle comment, indiscriminate praise, and capricious censure of many incompetent writers in the press. A few capable, well-equipped, earnest, and thoughtful critics unquestionably there are, in various parts of the Republic, but every little publication in the country parades its dramatic “critic,” and most of those scribblers show themselves ignorant alike of dramatic literature, dramatic art, the history of the Stage, human nature, and human life. That statement is proved every day of the year, and it is folly to ascribe it to the discontent of age or to lack of sympathy with contemporary life. Any intelligent, educated person can put it to the test as often as desired. The newspapers, as a rule, do not wish dramatic criticism: theatrical managers, almost without exception, resent it and oppose it: the newspapers receive paid advertisements and the theatrical advertisers assume to be entitled to forbearance and to puffery in the “critical” columns. This is not true of all newspapers, but it is generally true, and the writers, whether competent or not, can bear testimony to its truth. I know of nothing more dreary than the pages of drivel about the drama which periodically make their appearance in many newspapers and magazines. A favorite topic of those commentators is the immense superiority of the plays and the acting of To-day over the plays and the acting that pleased our forefathers. There was, it appears, nothing good in the Past: there is nothing but good in the Present. The old actors were artificial “pumps,” stagey, declamatory, “spouters.” Shakespeare is archaic. Old Comedy is a bore. The plays of Molière and