SYDNEY GRUNDY: 
 
 A STUDY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK IN RELATION TO 
 
 MODERN DRAMA 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY MARCELLA WHETSLER 
 A. B. Rockford College, 1920 
 
 THESIS 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the 
 
 Degree of 
 
 MASTER OF ARTS 
 
 IN 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 1921 
 

 
 
 
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 3^1 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 "b) 
 
 19JLL 
 
 I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY 
 
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 SUPERVISION BY. 
 
 ENTITLED (^Aaaa*.c>L^ \ Jj Z-^£ 
 
 -Wind*, ilaji-tm hz ¥k o~c /vx ASlr- .3a GslstslO; 
 
 BE ACCEPTED AS EULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 THE DEGREE OF 1 
 
 -Q. 
 
 
 In Charge of Thesis 
 
 
 Head of Department 
 
 Recommendation concurred in* 
 
 Committee 
 
 on 
 
 Final Examination* 
 
 *Required for doctor’s degree but not for master’s 
 
 ^;:cci 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sydneygrundystudOOwhet 
 
Index 
 
 I. The English Stage (1850-1865) 1. 
 
 II. The Life of Grundy 14. 
 
 III. Grundy, as Pioneer 22. 
 
 IV. Grundy, as Exponent of his Age 40. 
 
 V. Grundy, as "Playwright of the Past.” 54. 
 
 VI . Conclusi on 62 . 
 
 VII. Appendix 67. 
 
 VIII. A List of Grundy's Plays 73. 
 
 IX. Bibliography 76 . 
 
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 I. 
 
 The English Stage (1850 - 1865) 
 
 If, in the spring of 1865, an English gentleman had re- 
 turned to London, after a fifteen years’ stay in foreign countries, 
 he would have found in the theatre a variety of entertainment. 
 
 He might, for instance, have seen at St. James 1 Miss Herbert in 
 Eleanor 1 s Victory , an adaptation from a novel. If his taste ran 
 to Shakespeare he might have seen Phelps in revivals of that great 
 Elizabethan at Drury Lane. There were any number of music halls 
 open, in which ballets, minstrel shows and popular songs amused 
 throngs of London theatre-goers. At the Haymarket, he might have 
 been entertained from seven until one - if he chose to stay so 
 long - by a playbill composed of Three Weeks After Marriage . Used 
 Up , a ballet and an extravaganza. He would have found, however, 
 no where in London, original plays of any merit. Never perhaps 
 was there a period in which drama was so near utter stagnation as 
 in the years from 1850 - 1865. Melodrama, usually French adapta- 
 tion and burlesque were the dominant factors of the English 3tage 
 repertoire. The actors were good, but the plays were poor and 
 shabbily managed. The drama lacked truth and insight into life. 
 
 No one, moreover, seemed to care enough or to have sufficient cour- 
 age or ability to pull drama from the rut in which it found itself. 
 Many were deploring the situation but they did little to alter it. 
 Clement Scott wrote that at this time "intellectual men and women 
 were leaving the theatre in disgust and removing their patronage 
 
 from the playhouse” which featured "wretched plays, the miserable 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 scenery, the tomfool dresses, the 'Adelphi guests', the 'Adelphi 
 moon*, and the banalities of a neglected and degraded stage." 1 
 One of the chief indications of the stagnant condition 
 of the theatre is the fact that for twenty-five years, from the 
 opening of the Princess' in 1841 until 1866, no new theatre was 
 erected in London. Although, after 1843 the number of theatres 
 in which legitimate drama might be played had been increased, what 
 little attempt was made to introduce a better type of play into 
 the music-halls was bitterly opposed by the managers of the for- 
 merly "protected" theatres. The legitimate theatres invoked the 
 
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 law against the Alhambra when L 1 Enfant Prodigue was produced there. 
 Buckstone, Baldwin, Chatterton and Webster sent out spies to de- 
 tect whether anything which savored of the dramatic was being given 
 in the music-halls. It was a long time before any free exchange 
 existed between the music-halls and the legitimate theatres. 
 
 In the latter, three types of play were, at this time, 
 in vogue, melodrama, burlesque and farce, and the romantic play. 
 Monster plays and pantomimes were also given occasionally. The 
 romantic type of play was past its first glory and was only too 
 obviously declining. With the retirement in 1851 of Macready who 
 had fostered Bulwer Lytton and Robert Browning, came a period 
 which was marked by little of importance in romantic drama. There 
 was, moreover, little scope for the aspiring dramatist in this 
 line. Apparently a sufficient number of such dramas had already 
 
 1 
 
 Scott, Drama of Yesterday and Today, Vol.I, p.4?5. 
 
 2 
 
 Hibbert , Fifty Years of a Londoner's Life , p.104. 
 
 3 
 
 Scott, Drama of Yesterday and Today , Vol.I, p.472. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 been written to satisfy the demand both of the public and of the 
 actors. The romantic plays which were on the stage were chiefly 
 revivals either of Shakespearean or of other Elizabethan drama- 
 tists. The Shakespearean actor continued to do the sort of thing 
 in which he had won his fame. Charles Kean tried at this time 
 elaborate Shakespearean revivals and succeeded very well with them. 
 W. G. Wills, the author of Charle s I , probably aspired to the ro- 
 mantic play, but succeeded only in writing something which was 
 very near melodrama. Charles I owed its success rather to Irving’s 
 acting than to any particular merit it possessed. 
 
 The second type of play, the melodrama, although ludi- 
 crous in its caricatures of life, was exceedingly popular through- 
 out London. From 1850 to 1875, Tom Taylor was the most noted ex- 
 ponent of melodrama. His plays are distinguished by much which 
 is worst in this type of play, exaggeration, falsification of 
 characters, and faulty motivation. After reading a few pages, 
 one may pick out almost unerringly the deadly villain, the beauti- 
 ful heroine and the wronged but brave and patient hero. Here 
 are no shades or nuances of character drawing; all are either 
 glaring white or raven black. Tom Taylor* s Mary W a rne r and The 
 Ticket-of-Leave Man , which ran for more than four hundred nights 
 in London, are both typical melodramas. Both revolve on the 
 story of an innocent person sent to prison for the guilt of an- 
 other; in Mary Warne r, the person is the wife of a poor workman, 
 in The Ticket-of-Leave Man , it is an ignorant country boy. In 
 both cases, the innocent one acts in the most noble fashion, for- 
 gives those who have treated him with the greatest cruelty, - and 
 the play ends with repentance and happiness. Both dramas have a 
 

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 great deal of action, many sentimental scenes and some ludicrously 
 pathetic ones. In Mary Warner , one scene occurs which we have 
 come to associate unmistakably with melodrama. In this scene, Mary 
 returns from court only to be refused admittance by her hard-heart- 
 ed landlady. Wishing that she might die, Mary sits forlornly on 
 the door-step, the snow "falls at intervals”, the moon shines and 
 the music plays mournfully. Mary cries, "He has gone back to his 
 luxurious house, while I am thrust without a shelter in these rags 
 out into the snow. My little Mary will never know how her mother 
 died. They say that to them who are overtaken by the frost and 
 the snow-falls, death comes like a sweet and peaceful sleep. Come 
 so to me, kind death. Come to me - for I am weary - weary of this 
 life." But, of course, she lives to return to her welcoming hus- 
 band and child. 
 
