et_.
Down goes the drop. Third act--he is married, and his remorse has come.
He has deceived a loving woman, and resolves to atone by giving her up.
Down goes the drop on his resolve, still unaccomplished. Fourth act--he
expiates his crime and sees a chance to regain happiness after a long,
weary probation. Again the drop falls on a _suspense_. The question
is--Will he stand the test, and will Pauline be faithful? The fifth act
opens in gloom, and closes with the reward of virtue and punishment of
vice. The reader will mark in each case how the acts end in suspense,
and how, as soon as the suspense is clearly indicated, down comes the
drop. This was Bulwer's first successful play, and we shall come to it
again in looking at the inner secrets that guide the motives of a
drama. The good construction of the "Lady of Lyons" and the faulty
original construction of the "Merchant of Venice" must not blind us to
the fact that Shylock was the work of a lofty genius, Claude merely the
polished production of a man of talent and erudition. From the preface
to "The Caxtons," and other sources, we know that Bulwer was fond of
ascertaining rules and principles, and that he always did good work
when once he had found them out. Shakespeare as clearly worked from
pure instinct, and defied almost all rules, except to hold "the mirror
up to nature." Could we only join to-day the brains of old William and
the research and learning of old "Lytton," what a drama might we have
at last! But lest we further wander away from our theme, it is time to
propose the canon which the reader must by this time have anticipated
as self-evident:

XIII. Avoid anti-climax. When you have reached suspense bring down the
drop or close the scene. When the last climax has come bring down the
curtain.

Before passing to the more particular secrets of handling scenes in a
dramatic success, one other general point remains to be treated, which
is the respective merits of Greek and Gothic dramatic construction, as
developed, in modern times, into the French and English methods. The
distinction is broad and simple. The French write all their plays, or
almost all, in single-scene acts, and never employ front scenes in a
regular play; the English of the old school use front scenes, and
multiply the divisions of an act into as many as five in some
instances. Each method has its strong and weak points. The French
method is apt to become stiff and formal, the English to fr