audience on this occasion call for the author, not to partake of their applause, indeed, but to receive the tokens of their displeasure?” Fears of this kind have been proved groundless, however.  When a play has been condemned, the actors and the manager may suffer, and be subjected sometimes to very considerable affront; but the public wrath is not visibly inflicted upon the author.  He is left to the punishment of his reflections and his disappointed hopes.  Certainly he incurs no bodily risk from the incivility of the pit or gallery.  But the old violent method of condemning a play is nearly out of vogue.  The offending work is now left to expire of inanition, as it were.  Empty benches and a void treasury are found to be efficacious means of convincing a manager that he has failed in his endeavour to entertain the public.

For some time the successful author, yielding to the demand that he should appear personally before the audience, was content to “bow his acknowledgments”—­for so the proceeding is generally described—­from a private box.  It was felt, however, that this was but a half measure.  He could be seen by a portion of the audience only.  From the private box to the stage was but a step, and the opinion prevailed that if he was to appear at all, he must manifest himself thoroughly, and allow the whole house a fair opportunity of viewing him.  Still it should be understood that it is at the option of the dramatist to present himself publicly or to remain in private, and leave the audience to form such conjectures as may occur to them concerning the nature of his physical aspect.  The public have no more real right to insist on the dramatic author’s crossing the stage than to require that a successful poet, or novelist, or historian, shall remain on view at his publisher’s for a specified time after the production of his latest work.  It is necessary to insist on this, because a little scene that occurred a short time since in a London theatre shows some misapprehension on the subject in the minds of certain of the public.  A successful play had been produced by a well-known writer, who was called for in the usual manner at the conclusion of the performance.  The stage-manager explained the non-appearance of the author—­he was not in the house.  Thereupon an angry gentleman stood up in the pit, and demanded “Why isn’t he here?  He was here during the performance, because I saw him.”  The stage-manager could only repeat that the dramatist was not then in the theatre.  “But he never appears when he’s called for,” cried the complainant; and he proceeded to mention instances in support of his statement, the stage-manager being detained upon the stage some time during the progress of his argument.  The sympathies of the house appeared to be altogether with the expostulant, and the notion that the author had any right to please himself in the matter failed to obtain countenance.  Upon a subsequent occasion, indeed, the author in question—­another of