as.

'I don't know anything about that, sir,' answered the literary
gentleman.

'Shakespeare dramatised stories which had previously appeared in print,
it is true,' observed Nicholas.

'Meaning Bill, sir?' said the literary gentleman. 'So he did. Bill
was an adapter, certainly, so he was--and very well he adapted
too--considering.'

'I was about to say,' rejoined Nicholas, 'that Shakespeare derived some
of his plots from old tales and legends in general circulation; but it
seems to me, that some of the gentlemen of your craft, at the present
day, have shot very far beyond him--'

'You're quite right, sir,' interrupted the literary gentleman, leaning
back in his chair and exercising his toothpick. 'Human intellect, sir,
has progressed since his time, is progressing, will progress.'

'Shot beyond him, I mean,' resumed Nicholas, 'in quite another
respect, for, whereas he brought within the magic circle of his genius,
traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and turned familiar
things into constellations which should enlighten the world for ages,
you drag within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects not at all
adapted to the purposes of the stage, and debase as he exalted. For
instance, you take the uncompleted books of living authors, fresh from
their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers
and capacities of your actors, and the capability of your theatres,
finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely vamp up ideas not yet
worked out by their original projector, but which have doubtless cost
him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights; by a comparison of
incidents and dialogue, down to the very last word he may have written
a fortnight before, do your utmost to anticipate his plot--all this
without his permission, and against his will; and then, to crown the
whole proceeding, publish in some mean pamphlet, an unmeaning farrago of
garbled extracts from his work, to which your name as author, with the
honourable distinction annexed, of having perpetrated a hundred other
outrages of the same description. Now, show me the distinction between
such pilfering as this, and picking a man's pocket in the street:
unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature has a regard for
pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men's brains, except when they are
knocked out by violence, to take care of themselves.'

'Men must live, sir,' said the literary gentleman, shrugging his
shoulders.

'That would be