to appear in the tragedy of “Myrrha,” and the dramas which French companies of players visiting this country from time to time have designed to produce, have been severely dealt with, the Examiner forgetting, apparently, that such works should rather be judged by a foreign than a native standard of “good manners and decorum.”  As a result, we have the strange fact of the Examiner stepping between the English public and what have been judged to be the masterpieces of the French stage.

[1] “La Dame aux Camelias” obtained a license at last, and was played for the first time in England at the Gaiety Theatre, on the 11th June, 1881, with Mdlle.  Sarah Bernhardt as the representative of the leading character.

The Chamberlain has also held it to be a part of his duty to interfere in regard to certain of the costumes of the theatre, when these seemed to be more scanty than seemliness required, and from time to time he has addressed expostulations to the managers upon the subject.  It must not be concluded, however, that from his action in the matter, much change or amendment has ensued.

In America there is no Lord Chamberlain, Examiner of Plays, or any corresponding functionary.  The stage may be no better for the absence of such an officer, but it does not seem to be any the worse.

In 1832, the late Lord Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer), addressing the House of Commons on the laws affecting dramatic literature, said of the authority vested in the Lord Chamberlain:  “I am at a loss to know what advantages we have gained by the grant of this almost unconstitutional power.  Certainly, with regard to a censor, a censor upon plays seems to me as idle and unnecessary as a censor upon books....  The public taste, backed by the vigilant admonition of the public press, may, perhaps, be more safely trusted for the preservation of theatrical decorum, than any ignorant and bungling censor who (however well the office may be now fulfilled) might be appointed hereafter; who, while he might strain at gnats and cavil at straws, would be without any other real power than that of preventing men of genius from submitting to the caprice of his opinions.”

CHAPTER V.

A BILL OF THE PLAY.

Are there, nowadays, any collectors of playbills?  In the catalogues of secondhand booksellers are occasionally to be found such entries as:  “Playbills of the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1807 to 1812;” or “Hull Theatre Royal—­various bills of performances between 1815 and 1850;” or “Covent Garden Theatre—­variety of old bills of the last century pasted in a volume;” yet these evidences of the care and diligence of past collectors would not seem to obtain much appreciation in the present.  The old treasures can generally be purchased at a very moderate outlay.  Still, if scarceness is an element of value, these things should be precious.  It is in the nature of such ephemera of the printing-press