test degree,
or make the line he utters a syllable too short or too long by his
declamation, he is instantly hissed off the stage." Nor was hissing
confined to the theatre, for in one of his letters Cicero refers to
Hortensius as an orator who attained old age without once incurring the
disgrace of being hissed. Pliny notes that some of the lawyers of his
day had paid applauders in court, who greeted the points of their
patron's speech with an _ululatus_, or shrill yell. This Roman manner of
denoting approval seems akin to the practice of the Japanese, who give a
wild shriek as a sign of approbation, and hoot and howl to show their
displeasure. But the sound of the goose--the simple hiss--is the most
frequently-employed symbol of dissent. "Goose" is, in theatrical
parlance, to hiss; and Dutton Cook, in his entertaining _Book of the
Play_, remarks that the bird which saved the Capitol has ruined many a
drama.

The dramatist is of all creative artists the most unfortunate. He can
never present himself directly to his critics; he must be seen through a
medium over which he has but slight control; he must depend wholly on
the actors of his play, and too often he is leaning on a reed. Colman
accused John Kemble of having been the cause of the original failure of
_The Iron Chest_, and Ben Jonson published his _New Inn_ as a comedy
"never acted, but most negligently played by some of the king's
servants, and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the king's
subjects, 1629; and now, at last, set at liberty to the readers, His
Majesty's servants and subjects, to be judged of, 1631."

Nor are Colman and Jonson alone in their tribulations. Sheridan was
hissed, and so were Goldsmith and Fielding and Coleridge and Godwin and
Beaumarchais and About and Victor Hugo and Scribe and Sardou, and many
another, including Charles Lamb, who cheerfully hissed his own _Mr. H_.

The operatic composer is even more unfortunate than the dramatist, for
he is dependent not only on the acting but on the singing of his
characters; and he is also at the mercy of the orchestra. Wagner's
_Tannhaeuser_ led a stormy life at the Paris opera for a very few
evenings, and its failure the composer has never been willing to let the
world forget. Rossini was more philosophical. On its first performance
the _Barber of Seville_, like the comedy of Beaumarchais, whence its
libretto is taken, was a failure; and when the curtain fell, Rossini,
who had led t