Many dramas have been written (and more especially by the poets) without perhaps having in view their exploitation on the stage, but like their other poetry, to be read, suitable only for the library, more poetical than dramatic. Such are the plays of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Moore, and others. A still greater number have been written solely for acting purposes; and the majority of these may not lay claim to any permanent abiding place in literature. Others still are admirably adapted to both the library and the stage. Such are the plays of Sheridan, Knowles, Bulwer, Schiller, Kotzebue, and later of Heinrick Ibsen. Of such a character also are the plays of our gifted Salt Lake dramatist, the late Edward W. Tullidge. The present-day theatre-goers have little time to indulge in the reading of plays. The overwhelming mass of reading matter thrown from the press, keeps the general reader busy to keep abreast of the current literature of our times. So that plays form no part of the world's reading matter; here and there is one, some stagestruck soul who loves to get hold of and read a play, but the vast majority are content to let the actors read the plays for them, preferring to witness the acting of them. It is a fact and a very gratifying one that Shakespeare's plays are about the only ones that are read nowadays, and these are by no means so universally read as they should be. The masses have not time for reading Shakespeare, or other dramatists, so it is a fortunate thing for them that the theatres are so popular and accessible; here, they can hear the thoughts and sentiments, and see in literal action the characters of both ancient and modern times, and gather from the mimic scene suggestions of the tremendous throes and struggles through which the human race has passed. During the forty-three years that the Salt Lake Theatre has been in existence, an almost infinite variety of plays have been presented and thousands of actors (as infinite in variety as the plays) have "strutted and fretted their brief hour upon its stage" and now are heard no more. It is a solemn reflection that in all probability more than three-fourths of all who have trod the stage of this theatre, both local and transient actors, in less than half a century of existence are "heard no more." The voices that have thrilled us, the animated and beautified forms that have called forth our admiration and praise, are stilled forever by the chilling touch of death; genius, mediocrity, incompetency, all alike go down, and the greatest names in a few brief years are forgotten; so transitory is the actor's fame. Yet it is not more so perhaps than that of other professions, and certainly not quite so much of a "will o' the wisp" as "seeking the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth."