ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

LETTERS TO THE PRESS (2)

The Shadow of the Sword

The Era (15 April, 1882 - p.5)

MR. BUCHANAN’S PLAYS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Although The Shadow of the Sword, founded on my novel of that name, and now being represented at the Olympic Theatre, has been largely advertised as a new drama of my composition, I am not altogether responsible for it as it stands. Some time ago I showed to Mr John Coleman a drama on the subject, which was afterwards largely remodelled and rewritten by him. I need not explain the circumstances which led me to permit Mr Coleman’s alteration of my text; but it should be clearly understood that some of the incidents and much of the dialogue is the actor’s own invention. To make matters quite sure, and protect himself against any scruples on my part, Mr Coleman abstained from inviting me to attend even a single rehearsal; so that for the cast of characters, the stage business, and the scenic arrangements, he is entirely responsible. My own conception was an idyllic drama full of local colour, after the fashion of L’Ami Fritz, but with a few exciting incidents superadded. Such flights of poetry as the curse at the end of the second act are far beyond me, and I trusted, had I been consulted, to have avoided the vagaries of the conventional stage “peasant.”
     While making this little explanation, let me express my sympathy with Mr Coleman in his unfortunate difficulties with the stage carpenters. They were not responsible, however, for the cast of characters, or for any of the dialogue. With regard to my other play of Lucy Brandon, now being represented at the Imperial, I admit full responsibility. Although some of your contemporaries have been kind enough to attribute the lavish applause on its first production to a claque of friends (who must have been present also on the second afternoon, since the same enthusiasm was repeated and the author called and recalled again), I really think they are exaggerating. If not, I have more friends than I dreamed of. I never counted London dramatic critics among them, however; nor do I expect fair play when gentlemen of the press, on account of some slight inconvenience, loudly proclaim at the doors their intention of having vengeance.
                                                                                                                         I am, &c.,
                                                                                                                                 ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Imperial Theatre, April 12th.

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The Era (15 April, 1882 - p.14)

“THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.”

     Mr John Coleman, the lessee of the Olympic Theatre, appeared at Bow-street, on Wednesday, to a summons taken out by Joseph Bennett, an assistant-stage carpenter, claiming the sum of £2.17s. for wages alleged to be due.
     The complainant stated that on the 6th there was a dress rehearsal prior to the production of The Shadow of the Sword. He received instructions to work a “rise -and-sink” scene, and for this purpose had some men summoned to assist him. He alleged that they were not skilled mechanics, and as life and limb were imperilled in the working he refused to obey the order given. Thereupon the rehearsal was dismissed, and the defendant discharged him.
     The defendant said he did so because complainant had refused to obey his instructions, and had told him that he was not his employer, but that he only accepted orders from the master carpenter. As this individual was alleged to have been in a drunken and incapable state, coupled with the complainant’s refusal to work, it was utterly impossible to proceed with the rehearsal. With reference to the scene in question, no skilled labour was required, it only being necessary to turn a windlass to obtain the desired effect, there not being the slightest danger to any one concerned. In consequence of the complainant’s conduct dissension had been caused amongst the other men, resulting in their dismissal, which had caused a serious pecuniary loss to the defendant.
     Mr Vaughan expressed his opinion that the complainant had acted most unjustifiably. He considered that merely manual labour was required, and this having been provided, the complainant ought to have made an effort to obey his instructions. This he had not done, and whilst it was important that employers should not ask anything unreasonable, it was still more important than an employé should not take upon himself to refuse to work on the grounds complainant had mentioned, unless he had first made some effort to do as he was directed. He considered that complainant had acted most unreasonably, and greatly to the detriment of the defendant, and dismissed the summons.

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The Era (22 April, 1882 - p.8)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
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. . .

     MR ROBERT BUCHANAN has been terribly unlucky in his latest dramatic essays. Lucy Brandon has already been withdrawn from the boards of the Imperial, and The Shadow of the Sword, which began so badly at the Olympic on Easter Eve, collapsed on Thursday last.

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THE OLYMPIC DISPUTE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

Sir,—There last week appeared a report of a Bow-street police case, having reference to a dispute between a stage carpenter and Mr John Coleman. With the litigants’ differences, however, I have nothing whatever to do, further than I, with others, was discharged at a moment’s notice, without being aware of the cause until I saw the report in question. From Mr John Coleman’s evidence, as published, I learned, to my chagrin and surprise, that my unceremonious dismissal was the natural result of drunkenness! Now, when a man makes an assertion, and on oath, he should be extremely careful as to the veracity of his statement, as perjury is an indictable offence, especially when it tends to the destruction of another’s character. In vindication of myself I must beg to differ with Mr John Coleman, and aver that I was at the time, and at all other times, as sober as he was; and he was not drunk; he was excited—and so was I. I have been engaged at the Olympic Theatre as master carpenter for a period of nearly ten years; and my character has never before been attempted to be tainted. On the contrary, I have been invariably complimented by the different managers under whom I have served, and they have been legion, for sobriety and industry, which my testimonials and presentations will amply prove. To be discharged without cause or notice, is bad enough; but publicly and in open court, to be stigmatised as a drunkard, is adding insult to injury. The attack on my character was made with impunity because it was made in my absence, like stabbing a man in the dark; and I have no other alternative, but through the same medium, of repelling a gratuitous statement that is so likely to prejudice me in the minds of those who, otherwise, might give me employment.
                                                                                   Obediently yours,          JOHN COLLINS.

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The Era (29 April, 1882 - p.7)

“THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—In doing me the honour to acknowledge me as his collaborateur in the authorship of the drama of The Shadow of the Sword, Mr Robert Buchanan is pleased to express his “sympathy for the mishaps incidental to the working of the scenery on the opening night, but disclaims all responsibility for the cast, dialogue, &c.” This assurance will, doubtless, be received in the candid and generous spirit in which it is given; and, as I do not wish to deprive the poet of a single leaf of his laurels, permit me with equal candour, and, I trust, no less generosity, to “disclaim all responsibility for the cast, dialogue, &c.,” of Lucy Brandon, which has recently achieved so brilliant a success at the Imperial Theatre. With reference to “the poetic flights of fancy involved in the curse,” which Mr Buchanan alleges is “beyond his scope,” permit me to say a word or two. Must we henceforth assume that the great masters have the exclusive privilege of monopolising the great big D’s?
     Here are a few choice extracts quoted from memory, to begin with the bard of all time:—Lady Anne to Richard—“Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer dead, or earth gape open wide and cat him  quick!” Lear to Goneril—“Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!” “Roast me in sulphur, wash me in steep down gulfs of liquid fire!”—Othello. Brutus to Tarquin—“May the red, flaming sun strike you with living plagues; vipers that die not slowly gnaw your heart,” &c.—Howard Payne. Eve to Cain—“May the woods deny thee shelter, earth a home, the dust a grave, the sun his light, and Heaven her God!”—Byron. Carl Von Moor to Schuflerle—“May that fire burn in thy bosom till eternity grows grey!”—Schiller. Tom Robinson to Hawes—“May your skin rot from your flesh—your flesh from your bones; and may your black soul split on the rock of eternal perdition!”—Charles Reade.
     I could multiply these passionate apostrophes ad infinitum, but I have quoted enough to show that if I have erred I have erred in a company I am not ashamed of keeping. Besides, it must be admitted that poor Rohan had great provocation—his father murdered in Egypt, his elder brother dead beneath the snows of Russia, his younger one shot before his very eyes, his mother dying from a broken heart. If these be not wrongs deep enough to evoke a curse—“a curse to kill”—I have no knowledge either of human nature or dramatic art. The circumstances connected with the production of this work are so remarkable as to be worth narrating.
     It was an ambitious effort; three bigger “sets” than the Grotto of St. Gildas, the Mountains, and the Inundation have never been placed before the public. Four painters, more or less distinguished, and an army of carpenters had been at work day and night for more than a month; we were in sight of port when, at the last rehearsal, we broke down through insubordination amongst our operatives; and, unfortunately, the whole working staff elected to follow the ringleader in this rebellion. Under these circumstances, had I been a millionaire, I should, of course, have closed the theatre a week for preparations; but I was in extremis. There was no help for it but to open; so, relying on an energy and industry which, up to that time, had never been wholly defeated, I engaged a new master carpenter and another staff of men, who worked without intermission through the whole day and night up to half-past six on Saturday morning, when I left them hopeful and confident that we should surmount all difficulties; but I had reckoned without my host.
     On the night previous, after everybody else had left the theatre, I went round with my stage-manager,   acting-manager, and gasman, and locked every door. On returning at an early hour the next morning I found that one of the doors had been broken open; but it was not until Saturday night I discovered, while the performance was actually going on, that the act-drop had been “fouled” and the whole of the ropes put out of gear; hence the series of mishaps and delays which followed. Mr Gates, Mr Charles Brew, Mr  Gompertz, Mr Maltby, Mr Laws, and his men did all men could do in the few hours at their disposal, but they were unable to overcome this “rattening” combination—my misfortune, not their fault. Despite our mishaps the public were more than kind. There were calls and recalls at the end of every act, and, although the curtain did not fall until a quarter past twelve, there were two distinct calls even at that late hour.
     Upon subsequent representations we finished nightly at a quarter to eleven, and the play, up to its last performance, was received with genuine enthusiasm; but, alas! the mischief was done the first night, and we had to strike our colours for want of ammunition to carry on the war. The Shadow of the Sword has, doubtless, many faults, but it received many foul blows; and under the circumstances, to which I called attention at the time, was entitled to more generous treatment than it received at some hands.
     The other day I read in various journals that on the first night of Othello at the Odeon the curtain did not fall until a quarter past one on Sunday morning. To-day I learn that the curtain did not fall upon Odette until midnight. Yet the only critical deduction made by the majority of critics is that under these circumstances “criticism will be reserved until a more favourable opportunity.”
     Now, surely, “kissing goes by favour” here, or is it the case that some of your gentle colleagues deem it their duty to welcome new comers after the fashion of the Good Samaritans of Pudsey, who upon seeing a foreigner “within their gates” playfully exclaim to each other “Hi, chaps, here’s a stranger—heave half a brick at him?” He who does not accept defeat with dignity is a fool, but he who fails to respect the vanquished is a cad, and often cads are to be found even in your noble profession;

As where’s that palace whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not?

