In our late inquiry[2 ] into the secrets of dramatic success, our researches were principally directed toward the ascertainment of such general and technical rules as might recommend themselves for the treatment of all dramas, whatever the nature of their subject, tragic, comic, or melodramatic. The limits of space unavoidable in a magazine article prevented anything more than a fragmentary treatment of that part of the subject, indicating the general line of argument that seemed to be the soundest in the light of the present day, and presenting for consideration twelve technical rules, more or less general, which we shall here summarize for the sake of convenience, to make clear what follows:

I. The subject of a play should be capable of full treatment in fifteen scenes at most.
II. It should be acted without the aid of narrative.
III. It should have a connected plot, one event depending on the other.
IV. The interest should hinge on a single action or episode.
V. Furniture and set-pieces should be kept out of front scenes if possible.
VI. The best dialogue should be put in front scenes.
VII. They should end in suspense to be relieved by the full scenes.
VIII. Fine points should be avoided in opening a play.
IX. Act I. should open with a quiet picture, to be disturbed by the bad element, the other characters successively coming in, the excitement increasing.
X. Act I. should end in a partial climax of suspense.
XI. Each act should lead to the other, the interest increasing.
XII. The interest should be concentrated on few characters.

The reasons for some of these arbitrary rules will appear plain to even a cursory observer. The others will recommend themselves, I think, after an examination of the models cited in the article itself, to which the reader is referred. It must not be supposed, however, even by the lay reader, that a subject so extensive can be exhausted in so short an essay. Old actors and dramatists, in the light of their own experience, may even doubt whether a theme so abstruse and difficult can be treated at all, save by one of lifelong experience, and may be inclined to sneer at the presumption of any person who attempts to write on methods of attaining dramatic success before having attained it himself by a grandly popular drama. It seems to the present writer, however, that the inquiry is open to all, and if conducted on the inductive method, with plays of acknowledged popularity for a basis, may result in the settlement of some points around which he, in common with other hitherto unsuccessful dramatists, has been groping for years.

In closing the first part of our inquiry, we remarked on the fact that the interest of a successful play increases gradually from act to act, and that it is usually concentrated on a few people. The next question that presents itself in our treatment of the play as a whole is as to the best method of attaining this increase of interest from act to act, and how it is done in successful plays. The suggestion in rule X. seems to be the one most generally used by old dramatists for this purpose—that is, the employment of the partial climax as a means of exciting suspense. It may be said to be one of the most difficult points in dramatic construction to decide when to bring the curtain down at the end of a play; and the fall of the drop at the end of each act offers nearly equal difficulties. Is there any guide to a solution of this question in the handling of well-known plays? If there is, let us endeavor to find it.

The first thing to be remarked is that we cannot apply to Shakespeare for the information. The experience of nearly three centuries in the acting of Shakespeare's plays has resulted in making the acting editions very different from the original plays in arrangement, in the suppression of whole scenes and acts, the substitution of others, the amalgamation of plays, the taking of all sorts of liberties with the action. Only in one thing do they remain at all times faithful to the original author, in the preservation, for the most part, of his language. Familiar instances will occur in the "Merchant of Venice," where the play is now always closed with the trial scene; a few sentences between Bassanio and Portia, clumsily tacked on, being regarded as preferable to the original closing in a final act of light comedy. The amalgamation, in the acting edition of "Richard III.," of parts of "Henry V." and "Henry VI.," and the suppression of the historical ending after Richard's death, were changes made by Colley Cibber, which have stood the test of time, and have made the play a traditional success whenever well acted. In each case experience showed that the following up of a scene of tragic intensity by either comedy or narrative made the scene drag. In other words, it was an anti-climax.