 Another popular writer of melodrama was Dion Boucicault, 
 actor and manager. Boucicault was known for a particular variety 
 of melodrama, which dealt with the Irish people. Before he began 
 to write of the Irish, he had written many plays, the plots of 
 which he borrowed from other writers, both French and English. It 
 was not until 1860 that he began the series of original plays 
 which made him famous, Arrah-Na-P o gue , The Shaughradn , and Colleen 
 Bawn . These, too, are stock melodramatic types, full of improba- 
 bilities and exaggerations. Although they marked an advance in 
 character analysis in that they showed the tragic as well as the 
 comic side of the Irishman, they did not go far beneath the sur- 
 face. M. Filon wrote in 1897 that Boucicault 1 s "Irish psychology 
 
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 was true to life". Compared, however, with the interpretation 
 4 . 
 
 Filon. The English Stage, p.91 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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 of the Irish peasant which we have been given since by Synge, Lady 
 Gregory and Ervine, Boucicault's representation is seen to be false. 
 The Iri 3 h character created by Boucioault was, nevertheless, very 
 popular in his day, and has persisted on the stage even to the pre- 
 sent . 
 
 The Englishman of the ‘fifties must have been very fond 
 of his joke, for farce and burlesque held the central position on 
 the English stage at that time. The humor was, moreover, of the 
 oldest and broadest type. A program was seldom complete without 
 a farce of some kind, and often the most serious plays were preced- 
 ed by burlesque. La Somnambula; or The Supper, The _S le_e p er__and 
 The Me rry Swiss Bo£ is indicative of the type. Usually this vari- 
 ety of play depended for its fun on very complicated and improbable 
 situations, and on stock comic characters. Byron never worried 
 about unity of subject or, in fact, about having a subject, but 
 depended for the success of his pieces on the supply of puns which 
 he scattered through them. His head and his notebook were full of 
 jokes which he had collected from various sources. If, in rehear- 
 sal, a scene were going poorly, Byron could always be relied upon 
 to compose a rhyme or a joke which might save the situation. Often 
 what he wrote was sheer nonsense, but it was nonsense which pleased 
 the London public. Our Boy s, by Byron, ran so long a time, a 
 thousand three hundred, sixty-two nights, that one actor reproved 
 
 for forgetting his lines exclaimed, “Do you think that we can re- 
 
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 member the damned thing forever?" 
 
 The type of play which was conspicuous by its absence 
 
 5 
 
 Hibbert, A Playgoer's Memories , p.34. 
 

 
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 at this time was that dealing truly and without prejudice with 
 English life. Neither in comedy nor in tragedy were such plays 
 being oreated. There seemed to be nothing between the Shakespear- 
 ean revivals and the farce. Seemingly the masters of drama had 
 failed to hand down their rules to the younger generation, or the 
 younger generation refused to heed the rules of the masters 
 
 But there was a more potent reason than this. The great- 
 est reason for the unproductiveness of native drama was the flood 
 of adaptations which swept the country. Instead of creating drama 
 dealing with English people and English themes, the playwrights 
 of the ‘fifties, ’sixties, ’seventies and even later borrowed ideas, 
 characters, plots and structure from the French. Borsa wrote that 
 the "only author who then achieved success was Scribe.” In this 
 enormous dose of French drama, from which it took the English stage 
 many years to recover, is to be found, I think, one of the chief 
 reasons why no English plays of merit were produced at this time. 
 Managers found it much cheaper and easier to adapt or to translate 
 a French play than to write a new English one. In 1850, moreover, 
 no copyright laws prevented managers from doing or having this 
 done if they chose. Before 1852 a play might be taken bodily from 
 the French to the English stage without paying any royalty. In 
 that year a law was passed giving a foreign author copyright privi- 
 leges in England for five years, and prohibiting translation but 
 not adaptation. It was sufficient, therefore, for an English 
 author to change a character or a minor detail in the plot in 
 order to comply with the law. But in 1875 a law was passed govern- 
 
 6 
 
 Borsa, 1 The English Stage of Toda y , p.51. 
 
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 ing adaptation as well as translation. It was not, however, until 
 1887, as a result of the Treaty of Berne that the work of a foreign 
 author was fully protected. From 1875 until 1887 that type of ad- 
 aptation was popular which took a problem or thesis from a French 
 play and projected it into English life. Sometimes the thesis fit- 
 ted English life, and sometimes it did not. In this incongruity 
 between situation and character, lies one of the reasons for the 
 falsity of many of the adaptations. Clement Scott gives a rather 
 
 amusing but none the less true account of how the process of ad- 
 
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 aptation was often carried out. Scott, Stephenson and Bancroft 
 after seeing Sardou’s Dora in Paris were agreed that it would make 
 a good English play. They decided that Sardou's second act must 
 either go or be combined with Act I. They then were puzzled to 
 find the typically English element which must be inserted. Finally 
 they decided that "jingoism ", then popular in England, would lend 
 atmosphere to the play. By the time they reached London, the 
 structure of the whole thing was decided on, and Scott settled down 
 to the writing and Bancroft to the editing. Scott was very proud 
 of the result which under the title of Diplomacy enjoyed a success- 
 ful London run. 
 
 It is little wonder that with such wealth of material to 
 draw from the ordinary London manager preferred the adaptation to 
 the original play. The manager knew he could employ a mediocre 
 writer for a small sum to make an adaptation which might be as 
 successful as an original play by a skilled dramatist. The play- 
 wrights of the day were, therefore, forced to turn their hands to 
 
 7 
 
 Scott, En glish D rama of Yesterday and To-day, Vol. I., p. 593. 
 

 
 
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 adaptation if they wished to live. Tom Taylor was glad to get a 
 hundred and fifty pounds for The Ticket-of-Leave Man which he ad- 
 apted from Leonar d by Brisebarre and Nuz . Robertson, for a long 
 time in despair because he could not find a market for his original 
 plays, was forced to do adaptation. For a period he was even em- 
 ployed by Lacy, a theatrical bookseller, at such contemptible work 
 as retranslating West-End successes of French plays for East-End 
 theatres. To such lengths had adaptation gone!' 
 
 Also largely responsible for the neglect of English drama 
 was the actor-manager system of England, which although sometimes 
 beneficial, was more often a detriment to the theatre. The actor- 
 manager might have done much for native drama if he had so chosen- 
 Marie Wilton was one who did choose - but usually he was too in- 
 terested in making money or in increasing his fame to give much at- 
 tention to the aspiring dramatist. Shaw places the blame on the 
 system as such rather than on the individual. He writes: "We all 
 know by this time that the effect of the actor-manager system is 
 to impose on every dramatic author who wishes to have his work pro- 
 duced in first rate style, the condition that there shall be a 
 good part for the actor-manager in it. This is not in the least 
 due to the vanity and jealousy of the actor-manager: it is due to 
 
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 his popularity." In any case, such a system is a curb to the 
 aspiring young dramatist. 
 
 One of the chief faults of the plays of the third quarter 
 of the century was just this, that they were too obviously full of 
 fat roles for actor -managers. W. S. Gilbert in 1873 7/rote in fun 
 
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 Archer, The Theatrical World of 1894 , p.XVI 
 

 
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 an illuminating article on how plays were made. Although the es- 
 say was written in a whimsical vein, there was a great deal of 
 truth beneath it. Gilbert told of the struggles of a dramatist, 
 who had an order from a manager for a play on a certain date. The 
 entire drama, idea and all, must be written with certain actors 
 in mind. Even the dialogue must be arranged in order that a cer- 
 tain famous comedian might win applause. In such a scheme the 
 actor-manager and his friends were sure to be well protected, even 
 if the minor actors were never given a chance. Certainly there 
 was little opportunity for dramatic genius in such a made-to-order 
 play. 
 