     And now, Sir, in taking my leave for a short time, I desire to offer to the public and the gentlemen of the Press, who here or elsewhere have always been prompt to give generous recognition to whatever conscientious work I have attempted or achieved during a life devoted to the art I love, my thanks and my gratitude.
                                                                                         Yours, &c.,         JOHN COLEMAN.
     Olympic Theatre, April 27th.

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The Era (29 April, 1882 - p.8)

AUTHORS AND MANAGERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—There are few personal misfortunes which cannot be put to some use as examples to warn others, and since I have been during the past weeks exceptionally unlucky—having had a play righteously and justly “damned” at one theatre and a second play withdrawn at a day’s notice from the boards of another—I am in a position to point the morals of two sad bits of experience.
     My first moral, or word of advice, is addressed to my brother authors, and runs to this effect:—“Never under any circumstances allow an actor or manager, however ‘experienced,’ to alter your text at his own wild will, and never, at any rate, have your name attached to a production which is one-third your own and two-thirds interpolation, which is cast and rehearsed without your supervision, and which, when produced, seems like some hideous nightmare, instead of your own sane invention.” If this advice is listened to, authors will avoid my cruel experience during the performance of The Shadow of the Sword at the Olympic Theatre. The play, as there represented, was no more my production than Poole’s burlesque of Hamlet was the production of Shakespeare. For the alteration of the motive, the introduction of useless situations, the mal-characterisation, the general idea of lopsidedness and higgledy-pigglledyness, Mr Coleman is responsible. He is also responsible, by the way, for the programme, which has been laid, with the other sins of commission and omission, at the martyr’d author’s door.
     My second word of advice is addressed to authors in particular, and to the theatrical profession in general. It runs thus:—“Avoid business transactions with managers whom you discover, after a brief acquaintance, to be in pecuniary difficulties.” Some months ago the managers of the Imperial Theatre accepted my play of Lucy Brandon, agreed to mount it liberally, to procure a first-class company, and to “run it for, at least, five weeks.” As a guarantee of good faith they introduced me to their “monied” partner, who also subscribed my agreement. To make a long story short, this man of money turned out in good time to be a man of straw—or a man, at all events, who cared not a straw for his liabilities; and the piece was hardly produced when the storm burst. In the innocence of my heart, I had disbursed considerable sums, to tide the management over “temporary” difficulties while their capitalist was “realising.” Every penny of the first week’s takings was spent in paying old arrears, and when Saturday came there was no “treasury” either for the unfortunate author, who was so much out of pocket, or for the still more unfortunate artistes, who had laboured so zealously to make the drama the success I still affirm it to have been.
     In giving this explanation, I am far from soliciting any sympathy; nor do I wish to cast any reflection on the managers, who acted throughout, I feel sure, in good faith, and have been almost as ill-treated as the author and the company. The whole unfortunate affair, however, contains a lesson which the theatrical profession should get by heart; and I have, therefore, undertaken, in justice to all concerned, to publish the facts.
                                                                                                     I am, &c.,         ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     London, April 25th, 1882.

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The Era (6 May, 1882)

“THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Whatever other “lessons” Mr Buchanan may have learnt from his recent misfortunes, they do not appear to have taught him that a poet’s faculty of invention should be limited to his verses, but that it is imperative that the realities of life should be measured by the more prosaic standard of the code of honour which prevails among gentlemen. It was my desire to have remained silent on this subject, but since Mr Buchanan now dares to insinuate that he was in total ignorance of my revisions and alterations it is time for me, in self-justification, to speak out.
     When our drama was first submitted to me, it was a crude, invertibrate sketch, which had been offered to nearly every theatre in London, and had been refused everywhere. I undertook, with the author’s concurrence, to revise and reconstruct it. I did so, invented new characters and incidents, and gave a human motive for Rohan’s refusal to serve in the conscription. When my alterations were completed, they not only met with Mr Buchanan’s approval, but they were absolutely incorporated with our contract of purchase; and, furthermore, I affirm—
     1. Prior to the production of the play here, the original prompt copy was placed in his hands for final revision.
     2. That he returned it to me duly revised, and that the parts were collated and compared with the MS.; in effect, every line of the play, exactly as it was acted, received Mr Buchanan’s sanction, except the “curse,” with which I did not permit him to interfere.
     3. For twelve months prior to its production in town this play has been announced as the sole work of Mr Buchanan, and during its progress through the provinces he has accepted the almost unanimous eulogies of press and public as tributes justly due to him alone. But observe. The moment the shadow of misfortune darkens The Shadow of the Sword he repudiates all responsibility, and leaves me to bear the brunt.
     Be it so; I am responsible for everything in connection with the production. There is not an artiste concerned in the representation, not a line I have written, not a scene I have devised, a note of music, or a costume I have selected, or even a stage direction I have given, which I am ashamed of. And now for a word or two with reference to my present relations with this gentleman, and then I hope to have done for ever with him and with this subject.
     When he first introduced himself to me, at the Queen’s Theatre, his fame as a dramatist was confined to the authorship of a play which, aided by the prestige of the Haymarket company, with a cast including Mrs Kendal, Mr Buckstone, Mr Kendal, Mr Howe, &c., achieved a run of one night in London, and another in Glasgow. This unpropitious commencement of Mr Buchanan’s dramatic career only enlisted my sympathies on his behalf and I introduced him and his dramas to Mr Neville, who accepted The Queen of Connaught. I brought Mr Buchanan’s sister-in-law on the stage, giving my tuition without fee or reward. I paid him for The Shadow of the Sword before the play was produced in London; in addition to which I gave him my adaptation of The Mormons. “On their own merits modest men are dumb,” and you will doubtless observe that my amour propre as author, adapter, what you will, is not excessive; therefore, when this drama failed, although convinced it would have succeeded under other auspices, I did not think it generous to direct public attention to the (with one or two exceptions) inefficient cast, the injudicious alterations, and bungling stage-management which murdered The Mormons.
     The insensate egoism of the author appears in the present instance to have occasioned an aberration of intellect which makes Mr Buchanan oblivious of even common decency. A chance has occurred to him which has never yet occurred to any author, living or dead. Two of his plays are produced in one day in two metropolitan theatres—both are unsuccessful. It is useless now to inquire into the cause. Any one but an idiot can see that no sane man, far less an experienced manager, would be likely to expend valuable time and good money upon a play without doing his best to make it succeed. I did my best, but circumstances were too strong for me, and the logic of fact is inexorable. But first compare Mr Buchanan’s position with mine. He has received every shilling of his money; I have lost mine, and six weeks’ hard work to boot; besides which I am in debt. My friend has lost upwards of £1,000 on the production, and, more grievous than all, my company are thrown out of employment.
     Whatever reputation as a dramatist he may ultimately achieve, my distinguished collaborateur as yet has not “set the Thames on fire.” Now I did leave a little reputation behind me; at any rate, you were all good enough to pronounce my Henry the Fifth a great work. I return to London, to lose money and imperil reputation on a much smaller enterprise. What then? I accept the inevitable with equanimity. The vanquished of to-day is the victor of to-morrow. “Time and me against any other two.” I am equal to anything in the future, except another collaborateurship with Mr Robert Buchanan.
                                                                             Yours, faithfully,
     Olympic Theatre, May 3d, 1882.                                          JOHN COLEMAN.

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The Era (13 May, 1882)

“THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I owe you my best thanks for your insertion of Mr John Coleman’s last letter in your columns; since I gladly purchase for a little coarse abuse the admission that Mr Coleman did alter and mutilate my play, and that he is the author or adaptor of The Mormons.
     But Mr Coleman’s letter contains a few mis-statements of fact which I take the liberty to correct.
     1. I never approved of Mr Coleman’s alterations, though in a moment of weakness I agreed to some of them, particularly stipulating that they should cease on signing of the agreement. So far from ceasing they were multiplied, Mr Coleman’s restless inspiration urging him to repeated alterations and interpolations.
     2. A few days before the Olympic production, after I had been demanding for months to see the manuscript, an almost illegible copy was sent to me (minus the curse and other flowery matter), with the request that it might be returned at once duly revised. I read it rapidly through, correcting an expression here and there; but I saw at once that it was hopeless work. Foolishly enough, I refrained from doing what I was legally advised to do—interdict the performance on the ground of my broken agreement. For the same good-natured reason I held my peace until I had seen the play. Had I spoken a word before production, Mr Coleman, I knew, would have accused me of prejudicing the public against the piece, and have laid all the burthen of failure upon my shoulders.
     3. During the performance of this play in the country I was unable to see it. I received, however, many accounts of the performance, which were so far encouraging that I made Mr Coleman several distinct offers, when he came to town this winter, to cancel our agreement. Had he done so my own “crude invertebrate sketch” (as he chooses to call it) would at once have been purchased by Mr George Rignold, who thought it quite good enough for him, minus curse, and minus all Mr Coleman’s ingenious emendations.
     And now, having stated such facts as are really pertinent to the case, let me add a few remarks which, though less pertinent, are necessary under the circumstances.
     Mr Coleman, having failed in his scheme to build up a pecuniary success on a system of old-fashioned mutilation, having destroyed a fine conception by vain-glorious bungling and unparalleled blundering, now attempts to add insult to outrage. His assertion that my Haymarket play failed, that it was acted only one night in London and another in Glasgow, is a falsehood. It was produced for the late Mr Buckstone’s benefit on the last night of the season, and it was played throughout the provincial tour of the company with unvarying success. In Liverpool and Glasgow it was repeatedly played to splendid houses, and Mr Buckstone himself, on his return to London, published a special statement to the public, expressing his deep regret that the “secession of Mrs Kendal and the return of Mr Sothern” prevented its reproduction, although it “had been uniformly successful wherever acted.” But surely I waste words in refuting this gentleman, who would gladly treat an injured author as he has treated a helpless stage carpenter. While on this subject, let me state that the person whom his violence drove from the Olympic Theatre, and whom he afterwards tried to ruin by a cruel accusation, was in my employ for a long period last year; that he was uniformly civil, diligent, and obliging; that with his zealous co-operation The Mormons—a play of seventeen elaborate scenes—was produced without one hitch, or one minute’s unnecessary delay; and that no one who knows Mr Collins or has ever employed him believes one word of Mr Coleman’s insinuations.
     To conclude, despite this gentleman’s insulting remarks on my dramatic work, I shall not retaliate by criticising his own work as an actor. Of that the public is the fit and only judge. But I take off my hat to him now he informs us that Henry the Fifth was his own “great work.” I had always imagined that Henry the Fifth was the work of William Shakespeare. Being now better instructed, and aware that Shakespeare’s “crude invertebrate sketch” had the benefit of Mr Coleman’s “improvements,” I can quite understand how that production also, like The Shadow of the Sword, had so splendid a reception in a London theatre. Well, I am glad to find Mr Coleman writing so cheerfully, and promising a speedy return to London. I wish him all success; but I hope that when he comes again he will victimise a departed author—not a living one; seeking a collaborateur among the shades of the illustrious dead, who cannot be much injured by his blundering, and are beyond the reach of his abuse. I am, Sir,
                                                                                                                                   ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Grosvenor Club, W., May 9th, 1882.

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The Era (20 May, 1882)

“THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr Buchanan argues, as the Parthian fights, flying; save that the noble savage, when he “makes tracks,” throws javelins at his pursuers, while my opponent, in his flight, throws dirt at me, hoping that if enough of it is thrown some of it may stick. He is mistaken. “The blackest crow that sails across the sky cannot darken the daylight.”
     Ignominiously defeated in a discussion which ought never to have been raised, with characteristic good taste Mr Buchanan now seeks to obtrude a wholly irrelevant issue, which does not concern him directly or indirectly, and which is dragged in merely as a pretext to fling mud at me. In my public capacity I am fair game for any blockhead who knows how to use, or misuse, pen and ink; but, when my honour as a man is assailed, there is a limit to me forbearance.
     Now, Sir, leaving sonorous superlatives, and high falutin epithets to him who is most accustomed to their use, I confine myself to the simplest possible statement of facts.
     During my management, Mr Buchanan never crossed the threshold of this theatre prior to the production of The Shadow of the Sword but once (and that was when he came for the purpose of receiving the balance of the purchase money and of delivering up the prompt copy, duly revised and approved of by him). Consequently, it must be obvious that he was not present when my late stage-carpenter was dismissed, and that, therefore, he can have no knowledge of the “condition” of his friend; or the circumstances connected with his dismissal, except what he has obtained second-hand, and that from the most tainted source.
     Here is my reply to this malignant and mendacious allegation. The statement Mr Buchanan has the audacity to impugn was made on oath in a court of law, where I challenge him and his confederate to meet me if they dare.
     Meanwhile, “I am armed so strong in honesty, these miserable imputations pass by me like the idle wind, which I respect not.”                                                                          Yours, &c.,
     Olympic Theatre, May 17th.                                                                  JOHN COLEMAN.
     P.S.—However great my provocation, I always fight fairly, and I accept Mr Buchanan’s correction that his maiden drama achieved a run of three or four nights, instead of two, but I deny that he ever made “a distinct offer to cancel our agreement.” What he really did do was to dun me incessantly for the balance of the purchase money, until he had every farthing of it.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

Sir,—In your issue of the 13th current I see that your correspondent, Mr John Coleman, has once more reverted to a subject which, common sense should have dictated, had better been left alone. I allude to the cruel and misleading accusation brought by your correspondent against the late master carpenter of this theatre. Having once asserted what Mr John Coleman proclaims and reiterates as a fact, he, no doubt, feels himself bound, by some mysterious chain of reasoning, to uphold his original expression of opinion. It seems to be a matter of absolute indifference to him whether his charge is founded on fact or myth; the fiat has gone forth, and under no circumstances can the accuser recant. It is a case of, whether right or wrong,    hold-on tenaciously to the last—a kind of bulldog courage that commends itself to the “fancy,” though I fancy it is not strictly comme il faut. This peculiar trait, however, is not at all inconsistent with the characteristics of a man who, having made a venture and failed, still endeavours to induce the world to believe that his collapse—brought about by himself—was the result of “painful circumstances” over which he had no control—no more than he had over his own temper. The “painful circumstances” refer, no doubt, to the victimised carpenter, whose truthful rebutting letter appeared in your issue of the 22d ultimo. It is to this letter that Mr John Coleman now refers, reiterating his assertion that the carpenter in question is an inebriate. Consistency, in a good cause, is exemplary; in a bad one, not only repugnant, but criminal—morally, if not legally. Mr John Coleman instinctively “declines to discuss the subject.” Is it because discretion, in some cases, is the better part of valour? He is, however, “prepared, should it be necessary, to prove, by abundant corroborative testimony, the accuracy of the statement made by him in Bow-street!” This is throwing down the gauntlet to a man who is incapacitated from picking it up; a proof of how daring a man may show himself when no antagonist is forthcoming. As to this “abundant corroborative testimony,” it would be, I opine, something after the fashion of Mr John Coleman’s rhetoric—flowery, but void of potency—as the amount of reliable evidence that could be brought forward to rebut the “abundant corroborative” would, I have no hesitation in saying, make the latter insignificant indeed. Truth, however, must and will prevail in the end, even though it be opposed by “abundant corroborative testimony.” Let Mr John Coleman give to the world an insight into this “corroborative testimony” faction, that I might be enabled to advise the few members composing it what their characters are, because of the company they keep. I must not omit to mention that Mr John Coleman came to the Olympic with the view to prove to the “counter-skipping duffers” of London how superior were his histrionic abilities compared with their puny efforts. And what has been the result? Not the laches of his carpenter, but his own ability to restore vitality to a creation which, though brought into the world by another man, was cruelly vivisected by himself. Exasperated at the miserable outcome of his folly, he falls foul of the man who might have been his friend had he not exhibited his ingratitude, accuses his carpenter of being a tippler, and fails to meet his engagements, for which I can vouch, being one of the sufferers. Mr John Coleman probably may be sophistical, and argue that he had no control over the inevitable—certainly not, for the inevitable is the sequence generally of want of tact, common sense, and means, which means, if you succeed, pay; if not, why—no pay! a code of honour that has but scant recommendation. All letters from Mr John Coleman in The Era, I perceive, are dated as from the Olympic, although he has not shown himself here since the date of his collapse, now some four or five weeks intervening; of course, it is incompetent for me to say what his motives may be for assuming that he is at the theatre when he is not. This enigma, however, may be solved by acknowledging that Mr John Coleman is uncommonly discreet. Recording this special trait in his favour, I modestly retire from the scene of the Olympic dispute, and subscribe myself,
                                                                                                           Obediently yours,
Olympic Theatre, May 16th, 1882.                                                                           CERBERUS.

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The Era (27 May, 1882)

