rosaic as he
was on the whole--was by no means deficient in the power of making the
comic element flow out from his plots, and his characters have often
real force and vividness of life, derived from actuality; as, for
instance, in his 'Eheprokurator.' Only those ladies of his, with their
grand phrases, are completely unenjoyablo by us nowadays.
Notwithstanding this, I have a very high opinion of him, for the
reasons I have given."

"In my mind," said Theodore, "his Operas put him out of court
altogether. They may serve as examples how an opera ought not to be
written."

"For the simple reason," said Vincenz, "that the departed (peace to his
ashes, as Sylvester very properly said) did not show many signs of
having much poetry in his constitution; so that in the romantic realm
of opera he could not find the slightest indication of a track to go
upon. However, as you are talking in this strain on the subject of
Comedy, I might do worse than point out that you are wasting your time
in discussing a nonentity--a thing which does not exist; and cry out to
you, as Romeo did to Mercutio--

'Peace, peace, good people, peace,
Ye talk of nothing.'

What I mean is that, taking them altogether, we never see a single
German Comedy presented on the stage, for the simple reason that the
old ones cannot be swallowed or digested (by reason of the weakness
of our stomachs), and new ones are no longer written. The reason
of the latter I might establish, very briefly, in a treatise of
some forty sheets or so; but, for the moment, I let you off with a
play-upon-words. What I say is, that we have no comic plays, because we
have none of the comic which plays with itself; nor the sense for it."

"Dixi," cried Sylvester, laughing. "Dixi, and the name 'Vincenz'
thereunder, with due stamp and seal. I happened, at the moment, to be
thinking that in the lowest class of dramatic performances, or rather
of productions destined to be represented on the stage, perhaps those
should be included in which some clever _farceur_ mystifies and befools
some good uncle--a theatre director, or some such person. And yet it is
not so very long ago that shallow, stupid stuff of this description
constituted almost the daily bread of every stage. Just at present
there seems to be more or less an intermission in this."

"It will never come to an end," said Theodore, "as long as there are
actors to whom nothing in the world can be more deli