 Unfortunately the theatrical world was full of actor- 
 managers who demanded just this type of play. Chatterton, Buck- 
 stone, Webster and George Vining were distinguished by narrow-mind- 
 edness and by an unwillingness to venture or to see beyond their 
 day. It was Chatterton who said, ”1 am neither a literary mission- 
 ary nor a martyr. I am simply the manager of a theatre, a vendor 
 
 of intellectual entertainment to the London public, and I found 
 
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 that Shakespeare spelled ruin and Byron bankruptcy.” Bucketone 
 is perhaps the most typical as well as the best known of the man- 
 agers of that day. He was not only actor and manager, but also 
 playwright. His mind was unfortunately closed to anything beyond 
 his own experience. Calling it "rot”, Bucket one refused Robert- 
 son’s Society , as in fact did all the other London managers. He 
 was unwilling to give Marie Wilton a chance to act in anything but 
 burlesque; he could not, he said, associate her with anything but 
 
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 Hibbert , Fifty Years of a Londoner’s Life, p.242. 
 

 
 
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 the "merry sauciness of that wicked little boy Cupid." Moreover, 
 
 he ran his company in a very slip-shod, even if delightfully happy- 
 
 go-lucky fashion. He, as well as the other managers of that period 
 
 could not take drama seriously. When one of Buckstone'3 actors 
 
 was missing one evening and a frantic search had been made for him, 
 
 he was found talking calmly to the manager in a tavern across the 
 
 way.^ 1 By opposing free dramatic criticism, both Buckstone and 
 
 Vining hindered the progress of drama. Buckstone was wont to say 
 
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 of the dramatic critics, "What do they know about it?" , while 
 Vining declared that a dramatic critic was the lasu person to make 
 a complaint, because he came in on an order. 
 
 If, however, the number of narrow actor-managers was 
 large, some there undoubtedly were who did much for the drama. 
 
 Marie Wilton was the exception which proved the rule. The opening 
 of the Prince of Wales' Theatre, under her management, on April, 
 
 15, 1865, was probably the first step forward for English drama. 
 Marie Wilton, despairing of being permitted to act anything but 
 burlesque, decided to q?en a theatre of her own. She succeeded in 
 forming a partnership with H. G. Byron, in which she was to fur- 
 nish a thousand pounds, and he was to furnish the plays. Bjr dint 
 of a great deal of hard work and courage, Marie Wilton transform- 
 ed a miserably dirty little theatre near Tottenham Court Road into 
 what was spoken of then as a "blue and white bonbonniere " . The 
 theatre succeeded very well for a time; it became the fashion to 
 
 ^ Mr. and Mrs. Bancrof t, p. 172, Vol.I. 
 
 11 Maude, The Hayma.rket T h eatre , p. 140. 
 
 12 
 
 Maude , The Haymarket Theatre , p . 143 . 
 

 
 
 
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 go for amusement to the well-lighted, cheerful little theatre. But 
 Marie Wilton was not satisfied; she wanted to act something bet- 
 ter than burlesque. Byron on the other hand, had been brought up 
 in the school of puns and was incapable or unwilling to write any- 
 thing but farcical plays. The two drifted apart for a time, and 
 then, when Byron became entangled in theatrical speculation in 
 Liverpool, a dissolution was effected. Marie Wilton was now with- 
 out both a co-manager and a dramatist. Already she had accomplish- 
 ed wonders in management; 3he had effected changes in the system 
 of costuming and had insisted on the best she could get in actors 
 and plays. But she wanted to go farther. She soon found a man- 
 ager in Squire Bancroft, whom she afterwards married. Her happier 
 choice, for the drama, however, was that of Society by T. W. 
 Robertson as her next production. 
 
 Robertson, at this time, was meeting rebuff after re- 
 buff whenever he attempted to eell an original play. All the 
 London managers were afraid to produce Society , because of what 
 was then thought of as its vivid realism. Finally, however, he 
 succeeded in bringing out Society in Liverpool. It was about this 
 time that Byron left Marie Wilton. She was glad to secure 
 Robertson’s play and to produce it in her new theatre. When 
 warned that the realistic scene in the Owl’s Roost was a menace 
 to the play, she exclaimed that it was "better to be dangerous 
 than to be dull”. 13 She must have recognized some spark of future 
 genius in the play; certainly the leading character gave her little 
 opportunity to display her own talent. Differing, however, from 
 the usual actor-manager, she was willing to produce Society even 
 
 13 
 
 Hibbert. Fifty Years of a Londoner^ Life, p. 343. 
 
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 if it would add little to her personal glory as an actress. It 
 was, however, to add much to her fame, for Society was only the 
 first of a series of plays which made both her and Robertson 
 favorably known. 
 
 If, when Society was produced on November 11, 1865, 
 the English drama did not immediately awake, it at least began 
 to stir in its sleep and to feel the premonitions of a not too 
 distant awakening. Society . which ran far beyond the four per- 
 formances prophesied for it by Buckstone, was followed by a 
 series of similar plays. Among the most notable of these were 
 Ours , Caste and School . Compared with the play of today they 
 were extremely faulty, but compared with those which had immedi- 
 ately preceded they possessed many merits. They were, first of 
 all, more original than anything which had gone before. The life 
 in them was not taken from books but from real men and women. 
 Robertson's career had led him to many places, and he, a keen 
 observer, had 3 tored his memory with many characters and situa- 
 tions. The people in his plays were more true to life than were 
 those in the plays preceding. He drew the journalists in 
 Society and Polly Eccles in Caste from real life. The dialogue 
 of Robertson was, moreover, nearer the talk of real English men 
 and women than anything which had been heard on the London stage 
 for some time. Finally, Robertson made an attempt to comment on 
 life and to treat, even if somewhat superficially, some of the 
 social problems of his day. 
 
 In spite of his merits, Robertson had many faults. Of 
 all his plays, only Caste , had any real well-developed situa- 
 tion. Even this Robertson was unable to keep entirely free from 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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 melodramatic traits. Most of his plays possessed faults in 
 structure. Many of them were filled with wishy-washy sentiment, 
 which led to the app^Lation of "cup and saucer" comedy. There 
 were also scenes which were exaggerated, namely the scene in 
 Crimea in Ours. Nevertheless, because of its comedy value, its 
 fairly true presentation of life and its originality, Robertson’s 
 work marked a step forward in the development of the English 
 dr ama . 
 
 In spite of the opening of the Prince of Wales’ theatre 
 and the presentation of the plays of Tom Robertson, the golden 
 age of drama was still a dim vision in the minds of idealists. 
 
 The public was still delighting in melodrama and in the broadest 
 of farce and burlesque. Managers were still indifferent to or 
 unwilling to encourage what products of native talent might be 
 offered them. Marie Wilton was an exception among managers; the 
 majority of them were interested mainly in cheap productions. 
 Robertson's plays were only a few in the great mass of drama 
 being produced. Adaptations from Scribe, Labiche, Sardou and 
 Dumas were flooding the theatrical market of England. The "blue 
 and white bonbonniere" on Tottenham Court Road could reach only 
 a few. There was still great room for improvement. The way had 
 been shown; a little step forward had been taken. It remained 
 for someone else to take up and make more potent the work which 
 Marie Wilton and Robertson had labored many years to start. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 II . 
 
 The Life of Grundy. 
 