THE OLYMPIC DISPUTE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—From time immemorial it has been a favourite amusement for ill-conditioned dogs to “bay the moon with howling;” but although countless generations of curs have barked sans intermission since the world began the lady moon still sails serenely on.
     I follow her ladyship’s example, and shall continue to do so, when “Cerberus” and his brother curs, having howled themselves hoarse, crawl back to their kennels, scourged and chap-fallen.
     As for the farrago of irrelevant mendacity and puerile impertinence fabricated by this person, who, ashamed of his own nomenclature, assumes that of the foul-mouthed, three-headed dog of Hades, I simply say what the late Bishop of Oxford said on a similar occasion, “No amount of obscene noises emitted from filthy mouths can disturb the even tenor of my way.”
     I think it is George Eliot who somewhere remarks “Impudent assertion is a sort of filthy smoke puffed from the dirty tobacco pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the vile taste of the smoker.”
     Instead of diffusing “filthy smoke from dirty tobacco pipes,” why do not “Cerberus” and his confederates accept the challenge of the man whose honour they vainly seek to impugn, and confront him on the spot where his oath is chronicled to attest the truth?
     I will tell you. It is because they know it is much pleasanter, and far less hazardous, to circulate calumnies on paper than to commit perjury in court.
     But I will not waste more words on my anonymous and ignoble slanderer.
                                                                                         Yours, &c.,          JOHN COLEMAN.
     Theatre Royal, Bath, May 24th.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—You and your readers must be well-nigh tired of this matter; but the letter of “Cerberus” in your issue of the 20th inst., following upon Mr Buchanan’s of the 13th inst., provokes me to break, with your permission, the silence I should otherwise have gladly kept.
     It is a novel thing in my experience to prefer a charge of wilful perjury in the columns of a newspaper, and I emphatically protest against such a course on public grounds. Mr Coleman has now twice challenged the party aggrieved to meet him in open court, and prove his charge of perjury. If he declines to do so, but still continues through his friends to reiterate his charge in The Era, the public will know how to judge. It has been a matter of surprise to me that he did not long ago, if he was sure of his case, anticipate Mr Coleman’s challenge. I now learn from “Cerberus” that he is “incapacitated from taking up the gauntlet!” What! Incapacitated! When backed by such powerful influence as that of Messrs Buchanan and “Cerberus”! But how incapacitated? Because—so “Cerberus” seems to imply—he is ignorant of the “corroborative evidence” which Mr Coleman states he is ready to produce. But then “Cerberus” should not have said “incapacitated;” he should have said “afraid.”
     With reference to Mr Buchanan’s letter, so long as that gentleman confines himself to the expression of his own belief, his interference, however uncalled-for, may be allowed to pass. The value of his belief may be gauged by the fact that he was not present on the occasion in question. But when he assumes to state the belief of an indefinite number of other persons, I am tempted to ask him this plain question. Did he—yes or no—ascertain beforehand from each and all of those persons the exact state of their belief on this particular point.
     The nom de plume “Cerberus,” no doubt, suggests the exalted position the writer holds at the Olympic, and thus must greatly increase the credibility of his evidence. To my certain knowledge he had left the theatre a long time before the incident in question occurred. “Cerberus” is evidently the “superior person” of the theatre, the watch-dog and guardian of the theatre’s morals. I did hear there was a certain person employed in the theatre whose boast it was that he had availed himself of his position to collect materials for the future exposure of certain details affecting the private characters of former occupants of the theatre. I did not believe there was such a man. “Cerberus” is shaking my belief on this one point at least.
     When “Cerberus” has the courage to sign his own name his statements may merit consideration. As it is, I content myself with denying point-blank two of his assertions, that Mr Coleman ever called the party concerned an “inebriate” or a “tippler,” and that Mr Coleman has not shown himself at the Olympic since the date of his collapse.
     My immediate object in writing this letter is to state that I share with Mr Coleman, morally if not technically, the responsibility of the late master-carpenter’s dismissal. Mr Coleman acted in accordance with my advice; that advice was based on what I had seen; and, if called upon, I shall be ready to justify it at the proper time and place.
     I am promised in return for this the abuse of “Cerberus” and his pack; it will not affect me, nor the opinion of those who know me. The opinion of those who do not know me, but are affected by it, is indifferent to me.
     One word more. I do not rush into print to asperse another man’s character, especially that of an open antagonist. If incidentally I have done so, the fault lies with those who have provoked this rejoinder, not with me. And the same spirit of fair play which has actuated what I have already said obliges me to add (and I do so with pleasure) that I have received from two gentlemen, who have had abundant opportunities of judging, and whose integrity is spotless (I am not referring now to Messrs Buchanan and “Cerberus”) the highest praises of the late master carpenter’s sobriety, ability, and character. I confess I am unable to reconcile the seeming inconsistancy; if I could do so, I could also probably explain many other things which are still a mystery to me in connection with the late production at the Olympic.
                                                                                 I remain, Sir, yours faithfully,
                                                                                                                       F. PEMBERTON,
                                                                 Late Acting-Manager and Treasurer, Olympic Theatre.

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The Era (3 June, 1882)

THE DISPUTE AT THE OLYMPIC.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—With reference to John Coleman’s string of pot-house invectives, levelled against me in your issue of the 27th ult., I must say it is a source of gratification on my part to learn that the man whose ambition it is to pose as a gentleman has, by his unseemly language, that of abuse without argument, revealed himself in his true colours. In his rage he forgets himself, and throws off the mask, an uncontrollable impulse for which, no doubt, by this time he is very sorry, if not heartily ashamed of. In even noticing this tirade of vulgar expletives I am aware I derogate from my self-respect, because, like a modern Socrates, I condescend to stand side by side on the same platform with a modern, though masculine, Xantippe. It seems to me that John Coleman is much more happy in his quotations, though now and then out of place, than in his characteristic mode of expressing his antipathy to good advice; the mixture, certainly, is somewhat anomalous, though it tends in a great measure to confirm the accredited assumption that a certain obnoxious personage is in the habit of quoting Scripture for a purpose which I need not imply, as it is well understood. In my time I have been accustomed, even in the warmest disputations, to be treated with, at least, an outward sign of courtesy; but never, except in the lowest stratum of society, have I encountered such ignoble and degrading expressions of virulence and animosity. It is, however, futile to continue this kind of recrimination, especially as it concerns a matter in which neither party can, or will not, be convinced against his will. So, as a finale to my original contradiction, I here, for the last time, emphatically state that I adhere to the same in its every detail. And whatever vulgar epithets, impotent rage, malice, or jealousy John Coleman may apply to me in his future effusions, I can conscientiously say that, at least, I am honest.
     As to your other correspondent F. Pemberton, of the same date, I must say I look upon him as being under an obligation, or may be necessity, to obey the behests of his liege—i.e., to say and act as he is dictated to; and, although his communication does not bear the impress of rabies, there can be no doubt that the two inspirations spring from the one source. F. Pemberton acts as a kind of talismanic agent to his liege, for he carries about with him a charm as a protection against mishaps such as occurred at the Olympic a few weeks ago! The shadow (not of the sword) is, as it were, an immaterial, and yet at the same time a material, as well as a necessary, adjunct to the substance, both of which are clearly defined by the tenor of their respective onslaughts on me in your recent issue. Why each of my dual opponents should prate so much about “honour” and “honesty” is beyond the scope of my comprehension, unless it be they are full to overflowing of those virtues, and desire to part with the overplus, which I, at least, should be sorry to  accept, either as a gift or by purchase, at any price.
                                                                                   Obediently yours,                  CERBERUS.
     Olympic Theatre, June 1st, 1882.
         [This correspondence must now cease.—Ed. Era.]

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Rumours of Buchanan’s marriage to Harriett Jay

The Newcastle Courant (21 April, 1882)

Daily News (24 April, 1882)

Mr. Robert Buchanan has issued a statement to the effect that the sudden withdrawal of his adaptation of the late Lord Lytton’s “Paul Clifford” at the Imperial Theatre is “due to causes entirely unconnected with its dramatic success or failure.” Mr. Buchanan adds that it will shortly be reproduced elsewhere, with the original cast. Of the simultaneous withdrawal of the same writer’s new play, “The Shadow of the Sword,” after an equally brief career at the Olympic, no explanation is afforded.

___

The Era (29 April, 1882 - p.8)

A Correction.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—An author’s work is public property, and even malignant criticism is endurable; but the newspaper press transcends its functions when, to gratify some secret spite, it intrudes upon private life and domestic sorrow. During the past week a paragraph has been widely circulated to the effect that I have been recently “married, in Switzerland, to Miss Harriet Jay, my deceased wife’s sister.” My wife, beloved by all who knew her, and most beloved by her to whom she was (as it were) both sister and mother, died only last November, and the public are asked to believe that her husband has already forgotten her, and that her noble-minded sister, sharing this forgetfulness, is also oblivious to the love, the self-sacrifice, and the saintly devotion of the departed. How this cruel report arose, and by whom it was originated, I am at a loss to guess; but I write this letter to affirm that it is without the faintest shadow of foundation, and in the name of public decency to protest against such violations of the sanctity of great and enduring grief.
                                                                                                                     I am, &c.,
     London, April 25th, 1882.                                                                                   ROBERT BUCHANAN.

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Daily News (1 May, 1882)

We have received the following note from Mr. Robert Buchanan, from which, however, we have omitted one passage on account of its libellous character:

     I hope, and indeed feel sure, that you would not willingly do me an injury. Be that as it may, I must ask you to add to your paragraph of last Monday this explanation. That the “Shadow of the Sword” failed through no fault of mine, since the piece was a mutilated and brutalised version of my drama, produced without my supervision and in spite of my remonstrances; and that “Lucy Brandon” could not under any circumstances have been kept in the bills, because . . . These are the facts; nor need I add to them by any explanation of how I have been personally befooled and impoverished. If you will at the same time contradict a cruel statement (made first, I believe, in a Glasgow paper, and afterwards copied into the Figaro and other journals), you will do me a substantial service. This statement, utterly groundless and malicious, says that I have “recently been married, in Switzerland, to Miss Jay, my deceased wife’s   sister.” When I tell you that my dear wife died only last November, and that of all human beings her sister was most devoted to her, you will understand how much pain the report has given to all concerned. I will say nothing of my own feelings in the matter, save to say that the bitterness of my personal loss is renewed by the mere thought of such a want of respect for the beloved wife who was my friend and helper for 20 years.

___

Western Mail (Cardiff) (1 May, 1882)

     Mr Robert Buchanan has found it necessary to deny a very cruel rumour of which he is the subject. A story has been actively circulated that he was recently married in Switzerland to Miss Harriet Jay, the authoress and actress, who happens to be the sister of his wife, who died only five months ago. “By whom it was originated,” says Mr. Buchanan, “I am at a loss to guess;” and “in the name of public decency” he protests against “such violations of the sanctity of great and enduring grief.” Everyone will sympathise with Mr. Buchanan in having to make such a denial. Unfortunately, he has a good many enemies on the London press, as was shown by the severity of the criticisms on his recent dramatic efforts, “The Shadow of the Sword” and “Lucy Brandon.”
     But inventions which deal with the sanctity of private life, and can only possibly find their way into the papers in consequence of carelessness which borders on the reckless, can never have a vestige of justification. Mr. Buchanan truly says that the press “transcends its functions when it intrudes upon domestic sorrow.” Of course it may very well be that he is wrong when he talks about the gratification of “some secret spite” as an explanation, but, nevertheless, the insertion of such a report on what must have been the vaguest of hearsay evidence is not creditable to journalism.

