on the London boards within the memory of a generation.  According to some she was an accomplished actress, but she lacked that divine spark which stamps the true artist.  Others attributed her success to nothing but her personal grace and beauty; while one critic, bolder than his fellows, even went so far as to declare that whether she wore the attire of a Grecian maid, of a fine French lady of a century ago, or of the fabled Galatea, only pretty Miss Anderson, of Louisville, Kentucky, peeped out through every disguise.  Several causes, perhaps, combined to this uncertain sound which went forth from the trumpet of the dramatic critic.  Mary Anderson was an American artist, who came here, it is true, with a great American reputation; but so had come others before her, some of whom had wholly failed to stand the fierce test of the London footlights.  Then to “damn her with faint praise,” would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a becoming locus peniteniae would be easy and gradual if the vane should, in spite of the critics, veer round to the point of popular favor.  One of the most distinguished of English journalists lately observed in the House of Commons that certain writers in back parlors were in the habit of palming off their effusions as the voice of the great English public, till that voice made itself heard.  When the voice of the English theater-going public upon Mary Anderson came to make itself heard in the crowded and enthusiastic audiences of the Lyceum, in the friendship of all that was most cultivated and best worth knowing in London society, it failed altogether to echo the trumpet, we will not say of the back parlor critics only, but of some critics distinguished in their profession, who can little have anticipated how quickly the popular verdict would modify, if not reverse their own.

It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much to the point, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable paper read recently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science Congress.  It will hardly be denied that there are few artists competent to speak with more authority on matters theatrical, or better able to form a judgment on the true inwardness of that Press criticism to which herself and her fellow artists are so constantly subject: 

“Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either over-praise or too cruelly condemn.  The public, as a matter of course, turn to the newspapers for information, but how can any judgment be formed when either indiscriminate praise or unqualified abuse is given to almost every new piece and to the actors who interpret it?  Criticism, if it is to be worth anything, should surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of a picturesque article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be the aim of the theatrical reviewer.  Of course, the influence of the Press upon the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers find that their