 The scarcity of biographical material concerning Sydney 
 Grundy has made it especially difficult to write a coherent ac- 
 count of his life. A number of letters written by Professor 
 Hillebrand to various figures in the London theatrical world 
 have brought two valuable replies, one from William Archer and 
 the other from George Bernard Shaw. Both these letters, with 
 a note from Mrs. Kendal, are included in an appendix. Aside from 
 them almost nothing concerning the life of Grundy could be found. 
 Hints of his struggle for recognition and of his resentment at 
 the reception his plays received are reflected in critical re- 
 views and even in his own plays, such as The Si lver Shield . This 
 lack of material is more deplora.ble because one feels that in the 
 case of Grundy, more than with most men, a knowledge of his life 
 is peculiarly essential to the complete understanding of his work. 
 The perpetual struggle throughout his career against real or 
 fancied enemies reflects itself continually in his attitude to- 
 wards life as it is expressed in his plays. His influence might 
 indeed have been even more strongly felt than it was, if he had 
 not vitiated his force by scattering it against many opponents. 
 
 Sydney Grundy was born in Manchester, England, on the 
 twenty-third of March, 1848, of upper middle-class stock. His 
 father was Charles Sydney Grundy, formerly mayor of Manchester. 
 Young Grundy may have had tutors; at least William Archer writes 
 of this period: "He told me (I think) that it was a Frenchman 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 who taught him French in Manchester who instilled into him that 
 admiration of Eugene Scribe which established his dramatic method, 
 and which, unfortunately, he never outgrew. His French, however, 
 remained very imperfect. He was capable of rather gross mis- 
 translations. For instance, he would translate •chance’, simply 
 Chance* instead of *good fortune'”. 1 Grundy received his college 
 training at Owen College, Manchester, now Victoria University. 
 
 After college Grundy studied to be a lawyer and was 
 
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 called to the bar in 1869. From then until 1876 he practised 
 law, not without some measure of success. But his interest seem3 
 early to have lain in the drama and led him to write plays four 
 years before he definitely made dramatic work his profession. His 
 first play, a one-act comedietta A Little Change , he sent in 1872 
 to the manager of the Haymarket , London. Across the first page 
 of the manuscript he had written, ”You may Play this for Nothing." 
 Within three weeks the play was produced with Mr. and Mrs. Kendal 
 in the leading roles. Encouraged by this modest entrance into 
 the theatrical world, Grundy wrote and saw produced in Manchester 
 in 1873 the play. All at Sea. 
 
 This early period of Grundy* s life was one of rebellion 
 against the narrow conventions of his own town. It was sometime 
 in the early * seventies, I should judge, that he evoked the mor- 
 bid curiosity and the wrath of the Manchester gossips. Archer 
 writes in this connection: "I knew that there had been some 
 
 trouble in his early life which had procured him in some quarters 
 the reputation of a man of loose morals. I fancy it was almost 
 
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 entirely undeserved - probably some sentimental imbroglio was 
 harshly interpreted by the Pharisaism of his native place." 
 Whatever it may have been, the remembrance of the experience 
 rankled throughout Grundy's life, and undoubtedly led to his 
 championship of those whom he believed to be harshly condemned. 
 What he endured then is reflected in his three volume novel. 
 
 The Days of his Vanity , and in such plays as The Silver Shield 
 and Slaves of th e Ring . That both he and his work were abhorrent 
 to Manchester may be ascertained from the remark of a critic of 
 that city who denounced his work as being "eaten up with the can- 
 cer , or canker, or chancre of immorality." 
 
 Restless, then, under the bonds of convention and en- 
 couraged by the production of two of his plays, the young drama- 
 tist started to London with many ideas and much enthusiasm. 
 
 About this time - perhaps on the way to London - Grundy met his 
 life long friend and critic, William Archer. In 1897, Grundy 
 wrote an account of this meeting which shows the eagerness, en- 
 thusiasm and stubbornness of the young playwright. 
 
 "Twenty years drop from my back, and I am seated in 
 a humble compartment of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway. 
 Opposite to me is a young Scotchman - Scotsman he calls himself; 
 but I, possessing no literary style, call him a Scotchman; be- 
 cause, though it may be very bad Scots, it is excellent English. 
 We fall into conversation. We discover that we are both pro- 
 foundly interested in plays and players. We discuss them eager- 
 ly; and I find myself, almost for the first time in my life, in 
 
 2 
 
 See Appendix t p. ?i . 
 

 
 
 
 mV I 
 
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 . 
 
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-17- 
 
 agreement with one of my fellow-creatures. My companion was not 
 then, Mr. Archer, the eminent critic, or I should not have pre- 
 sumed to address him; he was only a young Mr. Archer, a law-stu- 
 dent, with a portrait of one Henrik Ibsen hanging over his bed- 
 room mantel-piece. How we analyzed those plays: How we discussed 
 those players: How we dissected that Ibsen! And how we agreed! 
 
 3 
 
 Our unanimity was wonderful." 
 
 This strong interest in and study of Ibsen must have 
 
 had an influence on Grundy’s work, although he "vehemently denied 
 
 any imitation of Ibsen's matter or manner." * * * 4 ' Ibsen's symbolism 
 
 and his emphasis of social problems were the characteristics which 
 
 most appealed to Grundy. Dickinson says that Grundy "attempted 
 
 to combine the technique of Scribe with the moral intensity of 
 
 a Norwegian or a German dramatist." 5 Many of his plays, different 
 
 as they are from Ibsen in form and characterization, have much of 
 
 his moral fervor. Miss Franc writes that Armitage in The Greatest 
 
 of Thes e - is "another Consul Bernick in his infallible virtue" 
 
 and that the relation of husband and wife in the same play is that 
 
 of an older Helmer and Nora. 6 7 However, she remarks that "Grundy 
 
 reveals careful observance of the Norwegian dramatist" in this 
 7 
 
 play alone. It seems to me that Ibsen's treatment of social pro- 
 blems subtly influenced Grundy throughout his career. Such an 
 early play as Slaves of the Ring which Grundy in high hope must 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1897, introduction, p. XII 
 
 4 
 
 Franc, Ibsen in England, p. 139 
 
 5 
 
 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama in England , p. 89 
 
 6 
 
 Franc, Ibsen in England, p. 147 
 
 7 
 
 Franc, Ibsen in England, p. 140 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-18- 
 
 have carried with him to London, reveals in its moral tone a strand 
 of influence from Norway. But just as Ibsen would, in 1876, have 
 been condemned in London, so Slaves of the Ring , with its sharp 
 blows at the narrowness and cruelty of convention, "was rejected 
 by every important manager in London.” 
 
 What the London audience liked and wanted was melodrama 
 or light, pleasant comedy. What the London manager found easiest 
 and cheapest to produce was French adaptation, embodying these 
 qualities of exaggeration, lightness and superficiality. "Even 
 after Robertson there was an undiminished flow of adaptations from 
 the French. All the leading dramatists were occupied in this curi- 
 ously ignoble and servile task. It was considered the right thing 
 to do; at all events, from the managerial standpoint it was con- 
 
 Q 
 
 sidered the saf e thing to do." Under such conditions Grundy turn- 
 ed to adaptation and, unfortunately for his later work, achieved 
 some success with Mamma , The Snowball , and In Honour Bound. As he 
 did not, however, make a great deal of money, he lived in quite 
 humble circumstances with his wife and daughter in West Dutwich. 
 This daughter, Lily Grundy, afterwards went on the stage, but gain- 
 ed only a middling success. All the time the dramatist was working 
 unceasingly at original plays, adaptations and librettos, turning 
 out from two to three a year. With the appearance of the Drury 
 Lane melodrama. The Bells of Haslemere , in 1887 he won a certain 
 amount of financial ease. From 1885 until 1895 he was classed 
 with Pinero and Jones, and in 1893 he achieved pnenomenal success 
 with Sowing the Wind , which had a seven years’ run in England and 
 was very favorably received in the United States. In the last 
 
 Courtney, Old Saws and Modern Instance, p. 176. 
 