___

The Evening Telegraph (Angus, Scotland) (4 May, 1882 - p.2)

THE RUMOURED MARRIAGE OF MR ROBERT BUCHANAN.

     The statement that Mr Buchanan, the poet, had married Miss Harriet Jay was originally made, with the utmost particularity, in a London letter to one of the New York papers, the writer explaining that the marriage ceremony had been performed in Switzerland on account of the state of the law in England respecting marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. It now turns out that the story was a pure fabrication, the work, it is conjectured, of some private enemy of the poet.—N. B. Mail.

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The Sunday Herald (Syracuse, N.Y.) (28 May, 1882 - p.4)

The English law which prevents a man from marrying the sister of his deceased wife has caused Robert Buchanan to take a matrimonial journey to Switzerland, where that absurd regulation is not in force. His new wife and former sister-in-law is—or rather was—Miss Jay, author of the “Queen of Connaught.”

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The Sunday Herald (Syracuse, N.Y.) (1 October, 1882 - p.4)

—Harriet Jay (Buchanan), the novelist and actress, the author of “The Queen of Connaught,” and formerly the sister-in-law and now the wife of Robert Buchanan, has written a new story with the title of “My Connaught Cousins.”

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The Martyrdom of Madeline

The Academy (1 July, 1882 - No. 530, p. 11-12)

“THE MARTYRDOM OF MADELINE.”

                                                                                                                             London: June 20, 1882.

     A man who is Quixotic enough to attack windmills must expect summary and clumsy treatment. My windmills are, as everybody knows, the English journals of society and criticism—in the present instance, I regret to say, the ACADEMY. One of your miller’s-men, whose name is unfamiliar to me, has loosed the big wheel to unseat me—à propos of The Martyrdom of Madeline; but I hope that the miller-in-chief, who has always seemed to be good-natured enough, will allow me a few words of protestation.
     Now, I am not going to defend my novel as a work of art against any mere miller’s man that ever, in coat or cassock, cast dust into the people’s eyes. The public will read my work and form its own opinion—the generous perceiving, perhaps, how difficult was the adequate illustration of my theme in a story meant for popular circulation in England. But your reviewer, because he dislikes my big-eyed heroine, and sympathises with certain of my foes, roundly accuses me of Charlatanism, applying that loose word, if I understand him rightly, not merely to my last work, but to my writings in general. Such a charge, indeed, concerns rather the secret motives of a man than his special inspiration; and, much as your reviewer may distrust my motives, he should at least be accurate in his descriptions of my performances. He accuses me, in the first place, of attacking my “old friends the fleshly poets.” Who are the fleshly poets, so-called? If your reviewer refers to Mr. Swinburne, to Mr. Morris, to Mr. Rossetti, and to those whom I once classed as their disciples, I beg leave to re-assert (in addition to the disclaimer in my Preface) that my satire concerns not them, though it may, I suppose, have a certain retrospective application to writings which were merely a phase of their genius. Mr. Swinburne has long left the pastoral region shepherded by the impeccable Gautier; he has risen to heights of clear and beautiful purpose, where I gladly do homage to him. Mr. Morris may be passed by without a word; he needs no apology of mine. Mr. Rossetti, I freely admit now, never was a fleshly poet at all; never, at any rate, fed upon the poisonous honey of French art. Who, then, remains to complain of misinterpretation? If your reviewer had said that I satirised Gautier and his school of pseudo-aesthetics, and their possible pupils in this country, he would have been within his right. Then, again, your reviewer complains of the severity of my attack on society journalists. He thinks it “Pharisaic.” Surely only the most reckless of miller’s men would treat Pharisaism and Charlatanism as interchangeable terms? My attack was either Pharisaic and mistaken, or Charlatanish and insincere—either designation might have suited your reviewer; but, in true windmill-compelling fashion, he must clutch at both.
     In reference to the charge of personality, I should like to tell you a little parable. Once upon a time, there came to a wild village “out west” a quiet individual of studious tastes. His unsocial ways annoyed the original denizens of the place. Their annoyance presently took the shape of strong language, then of stones and other dangerous missiles. They disturbed the recluse’s rest with hideous howling, they battered down his door, they broke his windows, they popped at his house with their revolvers. One day he lost his temper, and fired a shot out of his window in return. That afternoon there was a meeting at the local “bar,” when one of the ringleaders, virtuously indignant, exclaimed, “What’s to be done neow, with thet dern’d stranger? He never understood sarcasm, and neow he’s clean outside civilisation—he’s nick’d Long Jim in the heel!”
     The parable would be even more appropriate if the stranger, instead of firing a shot, had simply published an exact description of the amenities practised in the village, accompanying it, perhaps, with a pen-and-ink sketch of his chief assailants. This, at any rate, is just what I have done. After suffering a long literary persecution, after being treated to all the amenities of civilised criticism, I have simply put on permanent record the precise condition of matters journalistic. And so I don’t understand sarcasm, and am outside the pale of your reviewer’s civilisation.
     Perhaps, if I were a Charlatan indeed, I should have let the windmills alone; for no honest man was ever truly victorious over any one of them. But, though rudely assaulted, and even unseated, I shall at least have published a description of these monsters of mechanism, which grind no corn and make hideous the fair landscape of literature. I am not their only victim. I am not the only man of letters who, smarting under injustice and indignant at wrongdoing, has been called a Charlatan and a Pharisee. But the truth is great and will prevail, though Don Quixote tumbles in the mud.
     One word more. Your reviewer insinuates (there is no mistaking his innuendo) that a certain character in my story is a shadow-picture of the late Mr. Dante Rossetti. To show the injustice of this supposition, I will simply ask your readers to compare the lineaments of my Blanco Serena, a society-hunting, worldly minded, insincere, but good-humoured, fashionable painter, with the literary image of Mr. Rossetti a solitude-loving, unworldly, thoroughly sincere and earnest, if sometimes saturnine, man of genius, in revolt against society. The blundering of windmill-criticism could surely go no further. I wish to have no mistake on this, to me, very solemn matter. What I wrote of Mr. Rossetti, ten years ago,  stands. What I wrote of Mr. Rossetti in the inscription of God and the Man also stands. Time brings about its revenges. Can the least acute observer of literature have failed to notice that the so-called fleshly school, in proportion as it has grown saner, purer, and more truly impassioned in the cause of humanity, has lost its hold upon the so-called fleshly public—even on the dapper master-miller’s and miller’s men of the journals of nepotism and malignity? Certain of our critics said to certain of our poets—“Go that way; there lies the short cut to immortality!” But the poets, after going a few paces, paused, recognising, as only true poets can recognise, the easy descent to Acheron. How strange it would be, after all, if we, the so-called Pharisees of ten years ago, should find ourselves called upon, in the end, to defend these very poets against their own critics, against society, against the world. Stranger things have happened. Ishmael, after all, is close akin to Esau; and I can say for my own part that not even the dread of the brutal, blundering windmills would prevent me from championing Esau, if ever I should find the smooth hands of Jacob raised to destroy him.
                                                                                                                               ROBERT BUCHANAN.

____________________

                                                                                                                               Oxford: June 23, 1882.

     Mr. Blanco Serena, while parodying the opinions of one artist, painted the Nocturnes of another. I, therefore, carefully qualified my identification by the words “if we mistake not.” I am now happy to hear that I was mistaken, and accept with deference the author’s disclaimer. My other remarks I did not qualify, nor can I do so now—unless it be my infelicitous allusion to the Higher Charlatanism.
                                                                                                                                           THE REVIEWER.

[Note: The Academy’s review of The Martyrdom of Madeline is in the Reviews section.]

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Lucy Brandon

The Era (4 November, 1882)

A Word of Explanation.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—In your report of the bankruptcy of Messrs Mansell and May, late managers of the Imperial Theatre, you adopt the mistake made by the newspapers—viz., that they were adjudicated for the amount of fees due to me for performances of Lucy Brandon; and one of your contemporaries, with characteristic generosity, assumes that the bankruptcy of the managers is a consequence of these performances. Permit me to say, therefore, that the £76 12s. 9d., the amount for which these gentlemen were adjudicated, was simply a moiety of private money lent in cash previous to the production of the play; that the fate of the management had nothing to do with that production; that in addition to the losses in hard cash, I have also been mulcted in large sums on guarantees given by me to several tradesmen and to Captain Hobson, of the Aquarium; and all this in connection with a speculation in which I had no share, save as the author of a piece accepted for performance. Those who know me are aware how little disposed I am to be exacting in money matters; those who do not know me may be assured that the action I have taken was absolutely necessary, and in no sense arbitrary. A few weeks after the closing of the Imperial the same managers found money enough to take the Opera Comique, to pay down a large sum for rent in advance, and to produce a comic opera. Verb. sap.
                                                                                                                         I am, &c.,
     Grosvenor Club, W.                                                                                              ROBERT BUCHANAN.

