is one of the functions of the newspaper. If
the play is a classic, only the quality of the acting need be discussed.
If it is new, the notice should also include a description of the play
and of its merit. Fortunately, this can always be determined by one
simple test--a test suggested by no less a critic than William
Shakespeare: Does it hold the mirror up to nature? Does it give, in
other words, an accurate picture of life? The stage, it may be added,
always has been and is now infested by many so-called plays which are
not plays at all, but mere conglomerations of more or less (usually
less) moral and amusing jokes and antics. The events which some of them
depict could occur neither on the earth, in the sky above the earth, nor
in the waters underneath the earth. From others it would be impossible
to cut out any character or scene without improving the whole. They fill
the theater with people and the manager's pocket-book with money, but
they are not plays.

III. Models

I

_The Melting Pot_ comes to New York with a Chicago indorsement
and the authority lent by the name of Mr. Israel Zangwill, as
author. Mr. Zangwill's theme is that the United States is a
crucible in which all the races and nationalities of the world
are to be fused into one glorious people.

As a play _The Melting Pot_ has the intellectual tone to be
expected from Mr. Zangwill. It also has really poetic touches.
In humor it is less successful. In dramatic construction it is
faulty, as are so many of the contemporary plays which try to
teach or preach something.

The play brings back to New York after a long absence that
excellent actor, Mr. Walker Whiteside.--METCALFE in _Life_
(abbreviated).[7]

[7] Reprinted by permission of _Life_.

II

Of _David Copperfield_, Dickens's favorite among his own works,
there have been dramatizations almost innumerable. The latest,
called the _Highway of Life_, by Louis N. Parker, author of
_Pomander Walk_ and _Disraeli_, has been done with extreme
reverence for the text and with an elaborate scenic investiture
that would have made glad the heart of the novelist, enamored as
he was of the theater.

It was to have been the autumn offering at His Majesty's in
London, with Sir Herbert Tree doubling as _Micawber_ and _Dan'l
Peggotty_. The war caused a change of plans, so the first
performance on any sta