 8 
 
. 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
-19- 
 
 8eventeen years of his life he did little notable work along dramatic 
 lines, but he continued until his death to produce plays and to write 
 articles on subjects of dramatic interest. On July 5, 1914, after a 
 long period of suffering, he died of cancer. 
 
 If one had met Grundy on the London streets in the late 
 nineteenth century, he would, I think, have taken the dramatist for 
 a successful banker. He had none of the elegance of Wilde, none of 
 the fervor of Shaw, nor the dignity of Pinero. There was little of 
 the theatrical in his appearance as revealed by his picture. Kind- 
 liness, idealism lie in his eyes, but a certain stubbornness seems 
 also apparent in the squareness of his shoulders and the erect lift 
 of his head. His early training revealed itself in his bearing. "He 
 retained through life", writes Archer, "a slight north country ac- 
 cent, many north country peculiarities." He had hobbies, too; among 
 these were astronomy and a fervent interest in the search which was 
 
 q 
 
 made for some Baconian manuscripts." His almost childlike shyness is, 
 of course, manifest in his reaction to criticism. A story, which 
 Cyril Maude tells of him reveals this almost morbid sensitiveness 
 and reminds one of Shaw's poet, Marchbanks, who sat in agony over 
 how much to pay the cabman. Maude writes: 
 
 "When Grundy first wrote a play for us I noticed that he 
 seemed very restless and unhappy. He could do nothing but fidget a- 
 bout and was constantly going out and strolling up and down in front 
 of the theatre for ten minutes or so at a time. I was much puzzled 
 as to what could possibly be the matter with him, and neither Harri- 
 son nor myself could discover a reason for his apparent discomfort. 
 
 At last one day after the rehearsals had been some little time in 
 
 progress Grundy came up to me mysteriously, and after talking a few 
 9 
 
 See Appendix , p. 72 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
- 20 - 
 
 commonplaces, said: 
 
 "'I say, Maude, by the way I hear Marshall smokes in the 
 theatre when he's rehearsing. Is that so?' 
 
 "'Yes, of course', I replied. 
 
 "A look of great joy illumined Grundy's face. 
 
 "'Thank Heaven! he replied; 'then I can smoke my pipe.' And 
 forthwith out came a briar. 
 
 "From that moment all trace of restlessness and discontent 
 vanished. "10 
 
 The number of Grundy's outbursts against certain critics and 
 the bitterness of his invectives might indicate that he was a man 
 of harsh, sour temperament. Such was the opposite of the case. He 
 was a person of remarkably affectionate disposition; his attacks 
 were never aimed at the man, but at the idea which the man champion- 
 ed. Shaw writes: "Grundy never alluded to me in print except in 
 
 terms of the most contemptuous hostility. Eut we were none the 
 worse friends personally." 11 Grundy, himself, after calling Shaw 
 a cannibal and Palmer his enemy could write in this fashion: 
 
 "When I see a bubble I am irresistibly impelled to prick 
 it, no matter if I prick myself in the process; when I meet a hum- 
 but , I cannot resist the temptation to call him one. This leads to 
 unpleasantness. But I can love my adversary, even 7/hen I am doing 
 my humble best to disembowel him; so can Mr. Shaw, and I have little 
 doubt that, despite my plain speech, we shall again be seen hob-nob- 
 bing over a dish of lentils and a jorum of toast and water. I even 
 have hopes that Mr. Palmier and I may one afternoon crack together a 
 pot of Oxford tea. Unluckily, I can't eat tea-cakes, and muffins 
 
 10 
 
 Maude, The Haymarket Theatre, p. 234. 
 
 11 
 
 See, Appe ndix , p. 68. 
 

 
 
 
 
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 would mean an inquest. "12 
 
 Such was the method of fighting of one who called himself 
 "the least pugnacious, because one of the laziest of men". Person- 
 ally, he was hurt by the criticism of his work, and he magnified 
 perhaps the forces working against him. He was, I think, sincere 
 when he spoke of the "protracted crusade" which he believed Clement 
 Scott waged against him. 13 The reaction of the young playwright to 
 adverse opinion is shown in this: 
 
 "In artistic matters the personal equation counts for a 
 great deal; and a paragraph of undue severity, or an injurious mis- 
 statement of fact is not balanced by a column of fulsom adulation. 
 Above all, no eulogy, however lavish, in the day of prosperity can 
 compensate for neglect or contumely in the day of small things." 14 
 
 It seems a strange paradox that a man so gentle and so pe- 
 culiarly sensitive to criticism should have continually struggled 
 with life and invited the criticism of men. Never was Grundy's 
 lance at rest. In his Manchester days he fought the dragon of Vic- 
 torian morality; later he met neglect, criticism, and finally in- 
 tellectual oblivion. However, he retained his youth, his idealism 
 to the end. "A born fighter, he never showed any malice, and his 
 occasional outbursts did not represent his kindly and generous 
 nature . 
 
 Grundy. Play of the Future, p. 33. 
 
 13 
 
 The The atr e . Vol. 13, p. 298. 
 
 14 
 
 Archer, Theatr ic al World. 1897, preface, p. XXII. 
 
 15 
 
 The Athenaeum , July 11, 1914. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
- 22 - 
 
 III. 
 
 Grundy, as Pioneer. 
 
 Sydney Grundy* s death, no less than his life, was mark- 
 ed by irony. In July, 1914, when the world was filled with the 
 rumble of assembling armies, the death of an old-fashioned drama- 
 tist was perforce relegated to the briefest of notices in the 
 newspapers. Six days after his death, a very concise review of 
 his life appeared in the "Dramatic Gossip" column of Th e Athenaeum . 
 The notice which gives as his two best plays, a couple of adapta- 
 tions, A Marriage of Convenience and A Pair of Sp ec tacles is sig- 
 nificant in that it is just about what had been said of Grundy 
 throughout his career. In the statement that he showed a "deft 
 hand in farce and melodrama" lies the customary slight hint of 
 appreciation. The majority of critics even in condemning Grundy 
 threw him a grudging word of praise. They were as slow to appre- 
 ciate the merit of his original work as they were quick to decry 
 the ingeniousness of his adaptations. 
 
 There were those, however, who saw in Grundy a man 
 capable of doing very good work on the stage. The most sympathet- 
 ic and appreciative critic of Grundy was probably William Archer. 
 In 1882, Archer heralded Grundy as one of the leading playwrights, 
 as perhaps the regenerator of the stage. A little later, in 1886, 
 he classed him with Jones and Pinero. Although Archer was eager 
 to see Grundy* s merits he could not fail to see hie faults, and, 
 
 x 
 
 for a time, the critic deplored the dramatist’s ingeniousness and 
 lack of real dramatic insight. In 1893 Archer wrote "Mr. Sydney 
 

 
 
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-23- 
 
 Grundy has for years been afflicted, I take it, with paralysis of 
 artistic ambition. It is assuredly no lack of inborn talent that 
 he suffers from, but lack of will to use it to the best advantage," 3 
 and again in the next year, "I believe Mr. Grundy has the brain 
 power for half a dozen masterpieces if only he would get rid of 
 one or two technical prejudices which still lumber his mind." ^ 
 Perhaps Grundy* s next most favorable critic was Max 
 
 | 
 
 Beerbohm. The period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth 
 
 Ij 
 
 century, in which Max acted as the dramatic critic for The Satur- j| 
 day Review was, moreover, a period of slender activity for Grundy .| 
 Although Beerbohm deplored Grundy 1 s "perfunctory humor", his un- 
 
 i 
 
 distinguished writing and his aiming at situation, nevertheless, j 
 he saw what many reviewers failed to see, the latent ability in 
 the dramatist. He seemed to think the cause of Grundy’s weakness | 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 was that he "loved the past so well that he could not bear to 
 
 ! 
 
 treat it otherwise than as the present." He said, however, "Mr. 
 
