the charm of the piece,
and the same device, minute analysis of love, makes "Twelfth Night"
what it is. When we come to look below the surface we find, in the
comedies as in the tragedies of Shakespeare, that the realistic
treatment of some ruling passion forms the ultimate secret on which he
works.

To sum up in the aphoristic form the secrets affecting the motives of
the greatest dramatic successes of the English stage, we can, I think,
partially agree on one more canon:

XV. Variety, suspense, satire, and realistic analysis of human passion
are the secrets, so far discovered, of lasting dramatic successes.

The subject of dramatic success, however, has one more very important
branch, still to be considered. As an artist cannot work without colors
and brushes, so a dramatist cannot work without actors. Good actors
cannot permanently lift a bad play out of the mud, but bad actors can
murder the best drama ever written, and even the best actor cannot make
a hit if his part does not fit him and his physical appearance. I
remember once a ludicrous instance of this, with Boucicault's "Flying
Scud," which I happened to see in Buffalo. Nat Gosling, the venerable
jockey, was there played by a man weighing at least a hundred and
eighty pounds, in the dress of an old farmer; and the absurdity was so
glaring that the whole play fell as dead as ditchwater, though by no
means badly played. The same play in New York was first fitted exactly
with Young for its Nat Gosling--a little, dried-up, weazen-faced man,
who identified himself so perfectly with the character that the piece
became quite a _furore_. It is a very common superstition among actors
that a good actor can act anything, and can "make up" to look like
anything, and no doubt this is partially, but only partially, true.
There are actors, with flat, commonplace faces, figures of medium size,
voices of no particular character, who, by dint of a little paint and
pomatum, some false hair, some padding, and considerable study, can
adapt themselves to play almost any character after a fashion; but it
is a significant fact that such men are not to be found among the
leaders of their profession, but only in the second rank. _Great_
actors take a line and stick to it, one that exactly suits their
individuality, and such find their mark. If they leave it, they
deteriorate, if they stick to it, they become identified with it, and
no one can rival them in their specialty. They b