The Theatrical World of 1895. By William Archer. (Walter Scott.)—Mr.
Archer has collected his theatrical criticisms of the year in this volume, the third, we observe, of its kind. They mean, of course, much more to those who saw the plays criticised than to the casual reader. One thing, however, is fairly evident,— that the drama of to-day is a thing from which decent people will do well to keep away. The poverty of our playwrights' imagina- tion, or the corruption of the audiences which they have to please, is such that it is scarcely possible to produce a play which has not illicit love, past, present, or future, for its motive. Farce is not always objectionable, but comedy—well, the less said the better. We are not quite sure whether Mr. Archer approves of this condition of things or not. He loses no opportunity of attacking the institution of a censorship, but whether because it is effective, or because it is ineffective, or because he approves.
in theory, of a free drama, as others approve of free-trade in drink, we do not know. There is no censorship, it is true, in literature, or rather, for Lord Campbell's Act is still on the Statute-Book, it has become obsolete ; and yet there are certainly more novelists than dramatists that have not bowed the knee to Baal.
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