 ;! 
 
 Grundy has knowledge of the world, and a keen sense of character, j! 
 
 I! 
 
 He has wit, too. If he chose to, he could write an excellent 
 
 3 i! 
 
 comedy of contemporary life." I doubt, however, whether in 1908 
 
 || 
 
 when that critique was written Sydney Grundy could have "come 
 back" sufficiently to write anything but adaptation. He was by 
 that time trained heart and soul in a school from which he had 
 tried to escape but to which he had been forced back until he 
 grew to like it. 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1893, p. 142. 
 
 2 
 
 Archer, Theatrica l World, 1894, p.118. 
 
 3 
 
 Saturday Review, April 25, 1908, p. 525. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 • 
 
 
 
0/1 _ 
 
 The beet of Grundy's reviewers were almost unanimously un- 
 favorable in their criticisms. They failed to see anything of value 
 in his work, either actually or potentially. Shaw, as might be ex- 
 pected, was the most violent of those who censured Grundy. The 
 brilliant critic was unable to sympathize with Grundy in any respect, 
 to meet him at any point. He could see only Grundy's pronounced 
 didacticism and his old-fashioned methods. He considered the drama- j 
 tist's art crude and his pictures of life false. J. T. Grein was 
 
 I 
 
 another unfavorable critic. He spoke also of the lack of human 
 
 j 
 
 nature in Grundy's plays and of the falsity of his plot3. Grein 
 
 j 
 
 said of The Degenerat es that "it had no justification for existence".! 
 
 i 
 
 Perhaps writing as they did, when Grundy's work was being far sur- 
 passed Grein and Shaw had ample reason for their almost savage crit- 
 icism. What they did not take into account was that he was in a 
 measure responsible for those who were surpassing him. 
 
 But men, who reviewed Grundy's work, when it was decided- j 
 
 l 
 
 ly in advance of its time, were little kinder to him. Although 
 mixed in with the overwhelming condemnation of his ingenuity, his 
 
 I 
 
 fondness for stage-types and his adherence to the well-made play, 
 there are brief tributes to his brain power and to his knowledge of j 
 life, the accent is on the faults rather than on the virtues of the 
 man's work. The opinion seems to have been fairly general that 
 "Mr. Grundy writes just well enough to win public acceptance." 4 
 The newspapers were adherents of the disbelief in the worth of 
 Grundy’s plays. Grundy himself wrote, "The majority of the news- 
 papers - in London, at any rate - cannot honestly applaud my orig- 
 
 4 
 
 The Athenaeum , 1883-1, p. 517. 
 


 -25- 
 
 inal work; and the public will not take the trouble to judge whether 
 
 5 
 
 the newspapers are right.” The majority of the reviewers failed 
 to see that Grundy's work was an advance over that which had pre- 
 ceded it and that it might have an influence on future work. A 
 few critics of recent date, notably Dickinson and Courtney, have 
 realized that Grundy was a forerunner of our modern dramatists. The 
 
 i 
 
 simple fact that he began writing before Jones, Pinero, Shaw, Gals- 
 
 * 
 
 worthy or Wilde, plays of situation and idea, plays of excellent 
 construction, of crisp and forceful dialogue, comedies that were not j 
 farces and social plays of real dramatic value, proves that his world 
 
 i 
 
 must have been significant, if not in itself at least in the in- 
 
 i 
 
 fluence which it must have had on later dramatists. 
 
 i 
 
 In Grundy’s first period from 1872 until 1886, he wrote 
 twenty-six plays, thirteen of which were original, ten adaptations 
 and three librettos. The work done in this period is peculiarly 
 interesting because in it are many resemblances to plays written 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 at a much later date. Although Grundy's plays bear many of the 
 characteristics of the time and show clearly that they were written 
 in the 'seventies and 'eighties, they have at the sarnie time many 
 of the marks of play3 written by more eminent playwrights in the 
 
 j 
 
 i 
 
 ’nineties and even early in the twentieth century. They are parti- 
 cularly in advance of their time in their emphasis on the idea or 
 thesis play and in the development which they show of high comedy. 
 
 It is perhaps significant that the play, A Little Change , 
 with which in 1872 Grundy began his dramatic career was not adapta- 
 tion. The trend of his mind was, at the beginning, I think, orig- 
 
 5 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World , 1897, introduction, p. XVII. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-26- 
 
 inal. The reviewer of The Athenaeum spoke of the originality of 
 the play and emphasized the fact that it borrowed nothing from 
 earlier drama. The story is that of a bride who cures her bored 
 husband of flirting by playing the same game. The play is slight 
 and shows comparatively little promise of what Grundy was to do. 
 Its chief merits are its clever, clean cut dialogue, its concise- ; 
 ness and its economy of character and action. The satire, which 
 was to be prominent in Grundy’s later plays, is also apparent 
 here. There is wit, too, but wit which struck the Englishman of i 
 
 I 
 
 the ‘seventies as being “flavored with ill-humor and rudeness". 
 
 }! 
 
 At one place Mrs. Plunger says to the newly married husband: "But I 
 
 he would never marry such a girl." 
 
 Edwin (the husband) 
 
 Although he’d get engaged to her? 
 
 j 
 
 Mrs . Plunger 
 
 Oh dear, nol Captain Plunger is a man of fine morality. ; 
 
 I 
 
 Edwin 
 
 I always though he was that sort of man. 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 The piece was, however, popular and was, on the whole 
 a very good although not brilliant beginning for a young dramatist 
 of twenty-four. 
 
 The next play. Slaves of the Ring - which I must treat 
 wholly through reviews - did not appear until 1894 but was writ- 
 ten in 1876. At that time it presented so advanced a view that 
 it was refused by all the London managers. In 1894, Mr. Archer 
 said of it that "fifteen years ago it would have been epoch- 
 making; today, it brings with it a faint odour of the pigeon- 
 hole." 5 It is distinctly a thesis play, a play of ideas, dealing 
 
 5 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1895, p.7. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-27- 
 
 ae it does with the indissolubility of the marriage tie, a theme 
 which was to be treated numberless times later but which was in 
 1876 spoken of with hushed voices. Mr. Archer said these people 
 are not "slaves of the ring; they are slaves of their own and each 
 other's passions." Such an interpretation would make Grundy's 
 idea even more subtle and psychological than a mere concrete treat- I 
 ment of the unbreakableness of the marriage bond. Mr. Archer spoke 
 also, even in 1894, of the admirable construction of the piece. He 
 
 i 
 
 wrote, "The second act is probably the most original and powerful 
 piece of writing Mr. Grundy has ever done. It rises to the very 
 
 !j 
 
 summit of the drama of situation, of emotion in the abstract, as 
 
 i 
 
 distinct from the drama of character. From the entrance of Cap- 
 
 i 
 
 tain Douglas onward, it simply bristles with dramatic moments, and 
 
 there is a touch of really poetic imagination in the scene of 
 
 r 
 
 Ruth's delirium. Had this scene been adequately acted by Mr. 
 