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Dramatic Criticism (A Sailor and His Lass)

The Era (6 October, 1883)

A CHALLENGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr Clement Scott has seen fit to publish my portion of a brief correspondence with his solicitors, and has jumped to the conclusion that my object in desiring an interview with those gentlemen was to “litigate” over an article, written by him, purporting to be a criticism of The Glass of Fashion. As my object was nothing of the sort, and was one of general interest to the dramatic profession, I ask to be allowed to state it in your columns.
     Some months ago, the manager of a West-end theatre was very anxious to produce The Glass of Fashion, but it was pointed out to him that there were certain galled jades whose withers the comedy might wring. The manager suggested that the play should be submitted to the judgment of Mr Clement Scott. I promptly and emphatically repudiated the proposition. A few days later I received a letter from the manager, in these words:—
     “Dear Mr Grundy,—I have taken the opinion of two dramatic critics about The Glass of Fashion, as the opinions were so varied, and they are so dead against its production, and speak so strongly on the subject that I fear it would be madness to think of it. I am more sorry than I can say, as I personally believe in it, &c.”
     Events having confirmed my conjecture that one of the “two dramatic critics” was Mr Clement Scott, I vainly sought an interview with his solicitors, in order to give him the opportunity of correcting me if I was wrong, and if I was right, of explaining on what grounds he justifies the perusal of my manuscript without my consent, and the private expression of his premature opinion of work on which he has to pass judicial sentence. I did not choose to deal with Mr Scott himself, for experience has taught me the unwisdom of corresponding with a gentleman who marks his own letters “Private,” and publishes mine.
     I publicly challenge Mr Clement Scott to admit or deny that he is one of the “two dramatic critics” who read my manuscripts without my authority, and I call the attention of the dramatic profession generally to the growing practice on the part of one or “two dramatic critics” of passing private opinions on plays before they are produced. When a cause comes up for trial before a judge who has given an opinion on it when at the bar, he retires from the bench, or the case is postponed until another judge can try it; yet, surely the honour of an English judge is an unimpeachable as that of one of the dramatic critics.
                                                                                         I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
                                                                                                                     SYDNEY GRUNDY.
     Globe Theatre, October 5th, 1883.

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The Era (13 October, 1883)

“A CHALLENGE.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—The insolence of Mr Grundy’s “challenge” is only equalled by the audacity of the language in which it is conveyed to your columns. This hyper-sensitive and wearisome gentleman, having written an unpopular play, seeks to shuffle the burden of his sins of omission on to the shoulders of one of the unfortunate individuals whose destiny it is to devote the greater part of their existence to the study of the undramatic trash that is from time to time dished up for the edification of a long-suffering public. A man with a grievance is commonly understood to be a bore, but the worst kind of bore is the man with a grievance which has been imagined from the cells of a morbidly irritable brain.
     Mr Grundy has conceived this position in order to account for his own misfortunes. He has dreamed of a phantom critic consulted by a harassed manager in order to relieve him from the pressure of worthless manuscripts; and he has persuaded himself to believe that such a philanthropic and phantom critic would be guilty of mala fides if he honestly told the distracted manager that the wares offered to him for sale were of no commercial value. By a direct process of morbid imagination the phantom critic who occupies his spare time in reading plays for illiterate or ignorant managers is one Clement Scott, who is credited even by Grundy with experience enough to discriminate and force enough to condemn.
     This is all great fun for the dramatic Grundy, but it is death to the critical Clement Scott. He is wearied with correspondence, interrupted in his work, threatened with actions at law, dragged down to the office of his solicitors, placarded and lampooned, misrepresented and impudently challenged, merely in order to extract from him the very obvious statement that Grundy is a manufacturer of grievances as well as of plays; and that Clement Scott—thank heaven—never saw one of Grundy’s productions in manuscript in his life; was never in his life—thank heaven—consulted by any manager as to Grundy’s genius or eccentricity; never looked into The Glass of Fashion until it was produced at the Globe Theatre; and since 8th September, 1883, has never been called upon to sit out one of Grundy’s plays—thank heaven!
                                                                               Yours obediently,         CLEMENT SCOTT.
     6th October, 1883.
     P.S.—Mr Grundy’s side charge that I “mark my own letters ‘private’ and publish his” is to me even more incomprehensible and groundless than the other. As I have written no letter at all to Mr Grundy on the subject, it is necessarily impossible that I could have marked “private,” or “published” what does not exist! The personal element has been affixed to this silly controversy by Mr Grundy himself, and he has himself alone to blame if for the moment he cuts but a sorry figure.

___

The Era (20 October, 1883)

“A CHALLENGE.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—If I correctly interpret the confused mass of verbiage, pious ejaculation, and postscript which appeared in your last issue around the signature of Mr Clement Scott, that gentleman labours under the delusion that he is engaged in a controversy. The facts are these:—I endeavoured privately and with an excess of courtesy to obtain from Mr Scott some information on a matter which concerned me. I was rudely repulsed, and my private letters were published by Mr Scott in an article containing a number of insulting charges, which he has since discovered were unfounded, but has not withdrawn. I thereupon challenged him publicly to give me the information I desired. There is no controversy.
     In an elaborately involved sentence of one hundred and twenty words, Mr Scott appears to imply that he is not one of the “two dramatic critics” who read The Glass of Fashion without my consent. Life is not long enough for the analysis of such a sentence; but if I have rightly understood it, there is an end of the matter. To other dramatic critics my objection does not apply. Although the business of advising seems to me incompatible with the business of criticising, I personally have no objection to my manuscript being judged by any other gentleman of the press.
     In that part of his letter which is intelligible, Mr Scott characterises my challenge as “insolent,” and my language as “audacious.” I admit the audacity of the playwright who comes into collision with Mr Clement Scott; and a gentleman who directs a management to “take down the placards and get another piece into rehearsal” ought to be an authority on “insolence.” But assuming that it is “insolence” to ask for a plain answer to a plain question, surely that may be forgiven in a “hyper-sensitive” author which in a critic is a scandal.
     I can well believe that I am troublesome to Mr Scott. After five years of damnation at his hands, I have the “insolence” not to be damned yet, and the obstinate public persists in applauding to the echo the “unfortunate play” he says it doesn’t like. The remedy is in Mr Scott’s own hands. If he ever has any calm moments, let him take advantage of one of those epochs, seriously to reflect whether the writer of the letter in last week’s Era, whose very eyesight is so clouded by prejudice that he discerns “rent oak, split   fireplace,” and “broken tables” in one table that was not broken, a fireplace that was not split, and no oak at all, is in a frame of mind to form a fair estimate of any work of mine. If Mr Scott cannot conscientiously say that he is towards me in that mood of equanimity and charity in which alone just judgments can be formed, let him relieve himself from the discomfort of sitting out my plays and refrain from criticising them and me. Then I will forgive him his past trespasses, and will even join him in his “thanks” to “heaven.”
                                                                                     I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
                                                                                                                   SYDNEY GRUNDY.
     Globe Theatre, Oct. 15th, 1883

_____

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
_____

. . .

“THE GLASS OF FASHION” was presented at the Globe Theatre on Thursday to an audience composed almost entirely of members of the theatrical profession, who had accepted the invitation of Messrs. Hollingshead and Shine to be present. The house was crowded, and Mr Grundy’s bright, witty, and clever comedy was thoroughly enjoyed, as was shown by the laughter and cheering it provoked. At the end of the second act all the artists engaged had a most enthusiastic call before the curtain.

___

The Era (27 October, 1883)

“A CHALLENGE.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I have done with Grundy, and I devoutly trust Grundy has done with me. Having been proved incorrect in his facts, he is becoming tedious in his fiction.
     He challenged me. I went out and hit my man very hard. Luckily for him he was pachydermatous, and no harm was done. Whenever he cares to stand up again I have another barrel ready.
     Towards our “unappreciated Shakespeare” I have no personal animosity whatever; and I can assure him that he will earn my absolute forgiveness for his past misdeeds when he writes better plays for the public and less nonsense concerning,
                                                                                     Yours wearily,         CLEMENT SCOTT.
     20th October, 1883.
     [Mr Grundy’s “challenge” has been given in two letters; Mr Scott has answered in two letters; and we must now decline to insert any further correspondence upon this subject.]

_____

“DRAMATIC CRITICISM.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I have read with no little sympathy Mr Sydney Grundy’s letters in your journal apropos of the criticisms on that brightest and most good-humoured of satires The Glass of Fashion, now running so successfully at the Globe Theatre. It would have been a matter for regret, indeed, if a work of such merit could have been “snuffed out by an article,” or by half a dozen; but, as I have frequently asserted, the public—and in that word I really include a large portion of the press—is ever on the side of honesty, independence, and talent, as against venality, nepotism, and incompetence. The protection of us authors, when we are beset by the rancour of the dramatic “ring” and the contumely of the critical  coterie, is the fair play of the public at large, and the independence of the newspapers in general. For the rest, no dramatic production of these days is quite so good or quite so bad as certain writers would lead the public to believe, though it must be sufficiently bewildering for simple-minded readers to find a dramatic critic by profession, with a keen eye to both the main and the minor chance, and a vested interest in filchings from the French, combining in himself the individualities of both Mr Puff and Mr Sneer; sending round the hat with one hand, and brandishing a bludgeon in the other; alternating between the epilepsy of savage abuse and the hysteria of sycophantic praise, and generally performing such antics under high heaven as must make even his employers blush and his critical brethren weep.
     In the Contemporary Review, a few years ago, I first drew attention to the “Newest Thing in Journalism,” and in “The Martyrdom of Madeline,” published last year, I was rash enough to return to the attack. What I tried to do critically Mr Grundy has done dramatically, and with much more success. Neither of us, therefore, can complain if the journalists of society tear us to pieces. When, in the current number of Truth, Mr Labouchere scarifies A Sailor and his Lass as he scarified Storm Beaten and Lady Clare, I feel no indignation; it would be cowardly to resent a violence which I myself have provoked, and which comes from a source which I have consistently held up to derision. Mr Labouchere has the courage of his opinions. He makes no pretence to either magnanimity or culture; a cynic pure and simple, he naïvely abuses his opponent, whether that opponent be Mr W. S. Gilbert or myself; and he himself would be the last man in the world to assume airs of superhuman honesty. Then, again, he has no vested interests at stake; he does not float his journal on charity, or praise or blame productions with a side-view to odd “jobs” from the management. It is altogether different with that other gentleman whom Mr Grundy has had the courage to name. But, after all, what does it matter? The public is not to be misled; the bulk of critics holds aloof from coterie conspiracy; and the practical illustration of the impotence of personal malice is to be found in the fact that The Glass of Fashion runs merrily at the Globe, and that crowds are turned away nightly from the doors of Drury-lane. I am, &c.,
                                                                                                                               ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Drury-lane Theatre, October 23d, 1883.

