the author was or was not responsible for the ill-timed jest or the misplaced buffoonery that had aroused their indignation? He might be responsible or he might not. Those who had had an opportunity of reading his play had admitted that it was not deficient in thoughtful dialogue and in a certain subtle humour; but they contended that the dialogue was not such as would be likely to appeal, at a single hearing, to a mixed audience, and herein he confessed that he was in error. As a dramatist, writing for a mixed audience, he should have so fashioned it as to make its merits, such as they were, instantly manifest. He had no right to call upon an audience to buy a copy of his play and study it carefully before committing themselves to an opinion upon it; but was not that error sufficiently punished by the fact that thereby nine months of ceaseless toil had been utterly wasted? He could assure the audience who hissed him and howled at him, and chaffed his dialogue, and sneered at his sentiment that there was a pathetic side even to failure. He trusted that this appeal would not be regarded as the whine of a dog who had been whipped—it was simply a protest that the dog did not deserve so severe a whipping as he had received. He had written a play which had failed to interest his audience, and he had no desire to shirk the reasonable consequences of such an act; but did it altogether merit the public execration that had been launched at it? The evidence showed conclusively that the original manuscript had been materially tampered with in face of his earnest protest that, as the play was put before the public in his name, the play should be his play,
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