 Calhoun and Mr. Gilbert Hare, it would have converted a success 
 
 6 
 
 of esteem into a great and memorable triumph." 
 
 Quite different is Mr. Shaw's criticism, which classifies! 1 
 
 (I 
 
 the play as not a "work of art at all, but a mere contrivance for 
 filling the theatrical bill." The difference in appreciation is 
 due to the fact that Shaw was judging the play by the standards of 
 1904, whereas Archer not only saw it in the light of the period 
 in which it was produced, but also saw what it might have been had 
 it been acted when it was written. "In that fact " [the rejection 
 of Sla ves of th e Rin g in 1876], said Mr. Archer, "lies Grundy's 
 best excuse for ten years of intellectual lethargy. He was ready 
 and eager to lead the forlorn hope; it is not his fault that he 
 6 
 
 Archer, Theatrical Wo rld, 1895, p. 11 
 

 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-38- 
 
 was denied the opportunity . If, because it was not then produced, 
 this play could not have a direct influence on later dramatists 
 it however shows clearly the potential ability of a mind interested 
 in and ready to grapple with real problems. 
 
 Thus denied a market for his original work, Grundy fell 
 back on adaptation and on February 3, 1879, brought out The Snow - 
 ball from Oscar , ou Le Mari qui Trompe Sa Femme . by Scribe and 
 Duvergne. Even in adaptation, Grundy was not to be denied some 
 merit of originality. Artificial as is the situation of the play, 
 it nevertheless introduces plenty of good fun and sparkling dialo- 
 gue. "As adapter of these plays," writes Dickinson, "Grundy deserves 
 more than the credit that goes to the purveyor - In The Snowball 
 he introduced much of that ingenuity in high comedy that Pinero has 
 represented in his best work."® Certainly, Grundy's work is a 
 good illustration of the aesthetics of farce of which Pinero dream- 
 ed. The play tells the story of Felix Featherstone , who thinking jj 
 
 to frighten his wife, writes a note for an appointment. He is made j; 
 
 II 
 
 to think that the rather compromising note has fallen into the 
 hands of the maid Penelope. Without the other knowing it, Penelope j| 
 backed by Mrs. Featherstone on one side and Felix’s uncle on the 
 other, threatens to expose to his wife what he has done unless he j 
 gives his consent to the marriage of his ward to the man Mrs. 
 Featherstone or the uncle wants. A great many complications en- 
 sue, the snowball of deception grows larger and larger until fi- 
 nally Featherstone is forced to confess. Beneath all the some- 
 times bewildering twists and turns in the play, there is a great 
 
 8 
 
 Archer, Theatrical Worl d, 1895, p. 7. 
 
 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama of Engla nd, p. 87. 
 
 J 
 

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 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
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 • 
 
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-29- 
 
 deal of real humor and some bits of excellent characterization. 
 
 Mrs. Featherstone , as the type of clear, resourceful, fun-loving 
 woman, is particularly convincing. Felix himself tears about a 
 bit too much, is too driven by circumstances to appear much more 
 than a whirling dervish. The dialogue is exceedingly good, not 
 quite so brittle as in some of Grundy’s plays and more humanly re- 
 vealing. Pinero’s dialogue in his court farces is much the same. 
 
 His men and women are not so clearly drawn or so convincing, I 
 think, as those in this farcical comedy of Grundy's. The Magis- 
 trate possesses the same ingenious turns and twists of plot with- j 
 
 i 
 
 out any more effective characterization. Pinero's play is more 
 English, dealing as it does with characters who are typically 
 
 l 
 
 > 
 
 English. There is more of the extreme in Pinero; a character, 
 eminently respectable is made to appear in disgraceful circum- 
 
 i 
 
 stances, whereas Featherstone, in Grundy's play, although quite 
 
 I 
 
 conceited, is not so puffed up as the magistrate. For the edition j 
 
 of The Magistrate published in 1892, Mr. Malcolm C. Salaman wrote I 
 
 i) 
 
 that Pinero had created a "really new and original order of Eng- 
 
 I 
 
 lish comic play." Although Grundy took the idea of his play from j 
 
 the French, to him belongs, I think, the credit of really launch- j 
 
 j 
 
 this comedy of many and complicated situations, of gentle satire, j 
 of brilliant dialogue and of effective if not deep characteriza- 
 tion. 
 
 In connection with the dialogue of The Snowba ll a re- 
 semblance may be traced, I believe, to the dialogue of Oscar 
 Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest . The almost breathless 
 give and take of the conversation in many places bears a striking 
 
 likeness to that brilliant varnishing of Wilde's. The bacon 
 
- 30 - 
 
 scene in Grundy's play is decidedly similar to the muffin scene in 
 Wilde's; both, of course, may he finally traced back to the cup and 
 saucer comedy of Robertson. The manner of the two scenes is very 
 different from Robertson's, however. An example may show the re- 
 semblance. From The Snowball , Act II. Felis comes down, desperate- 
 ly afraid that hie wife knows everything. His friend, Harry, is 
 eating breakfast. 
 
 Harry 
 
 Oh, pooh, you take this matter much too seriously. Have 
 some breakfast. 
 
 Felix 
 
 I have no appetite. 
 
 Harry 
 
 Delicious bacon. (Helps himself) 
 
 Felix 
 
 Bacon - don't mention it! 
 
 Harry 
 
 Why not? 
 
 Felix 
 
 Man, you don't know how ill I am. The very thought of 
 bacon is disgusting. 
 
 Harry 
 
 Cheer up, my boy. Your wife knows nothing yet. 
 
 Felix 
 
 You think so? 
 
 Harry 
 
 I am certain of it, from her manner. 
 
 Felix 
 
 Then I am respited. 
 
 Harry 
 
 Don't talk in that way. Anyone would think you had 
 committed murder at the very least. What is it, after 
 all? 
 
 Felix 
 
 It is a more serious business than you know of. 
 

 
 
 
-31- 
 
 Harry 
 
 I must have a bit more bacon. 
 
 Felix (recoiling) 
 
 Don’t l A frightful circumstance occurred last night. 
 
 And this from The Importance o f Being Earnest , Act II. 
 
 Jack 
 
 How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are 
 in this horrible trouble. I can't make out. You seem to 
 me perfectly heartless. 
 
 Algernon 
 
 Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The 
 butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always 
 eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them. 
 
 Jack 
 
 I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 If a definite line of influence may not be traced here, 
 at least an interesting parallelism exists. If one is to believe 
 Mr. Shaw, "the general effect” of Wilde's play ”is that of a farci- 
 cal comedy dating from the 'seventies, unplayed then because it 
 
 m9 
 
 was too clever and too decent. In that case, Wilde's play would 
 go back to meet Grundy's instead of Grundy's going forward to meet 
 
 Wilde's. 
 
 In Honour Bound , a one act play suggested by Scribe's 
 five act drama Une Chaine was produced in 1880. The way in which 
 Grundy has condensed, simplified and Anglicized Scribe's work is 
 admirable. In Honour Bound is important, I think for two reasons, 
 for its form and for its idea. The story is briefly that of 
 Philip Graham, who, after a long journey, returns to visit Sir 
 George Carlyon, a barrister. Unknown to Sir George (who does, 
 however, know that Philip left England because of an unfortunate 
 
 Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essays. Vol. I, p. 33. 
 
 9 
 
. 
 
