of the historic background of a given period, which may save him some exposition.  An English audience, for instance, does not require to be told what was the difference between Cavaliers and Roundheads; nor does any audience, I imagine, look for a historical disquisition on the Reign of Terror.  The dramatist has only to bring on some ruffianly characters in Phrygian caps, who address each other as “Citizen” and “Citizeness,” and at once the imagination of the audience will supply the roll of the tumbrels and the silhouette of the guillotine in the background.

To return to the general question:  not only must the dramatist reckon with one all-important audience which is totally ignorant of the story he has to tell; he must also bear in mind that it is very easy to exaggerate the proportion of any given audience which will know his plot in advance, even when his play has been performed a thousand times.  There are inexhaustible possibilities of ignorance in the theatrical public.  A story is told, on pretty good authority, of a late eminent statesman who visited the Lyceum one night when Sir Henry Irving was appearing as Hamlet.  After the third act he went to the actor’s dressing-room, expressed great regret that duty called him back to Westminster, and begged Sir Henry to tell him how the play ended, as it had interested him greatly.[3] One of our most eminent novelists has assured me that he never saw or read Macbeth until he was present at (I think) Mr. Forbes Robertson’s revival of the play, he being then nearer fifty than forty.  These, no doubt, are “freak” instances; but in any given audience, even at the most hackneyed classical plays, there will be a certain percentage of children (who contribute as much as their elders to the general temper of an audience), and also a percentage of adult ignoramuses.  And if this be so in the case of plays which have held the stage for generations, are studied in schools, and are every day cited as matters of common knowledge, how much more certain may we be that even the most popular modern play will have to appeal night after night to a considerable number of people who have no previous acquaintance with either its story or its characters!  The playwright may absolutely count on having to make such an appeal; but he must remember at the same time that he can by no means count on keeping any individual effect, more especially any notable trick or device, a secret from the generality of his audience.  Mr. J.M.  Barrie (to take a recent instance) sedulously concealed, throughout the greater part of Little Mary, what was meant by that ever-recurring expression, and probably relied to some extent on an effect of amused surprise when the disclosure was made.  On the first night, the effect came off happily enough; but on subsequent nights, there would rarely be a score of people in the house who did not know the secret.  The great majority might know nothing else about the play, but that they knew.  Similarly, in the case