I have never seen any play of IBSEN’s on the stage, but I have read several of them—­indeed, as I believe, all that have hitherto been translated and published in this country.  I was prepared to be charmed, expecting much.  I was soon disillusioned, and great was my disappointment.  Then I re-read them, to judge of them not merely as dramas for the closet, but as dramas for the stage, written to be acted, not to be read; or, at all events, as far as the general public were concerned, to be acted first, and to be read afterwards.  As acting dramas, it is difficult to conceive anything less practically dramatic.  I do not know what the pecuniary result of his theatrical productions may be in his own country—­where, I believe, he doesn’t reside—­but, out of his own country (say, here in London), I should say that a one-night’s performance, with a house half full, would exhaust IBSEN’s English public, and quite exhaust the patience of those who know not IBSEN.

Years ago we had the Chatterton-Boucicault dictum that “SHAKSPEARE spelt failure.”  Now, for SHAKSPEARE read “IBSEN,” and insert the words “swift and utter” before “failure,” and you have my opinion as to how the formula would stand with regard to IBSEN.  I should be sorry to see any professional Manager making himself pecuniarily responsible for the success of such an undertaking, a word which, in its funereal sense, is of ill omen to the attempt.  Let the Ibsenites club together, lease a theatre, and see how the public likes their show.  There’s nothing doing at the Royalty just now; let them pay rent in advance, and become Miss KATE SANTLEY’s tenants; then, if the IBSEN-worshippers, with their Arch-priest, or ARCHER-priest, at their head, come to a temporary understanding with the Gosse-Ibsenites, they could craftily contrive to be invited as guests to a dinner at the Playwreckers’ Club.  The dilettanti members of this association the United Ibsenites could flatter by deferring to the opinions of their hosts, while inculcating their own, thus securing the goodwill and patronage of the Playwreckers, a plan nowadays adopted with considerable success by some of our wiliest dramatists, eager to secure a free course and be glorified; and so, by making each one of these mighty amateurs feel that the success of IBSEN in this country depended on him personally, that is, on his verdict or “Ibsen dixit,” a run of, say, perhaps three nights might possibly be secured, when they could play to fairly-filled houses.  One “nicht wi’ IBSEN,” one night only, would, I venture to say, be quite enough for most of us.  “Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!” “Oh, that my enemy would bring out an Ibsenite play,” and try to run it!  Perhaps he will.  In which case I will either alter my opinion or give him a dose of ANTI-FAD.

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[Illustration:  MR. GLADSTONE’S NEW HOUSE.

“The house which Mr. GLADSTONE has just taken in Park Lane is, it is reported, the selection of Mrs. GLADSTONE, who recommends it with a view to her husband’s opportunities for exercise.”—­Daily Paper.]