-bouffes and
burlesques. In other respects there is little to be said for the
literary or intellectual quality of "musical farce"; but, being an
entirely English (or Anglo-American) product, it falls into line with
the other indications we have noted of the general decline--one might
almost say extinction--of French influence on the English stage.

To what causes are we to trace this gradual disuse of adaptation? In the
domain of modern comedy and drama, to two causes acting simultaneously:
the decline in France of the method of Scribe, which produced
"well-made," exportable plays, more or less suited to any climate and
environment; and the rise in England of a generation of playwrights more
original, thoughtful and able than their predecessors. It is not at all
to be taken for granted that the falling off in the supply of exportable
plays meant a decline in the absolute merit of French drama. The
historian of the future may very possibly regard the movement in France,
no less than the movement in England, as a step in advance, and may even
see in the two movements co-ordinate manifestations of one tendency. Be
this as it may, the fact is certain that as the playwrights of the
Second Empire gradually died off, and were succeeded by the authors of
the "new comedy," plays which would bear transplantation became ever
fewer and farther between. Of recent years Henri Bernstein, author of
_Le Voleur_ and _Samson_, has been almost the only French dramatist
whose works have found a ready and steady market in England. Attempts to
acclimatize French poetical drama--_Pour la Couronne_, _Le Chemineau_,
_Cyrano de Bergerac_--were all more or less unsuccessful.

Having noted the decline of adaptation, we may now trace a stage farther
the development of the English drama. The first stage, already surveyed,
ends with the production of _Sweet Lavender_ in 1888. Up to this point
its author, Pinero (b. 1855), stood practically alone, and had won his
chief successes as a humorist. Henry Arthur Jones (b. 1851) was known as
little more than an able melodramatist, though in one play, _Saints and
Sinners_ (1884), he had made some attempt at a serious study of
provincial life. R. C. Carton (b. 1856) had written, in collaboration,
one or two plays of slight account. Sydney Grundy (b. 1848) had produced
scarcely any original work. The second stage may be taken as extending
from 1889 to 1893. On the 24th of April 1889 John Hare opened the new
Gar