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The Era (3 November, 1883)

“DRAMATIC CRITICISM.”
_____

A DISCLAIMER.

Mr Augustus Harris has written as follows:—

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Although Mr Buchanan’s letter in The Era of October 27th is addressed from Drury-lane Theatre, it was written without my knowledge or consent, and I saw it for the first time on reading the paper this morning. I am perfectly satisfied with the favourable notices of A Sailor and His Lass which have appeared in a large number of the leading journals and have no inclination to enter into any discussions or old-standing disputes between Mr Buchanan and any individual member of the press.
                                                                                     Yours, &c.,         AUGUSTUS HARRIS.
     Drury-lane Theare, October 27th.

     [EDITORIAL NOTE.—It is only right to state that Mr Robert Buchanan’s letter, eliciting the above very judicious rejoinder, is not in any way to be identified with the Editor’s sanction of certain opinions therein expressed. It has always been the object of the Editor of The Era to afford in its columns a generous opportunity of discussing any real or fancied grievances affecting the interests of the theatrical profession; but aspersions on the motives of those called upon to discharge the very onerous and not always agreeable duties of a dramatic critic are neither in accord with our public duties nor our personal inclinations.]

_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—My collaborateur in A Sailor and his Lass has written to the newspapers, intimating that my letter in last week’s Era was written “without his knowledge or consent.” This is most certainly the case, and I should be very sorry indeed to have left on Mr Harris’s shoulders any portion of a responsibility which rested entirely with myself. Moreover, I quite agree with Mr Harris that our drama has been fairly, and even generously, judged by the majority of dramatic critics. The very point of my letter was that private malice is almost invariably defeated by the fair play of the newspaper press in general. Of all our leading critics, only one, so far as I know, combines in his own person the irreconcileable functions of dramatic critic and dramatic author.
                                                                                                       I am, &c.,          ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Grosvenor Club, W., October 29th, 1883.

_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—A letter appears in your last number signed “Robert Buchanan.” I can add nothing to the chapters of contempt that have been devoted to this writer by the powerful pens of Algernon Charles Swinburne and Edmund Yates, except a public expression of absolute and, I trust, dignified silence.
                                                                                     Yours faithfully,         CLEMENT SCOTT.
     October 31st, 1883.

[The correspondence on this subject is now closed.—EDITOR THE ERA.]

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The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (3 November, 1883 - p.18)

     VERY judiciously Mr. Augustus Harris disavows association with his collaborator, Mr. Robert Buchanan, in that gentleman’s violent attack upon “the rancour of the dramatic ring and the contumely of a critical coterie.” Mr. Harris is too shrewd a manager not to have discovered long ago that the “dramatic ring” is a figment of the imagination of the playwright, who for one reason or another thinks himself hardly used by his critics. It cannot be pleasant to have such silly, vulgar letters from Drury Lane theatre, and Mr. Harris is to be sympathised with in the circumstances which made his disclaimer necessary.

___

The Entr’acte (3 November, 1883 - p.4)

Merry-go-Round.

THAT letter which Mr. Robert Buchanan wrote to the old lady of Wellington Street last week, was something more than warm. If it had aimed at any other critic than Mr. Clement Scott, it is quite possible that Mr. Ledger would not have been violently in love with it.

     That Master Gus should repudiate this letter is only wise. Gus does not wish to make enemies of the newspaper people.

     I can’t help thinking that “A Sailor and His Lass” has been condemned with something more than necessary severity. It is a very much better piece than “Freedom,” and the last-named was never a tenth part slated like the more recent production has been.

     The highest-class drama stands no chance at Drury Lane Theatre, where the actors’ voices are not heard at times, and their facial play is not seen by those members of the audience at the back of pit, boxes, and gallery. Broad effects are wanted here; plenty of intelligible incident, stirring situations, and good scenery are the factors which, above all others, are required to pull a drama through, at this vast theatre.

     The late Samuel Phelps told me that he played “Werner” at Drury Lane to something under a twenty-pounds house. The old man made this humiliating confession not because he liked to do it, but to prove to me how utterly futile were experiments with the classics at this establishment.

__________

Revolting Realism (A Sailor and His Lass)

[Although I have not come across the ‘short leader’ in the evening edition of The Standard mentioned in Buchanan’s letter, the review of A Sailor and His Lass from that paper is available here. The review begins: “The Sailor and His Lass, the new piece at Drury Lane, which began last night at 7.45 and came to an end—after a revolting scene which should never have been put upon the stage—at 12.15, is a melodrama of the familiar pattern, elaborately set forth by the painters and carpenters.”]

The Standard (19 October, 1883 - p.3)

“REVOLTING” REALISM.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD.

     SIR,—My attention has just been called to a short leader in your Evening Edition of Tuesday commenting somewhat severely on the realisation of a public execution, with all its “revolting” details, in the Drury-lane drama, A Sailor and his Lass. Unfortunately, I quite fail to see in what respect such realisation differs, artistically speaking, from the pictures given in true tragedy of executions by the axe or guillotine, as in dramas illustrating the lives of Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette, or of burnings at the stake, as in the well-known French play of Jeanne d’Arc, made famous by the acting of Rachel. I shall be answered, doubtless, that the rope is anti-poetical and hideous, while the axe, the guillotine, and the faggot are poetical. Again, I fail to see the distinction, though it was pointed out to me, adversely, when I first attempted, years ago, in my poems, to get pathos and beauty out of themes of coarse contemporaneous life. To myself individually, there is solemnity and poetry in the idea of a poor modern martyr, condemned to die at the hands of the common hangman, awakening in the dim light of a wintry morning, and walking to the scaffold, while the death-bell tolls, amidst the thickly-falling snow. From the beginning of my literary career I have been among the strongest opponents of capital punishment; and if, in the drama already named, I picture that horrible blot on our civilisation as it is, I do so, both as artist and man, in the confidence that the representation can shock no truly tender heart, or otherwise do anything but good. Nowadays, our judicial murders are done in secret, and nowadays the super-sensitive nerves of certain playgoers are “revolted” by any reproduction of the stern and terrible facts of human suffering. Though such things are, they must not be spoken of or seen.
     Moreover, the misery of a ragged criminal is prosaic and disagreeable, while the sufferings of a King in sock and buskin are without offence to the æsthetic spectator. Fortunately, the playgoing public in general are differently constituted; they accept truth to nature, however familiar, and they sympathise with humanity, however lowly. For the rest, I am certain that no representation of merely revolting details, if unillumined by imagination and untempered by art, would be tolerated on our English stage; and if I had really overshot the mark in my drama—or rather, in the drama in which I have had the invaluable assistance and co-operation of Mr. Harris—the organised cabal which came to Drury- lane last Monday night would have succeeded in its purpose, instead of being crushed and defeated by the strength of an unprejudiced audience. No dramatist need fear the British public; for though its severity is sometimes terrible, its fairplay is proverbial. Judging from my own experience, I should surmise that the fairplay of some professional critics is more doubtful; but the Press in general, I am glad to say, resents unnecessary savagery on the part of particular members. To the critic of The Standard, among others, I owe my obligations; for though, as in the present instance, his criticism is somewhat hostile, he tempers justice with good nature, and now, as on former occasions, declines to deal in wholesale abuse.
                                                                                     I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
                                                                                                                               ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Drury-lane Theatre, October 18.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (19 October, 1883)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan is much exercised in mind to think that the charge of “revolting realism” should have been brought against the execution scene in the Drury-lane drama of “A Sailor and his Lass.” Mr. Buchanan is a poet as well as a playwright, and perhaps this is why he fails to see “in what respect such realization differs, artistically speaking, from the pictures given in true tragedy of executions by the axe or guillotine.” But a critic might remind Mr. Buchanan that there are many things which are fitting enough in poetry, but which are wholly unsuited to sensuous realization either in painting or on the stage. Perhaps Mr. Buchanan would have remembered this canon but for the fact that he was influenced, it seems, by a didactic motive. He has always been “among the strongest opponents of capital punishment,” and he pictured that “horrible blot upon our civilization” as a man as well as an artist. If the result is one of which the critics cannot approve, it is only another instance of the loss which a work of art always suffers from the intrusion of a directly didactic purpose. All good art is didactic, no doubt, but, like happiness, the moral will be found all the better if it is not too assiduously sought.

___

The Daily Graphic (New York) (22 October, 1883)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan, poet and novelist, declares that stage hangings (they have one now in London which will in course of due time be imported to America) “shock no truly tender heart.” Hence, a truly tender heart belongs to one who can be amused by the representation of an official strangulation. Mr. Robert Buchanan can do this and so has a “truly tender heart.”