It is noticeable, by the by, that these instances of clumsy construction and consequent alteration occur most frequently in Shakespeare's historic dramas, where he was fettered by familiar facts, and thought less of the play than of the chronicle. Such plays of his as deal with popular legend or stories, already polished by tradition into poetic justice, and moulded by instinct into a dramatic form, have suffered much less in the adaptation; some, such as "Midsummer Night's Dream," "As You Like It," hardly needing alteration. While I do not suppose that in these or any other play Shakespeare consciously worked on any philosophic principle of construction, previously thought out, it is evident that his artistic instinct, left to itself, prevented his making any serious mistakes in technique, a matter which has advanced considerably since his day. I believe that, had Shakespeare lived to-day, he would have written much more perfectly constructed acting plays, while at the same time his vast knowledge, or rather lightning appreciation of the various phases of human nature, would have been just as great. When he wrote, the English drama was in its infancy, but three centuries of actors, managers, scene painters, and carpenters have made great advances in technical experience since those days; and no genius, however great in the essentials of painting the passions, can to-day attain success if ignorant of the technical secrets of managing scenes. We have noticed the changes made in "Richard" and the "Merchant of Venice," to avoid the anti-climax. Let us take a modern stock play, the "Lady of Lyons," to illustrate the opposite of dramatic construction. The first act ends with Claude scornfully rejected by Pauline, burning for revenge, offered a chance, ready to grasp it. Down goes the drop. The second act closes with his revenge almost completed, his remorse beginning. He is going to be married—not married yet. Down goes the drop. Third act—he is married, and his remorse has come. He has deceived a loving woman, and resolves to atone by giving her up. Down goes the drop on his resolve, still unaccomplished. Fourth act—he expiates his crime and sees a chance to regain happiness after a long, weary probation. Again the drop falls on a suspense. The question is—Will he stand the test, and will Pauline be faithful? The fifth act opens in gloom, and closes with the reward of virtue and punishment of vice. The reader will mark in each case how the acts end in suspense, and how, as soon as the suspense is clearly indicated, down comes the drop. This was Bulwer's first successful play, and we shall come to it again in looking at the inner secrets that guide the motives of a drama. The good construction of the "Lady of Lyons" and the faulty original construction of the "Merchant of Venice" must not blind us to the fact that Shylock was the work of a lofty genius, Claude merely the polished production of a man of talent and erudition. From the preface to "The Caxtons," and other sources, we know that Bulwer was fond of ascertaining rules and principles, and that he always did good work when once he had found them out. Shakespeare as clearly worked from pure instinct, and defied almost all rules, except to hold "the mirror up to nature." Could we only join to-day the brains of old William and the research and learning of old "Lytton," what a drama might we have at last! But lest we further wander away from our theme, it is time to propose the canon which the reader must by this time have anticipated as self-evident:

XIII. Avoid anti-climax. When you have reached suspense bring down the drop or close the scene. When the last climax has come bring down the curtain.

Before passing to the more particular secrets of handling scenes in a dramatic success, one other general point remains to be treated, which is the respective merits of Greek and Gothic dramatic construction, as developed, in modern times, into the French and English methods. The distinction is broad and simple. The French write all their plays, or almost all, in single-scene acts, and never employ front scenes in a regular play; the English of the old school use front scenes, and multiply the divisions of an act into as many as five in some instances. Each method has its strong and weak points. The French method is apt to become stiff and formal, the English to fritter away the action of the drama into a mass of subordinate pictures. On the other hand, the French method gives a degree of realism to each act in a drama to which it cannot pretend where the scenes are shifted. Each act becomes a living picture, revealed by the rising of the curtain and closed by its fall. As long as it lasts it is perfect, and every year of advance in the mechanical part of theatricals increases the resources of the stage in the direction of realism. In interiors particularly the advance has become very great, since the general introduction of box scenes, with a regular ceiling and walls, simulating the appearance of a room with complete fidelity. Such a scene is barely practicable and always clumsy if set in sight of the audience, and its removal is hardly possible, save as hidden by the curtain. Open-air scenes may be enriched with all sorts of heavy set-pieces, when acts are composed of one scene, which must be dispensed with if the scenes are numerous, or their removal will entail such a noise as seriously to disturb the illusion. The removal of scenes, moreover, always disturbs, more or less, the action of a drama, and unless that action be very complex, requiring several sets of characters, to be introduced in different places simultaneously, is unwise.

On the other hand, the breaking up of acts into three or more scenes offers one great advantage, that of variety, and prevents many a play from dragging. If there are two sets of characters in a play, the virtuous and the wicked, it is a very good device to keep them apart, acting simultaneously in different scenes, during the action of a play, to be brought together only at the climax; and such a method has been employed by the best artists, with a gain in interest that could not have been obtained with the single-scene act for a basis.