On Thursday, Juno 16th, M. Brieux, the dramatist, addreesed a
large audience at the Institut Francais. Mr. A. B. Walkley was in the chair and Mr. Bernard Shaw proposed a vote of thanks. M. Brieux, among other points, made a spirited defence of the didactic drama, and claimed the theatre's right to treat any subject which -concerned the life of man. Our life, he said, was largely occupied by two unconscious struggles—one carried on in the interest of the perpetuation of the -species, the other the object of which is the conservation of the individual. Was every theatre a temple raised in honour of one idol only, and could one only worship there the trinity of husband, wife, and lover ? The dramatist had a right to deal with other subjects than love ; the right hitherto exercised under the form of tragedy, but now to be exercised under that ofthe social drama. The social volcano was boiling, and the premonitory noises were never more formidable. It was the dramatist who gave articulate voice to the dumb impulses of humanity. Mr. Shaw characterized M. Brieux as the Hogarth of the French stage.
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