and the elevating influence exercised by its performances. But as a matter of fact, there is not at the present moment on the stage – with the exception of the delightful comedy in which the Bancrofts are taking their leave of the profession – a single play which is worth the trouble of being acted, of occupying the attention of reasonable spectators, or the time of men and women who call themselves artists. The "Queen's Shilling," at present being played at the St James's, is indeed an honest bustling comedy, vigorous enough of its kind, and the "Quiet Rubber," at the same theatre, a character-sketch of great delicacy and cleverness; while the "Silver King" is a stirring and effective melodrama. But all of these are old favourites, brought back to the stage to cover the defeat of the higher drama. And with these exceptions, all the London theatres are given up to farce or burlesque, or the broad spectacle-melodrama, which is effective by means of its bold seizure and reproduction of the most prosaic realities, but has no pretension to literary skill or dramatic construction; or else attempt by more equivocal attractions to make up for the absence of plays that are worth listening to. To hold the mirror up to nature has almost ceased to be even the professed object of the stage. A farcical incident of the broadest character, a practical joke, an impossible adventure, seems to have taken the place in the public estimation of story and character, which is no advantage either for the public or the stage.
"The Candidate," made for ever memorable by the fact that the Prime Minister of England took his diversion – on the night when the whole country was in tears and mourning over the fate of Gordon – at the theatre where this lively piece of nonsense is represented; "The Magistrate," in which Messrs Clayton & Cecil have condescended to make buffoons of themselves; and most of all, "The Private Secretary," which has likewise had a bruyant success, – are all based upon one ridiculous and impossible incident, with which neither nature nor art have anything to do. "The Candidate" is the best of the three. It is carried along by the excellent acting of Mr Wyndham, whose Lord Oldacre, a young married man who loves life and the world without being a roué, and who is kept in a country house by the machinations of his mother-in-law (that everlasting mother-in-law!) while he is dying for diversion, and ready to procure it at any cost, is really admirably done, and shows him worthy of something more and better to do and say than has been provided for him. By way of procuring himself a fortnight in town, this light-hearted hero seizes at the opportunity of becoming a candidate for the representation of a distant borough, a mere form – for as a Conservative he has no chance, – and sends in his place his secretary, an old schoolfellow, poor and a Radical, who, on his side, is tempted by the possibility of once in his life passing as a great personage with unlimited command of money, and freedom to speak his mind, to accept this absurd substitution. The result is, that the pseudo Lord Oldacre is elected with acclamation as the Radical member for East (North) Hampton, the colleague of Bradley, and that the real one comes home, after his innocent escapade in town, to confront as he can the difficulties of the ridiculous imbroglio that follows. Mr Wyndham's easy and
