oth form and treatment--of
E. Rostand.

The art of acting is not altogether dependent upon the measure of
contemporary literary productivity, even in France, where the connexion
between dramatic literature and the stage has perhaps been more
continuously intimate than in many other countries. Talma and Mlle Mars
flourished in one of the most barren ages of the French literary drama;
and though this cannot be asserted of the two most brilliant stars of
the French 19th century tragic stage, Rachel and Sarah Bernhardt, or of
their comic contemporaries from Frederick-Lemaitre down to types less
unique than the "Talma of the boulevards," the constantly accumulating
experience of the successive schools of acting in France may here ensure
to the art a future not less notable than its past. Moreover, the French
theatre has long been, and is more than ever likely to continue, an
affair of the state as well as of the nation; and the judicious policy
of not leaving the chief theatres at the mercy of shifting fashion and
the base demands of idleness and sensuality will remain the surest
guarantee for the maintenance of a high standard both in principle and
in practice. So long as France continues to maintain her ascendancy over
other nations in matters of taste, and in much else that adorns,
brightens and quickens social life, the predominant influence of the
French theatre over the theatres of other nations is likewise assured.
But dramatic literature is becoming international to a degree hardly
dreamt of half a century ago; and the distinctive development of the
French theatre cannot fail to be affected by the success or failure of
the national drama in retaining and developing its own most
characteristic qualities. Its history shows periods of marvellously
rapid advance, of hardly less swift decline, and of frequent though at
times fitful recovery. Its future may be equally varied; but it will
remain not less dependent on the conditions which in every people,
ancient or modern, have proved to be indispensable to national vigour
and vitality. (A. W. W.)

_Recent French Drama._--The last twenty-five years of the 19th century
witnessed an important change in the constructive methods, as well as in
the moral tendencies, of the French playwrights. Of the two leading
dramatists who reigned supreme over the _haute comedie_ in 1875, one,
Emile Augier, had almost ended his career, but the other, Alexandre
Dumas, was to maintain his