___

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (27 October, 1883 - p.3)

     I CAN scarcely believe that Mr. Robert Buchanan is in earnest when he writes to the Standard and talks of an “organised cabal” against his play, The Sailor and His Lass. If Mr. Buchanan is sincere he is seriously mistaken. The idea of an “organised opposition” was invented a few years ago by a dramatist whose play failed, and who, after reflecting on the plot, incidents, and dialogue, could not see why. In common with the few hundreds of people that were in the theatre on the first night of the production, I could have told him, and “bad piece” would have been the explanation; but, oddly enough, from the outside point of view, this was the one thing that never occurred to the dramatist. The notion has been adopted a few times since, and now Mr. Buchanan takes it up. As a matter of fact, the reception of The Sailor and His Lass was astonishingly good. “Organised cabals” do not exist. What is more, they could not exist if members of a cabal arrived with the most malevolent designs, for the good feeling of the audience would summarily suppress them. If the flattering unction comforts Mr. Buchanan’s soul, by all means let him adopt it. It is nonsense all the same.

__________

Lady Clare

The Era (29 December, 1883)

“LADY CLARE” AND “LE MAITRE DE FORGES.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

Sir,—In reading your last number I came across an account of the first performance of M. Ohnet’s Le Maître de Forges at Paris. I was immediately struck by the resemblance of the plot to that of Mr Buchanan’s Lady Clare. The similarity was so striking that I was surprised it was not noticed in your columns.
     In both plays the heroine is jilted by an aristocratic lover on account of her lack of fortune, and out of pique marries a rich manufacturer. In both plays she consents to be his wife only in name, and subsequently begins to love him; and in both plays she saves her husband’s life by receiving the bullet in the duel between him and her former lover. Even the name of the heroine is the same in both plays. But the most striking similarity is that between the Melissa Smale of Mr Buchanan and the Athenaïs Moulinet of Le Maître de Forges. The characters and deeds of these two people are identical. Reckoning these similarities up it seems a moral certainty that M. Ohnet, has been largely indebted to Mr Buchanan’s play.
                                                                               Yours sincerely,         FRANK W. MASON.
     Dulwich Wood, S.E., December 25th.

_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—In reading your notice of M. Georges Ohnet’s new play, produced at the Gymnase last week, entitled Le Maître de Forges, it must surely strike the most casual observer the remarkably similarity, both in plot, characters, and incidents, to a piece produced at the Globe Theatre last summer, then under the management of Mr Robert Buchanan, entitled Lady Clare. Le Maître de Forges has, I believe, been purchased for a large sum, and is to be produced in London shortly. Is this singular likeness between Lady Clare and Le Maître de Forges of M. Ohnet merely a coincidence, or has Mr Robert Buchanan taken the story which appeared in the Paris Figaro, and placed it on the stage without acknowledging his indebtedness to the author?
                                                                                               I am, yours faithfully,
     December 27th, 1883.                                                                                  AN ENQUIRER.

___

The Era (5 January, 1884)

“LADY CLARE” AND “LE MAITRE DE FORGES.”
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—One of the readers of your valuable journal, I notice, has written to ask you if I did not draw my novel and my play, Le Maître de Forges, from a work of Mr Buchanan, entitled Lady Clare, and played some months ago in London. Had the reader in question glanced at the poster of Lady Clare, one of which was sent to me, he would have seen these words: “Founded on a well-known French romance.” Now the celebrated novel—for celebrated it is, I blushingly own—is Le Maître de Forges, published more than two years since by me in Le Figaro. I am astonished that, under these circumstances, Mr Buchanan was not the first to protest on my behalf, for nobody better than he knows what he owes me. And having profited by his work, it seems to me that that gentleman might, at least, have proclaimed my literary integrity.
     Well, then, since it is left to me to speak, let me give you the exact truth. Lady Clare was taken entirely from Le Maître de Forges. Mr Buchanan, following a common enough custom (against which old English loyalty is constantly protesting, though vainly, I own) confined himself to merely changing the names of the characters in my novel. His work, in fact, is a downright plagiarism. Having been adapted, to use the delicate euphemism customary in the Buchanan and Co. household, I resigned myself to it. But when charged with being an adaptor I become rebellious; and I ask that each shall have what belongs to him—myself the small merit of having written Le Maître de Forges, and Mr Buchanan the great advantage of having used a good pair of scissors to it. I reckon on your impartiality to publish my letter in your next issue. And I beg to remain,
                                                                                             Faithfully yours,
     14, Avenue Trudaine.                                                                              GEORGES OHNET.

_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Your correspondent Mr Frank W. Mason (in common, no doubt, with many others) is apparently not aware that long before the production of the play of Lady Clare M. Ohnet had written and published his famous novel “Le Maitre de Forges.” It is from that novel that Mr Buchanan drew his material for Lady Clare. It will be apparent to your readers that M. Ohnet’s mortification at having been forestalled in dramatising his own work will not be lessened at hearing that he is “largely indebted to Mr Buchanan’s play;” the truth being that Mr Buchanan is wholly indebted to M. Ohnet’s novel.
     Our excuse for troubling you on this subject is that we hold all English rights in “Le Maitre de Forges” direct from M. Ohnet, and so feel compelled, in justice to that gentleman and to ourselves, to enlighten your readers as to the real facts of the case.
                                                                                             Faithfully yours,
     St. James’s Theatre, London, January 2d, 1884.                                      HARE and KENDAL.

_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I am obliged to your correspondents Mr F. W. Mason and “An Enquirer” for calling attention to the similarity between Lady Clare, produced at the Globe Theatre, London, nearly a year ago, and Le Maitre de Forges, produced at the Gymnase, Paris, within the last fortnight. The explanation is very simple. The English drama (announced by me in the original programmes as “founded on a well-known French romance”) was suggested by M. Ohnet’s highly popular novel, and was written by me in Paris some two years ago. My indebtedness to the French novelist, however, must be acknowledged under the following qualifications:—
     1. All my characters are English personages, to whom their French prototypes bear little or no resemblance, and several of them—such as the Eton boy with his humorous courtship of the ingénue, the Irish major who seconds my hero in the duel, &c.—are quite original.
     2. Beyond two lines spoken by Lady Broadmeads, the dialogue of Lady Clare is entirely my own.
     3. Over and above all this, the motif and psychology of my play are quite distinct from those of the novel, and, presumably, of the French play. In M. Ohnet’s work, the central situation, that of the duel, is brought about in what I cannot help characterising as a very absurd, or, at any rate, a very French fashion, being founded on a squabble between the heroine and her lover’s wife, and the consequent action of the lover in taking his wife’s part! In Lady Clare, John Middleton goes, as he imagines, to his death, at the hands of a professed duellist, because he believes his wife loves his opponent, and even when Lady Clare interposes between them he fancies she does so to save his enemy, not himself. This furnishes, I fancy, the finest portion of the English drama, and it belongs wholly to myself. The French John Middleton is a very different person, who fights “for his honour” in consequence of domestic jars, and means no kind of self-sacrifice whatever.
     4. The incident of the duel is entirely different in the story, Clare placing her hand over the mouth of the Vicomte’s pistol, and having her hand shattered in consequence. It is a natural inference, therefore, that the arrangement of the duel portion of the Gymnase drama is founded, not upon the novel, but upon that particular portion of Lady Clare.
     Briefly, then, those who take the trouble to compare Le Maitre de Forges with Lady Clare will speedily discover how much the two works differ—in psychology, in dramatic arrangement, in character, and in dialogue. My play depended for much of its success on the light comedy portions, none of which are even foreshadowed in the French original. For the rest I made no concealment of the principal sources of my inspiration, and a reference to the original criticisms will show that the press generally were quite properly instructed as to the connection of my drama with a well- known French novel “Le Maitre de Forges.”
     Lady Clare has now been played in England several hundred times, with almost unvarying success. Since last June it has been the property of Mr Augustus Harris, who “travels” it with beautiful scenery, expressly painted for the tour, and an excellent company. It is important, therefore, to point out in how many cardinal respects it differs from M. Ohnet’s French drama so recently produced at the Gymnase, and how it is in no sense of the word a reduplication of that drama, but a freehand English version of a French novelist’s subject, with new characters, fresh incidents and situations, superadded comedy, and dialogue which I may call (quoting Touchstone) “a poor thing, but mine own.”  I am, &c.,
                                                                                                                                     ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Grosvenor Club, W., January 1st, 1884.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—The notion of Georges Ohnet, the novelist and dramatist, stealing a plot from Robert Buchanan, poet and playwright, is surely “enough to make a cat laugh.” The boot is I fear on the other leg. But the originality of Robert Buchanan’s Lady Clare was never for one moment in doubt. This upright and virtuous gentleman, who had not the candour to acknowledge the origin of his “new drama of modern society,” was, however, soon detected by one of the gentlemen who, to use his own elegant phrase, “carry a hat in one hand and a bludgeon in the other.” It was a dramatic critic who brought Robert Buchanan to book and unmasked his disingenuity; it was a dramatic critic who pointed out that Lady Clare was nothing more than a barefaced reproduction of Ohnet’s novel; it was a dramatic critic who within twelve hours of the production of the “new drama of modern society” told the public that Buchanan had without authority dramatised a French novel that he knew was being dramatised by its author for the French and English stage; and there is no one more rejoiced at the exposure of Robert Buchanan’s moral principles than one who has so often listened to the virtuous tirades and sanctimonious indignation of this savage Scotchman and calumniating Chadband.
                                                                                             Yours obediently,          A DRAMATIC CRITIC.

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