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 - 33 - 
 
 love affair), Philip has been in love with Sir George’s wife. 
 
 Philip is now very much in love with Rose Dalrymple, a niece and 
 ward of Sir George's. Before he will consent to the marriage. Sir 
 George insists on Philip's securing a signed release from the other 
 woman. Lady Carlyon, who has overheard part of the conversation 
 but who does not know that Sir George is the guardian of the girl 
 Philip loves, writes the letter. Sir George, who has by this time 
 guessed the whole affair, destroys the letter and gives his consent 
 to the marriage of Rose and Philip. In form, the play begins with 
 the downward sweep, which Dickinson said Grundy introduced into 
 England. Much has happened, in fact a whole play, before the story 
 opens. The piece is, moreover, a good one-act comedy. Although 
 it is a bit more complicated and crowded in action than the modern 
 one-act play, it is undoubtedly a forerunner of the latter in its 
 economy of character - there is not even a superfluous butler - in 
 its arresting theme and in its swiftness of action and characteri- 
 zation. 
 
 The situation is, moreover, new and interesting, and 
 
 one which, in the days when such plays as Our Boys and Mary Warner j 
 
 j 
 
 were popular, must have been a shock to British cant. That Grundy j 
 realized the difficulty of putting such a play on the English 
 stage is shown when, in In Honour Bound mention is made of a re- 
 view which declared an English version of Une Chaine was impossi- 
 ble because its "vivid but unwholesome pictures of life have hap- 
 pily no relation to the chaste beauty of our English home." Such 
 was the way in which the average sentimental Englishman of the 
 eighties liked to think of his native land. The speech of Sir 
 George must have al 30 shocked the Englishman who liked in theory 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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-33- 
 
 to believe in only one love. 
 
 "If", said Sir George, "that young man had buried his 
 first love when it was dead, he wouldn’t have been haunted by its 
 ghost. When passion is burnt out, sweep the hearth clean, and clear 
 away the ash before you set alight another fire. It is a law of 
 life." (How many dramatists were speaking of laws of life in 1880?) 
 "Old things give way to new. The loves of yesterday are like these 
 faded flowers, fit only to be cast into the flames. That is the 
 moral and I call it excellent." 
 
 Dickinson in speaking of this play wrote: "In In Hon our 
 Bound . the story of a husband wittily and pointedly cross-examin- 
 ing a young man who has been the lover of his wife, while the new 
 fiancee stands ready to enter the room we have the theme of The 
 Profligate and The Second Mrs. Tangueray In The Profligat e we 
 have certainly the same general idea, although in Pinero's play it 
 is the wife who unknowingly cross-examines the girl who has been 
 her husband's mistress. Pinero in 1887 felt that the time was just 
 ripe for a play of this nature; Grundy dared to do much the same 
 
 I 
 
 thing seven years before. The Profligate is the more sensational 
 of the two; it is more full of sin and shame. The characters in 
 Grundy's play are toned down; they possess characteristics peculiar 
 to themselves and are neither altogether good or bad. On the whole 
 I am inclined to think that In Honour Bound is the more artistic 
 if the less powerful of the two. If, indeed. In Honour Bound were 
 more natural in plot and if it were a trifle more ambitious, it 
 might join hands with The Second Mrs. Tangueray . The fact that the 
 former play dealt with an important subject, hitherto carefully 
 
 10 
 
 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama of England, p. 87. 
 

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-34- 
 
 avoided, must have prepared the way for Pinero's work. 
 
 Of the five plays written between 1880 and 1883, Dust , 
 mainly because of the reception it received, is the only one of im- 
 portance. The reviewer of The Athenaeum spoke of the "vulgarity 
 and cynicism of the characters who end by inspiring greed." The 
 theme is that of Jonson's Volpone , a study of human greed. But 
 Grundy failed, where Jonson succeeds. The reviewer disapproved of 
 Grundy’s attempt to make whimsical "gross selfishness and greed." 
 
 In all likelihood Grundy, knowing the temper of the time and render- 
 ed cautious by the refusal of the theatre to accept anything serious 
 thought to camouflage his portrait of human lust for wealth. Dust , 
 in spite of this attempt struck the reviewers as being neither 
 "agreeable nor edifying." "It is to be hoped," said one critic, 
 "that the attempt to extract farce from subjects of this kind will 
 not be renewed. " 
 
 On September 8, 1883, The Glass of Fashion, Grundy* s first 
 really ambitious original comedy appeared. This play was received 
 with varied acclamation by the critics, some of whom praised it 
 highly, while others condemned it almost without qualification. 
 
 These reviews ranged from that in The Saturday Review which spoke 
 of the play as "meagre sort of comedy intrigue" to the one by 
 William Archer who praised it as an admirable specimen of satiric 
 comedy, bright, vigorous, trenchant and relevant at every point to 
 the social life of the day." Between these extremes lies the com- 
 ment of the reviewer in The Athenaeum who wrote, "When a man has 
 given the world a piece which is fairly ingenious and stimulating, 
 which contains one eminently effective if artificial situation. 
 
 which is spiced with clever dialogue, and which, moreover, has an 
 
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 appetizing amount of actuality he may be credited with respectable 
 accomplishment. M 
 
 Grundy 'was too much of an idealist to be satisfied with 
 mere respectability. The review does, however, give the dramatist 
 a fair measure of praise. The play is stimulating and effective 
 in spite of its sometimes bewildering ingenuity; it possesses clever 
 dialogue and although often artificial, it satirizes successfully 
 the social life of the day. Beneath the comedy there is a serious 
 moral purpose to satirize two evils of society, the yellow society 
 journal and the love of gambling. Perhaps the play is less artis- 
 tic because the purpose is obvious, but, in having such an object, 
 Grundy was the forerunner of Galsworthy, Shaw and other more artis- 
 tic playwrights. Grundy’s own hand is too apparent in the satire, 
 he projected his own personality into his plays too decidedly to 
 be able to make them truly artistic. He lacked artistic detach- 
 ment, the ability to see life from a distance clearly and without 
 pre judice . 
 
 The story is that of a young society woman, Mrs. Tre van- 
 ion, who after getting deeply into debt through gambling, is afraid 
 to tell her husband. Colonel Trevanion. A misunderstanding takes 
 place when her husband is made to believe through a scurrilous 
 journal. The Glass ofFhshi on, that his wife is visiting the stu- 
 dio of a rascal Prince Borowski and when Mrs. Trevanion is made to 
 believe by the same prince that her husband has lost his money. 
 
 The strongest point in the play occurs when Mrs. Trevanion* s sister 
 Peg is discovered in the studio after Nina, Mr3. Trevanion herself 
 has slipped out. The situation is solved when in a fit of passion 
 
 at Colonel Trevanion, Prince Borowski reveals to Nina that she is 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 an illegitimate child and therefore has no fortune. The satire of 
 the society journal is very cleverly brought out, although the at- 
 tempts of Macadam to hold his editor Prior Jenkyn within hounds of 
 decency are repeated almost too often to he funny. The characteri- 
 zation is varied; some of it is very good and some is quite had. 
 Prince Borowski is overdrawn to the point of caricature, whereas 
 Peg the sister of Mrs. Trevanion is skilfully and sympathetically 
 depicted. The dialogue is, as always in Grundy's plays, crisp, 
 clear and ringing, although not always dramatically consistent. The 
 scenes, many of them, are undeniably effective, especially the one 
 at the end of the third act, in which Peg instead of Mrs. Trevanion 
 is discovered in Borowski's studio. From the point of influence, 
 however, the thoughtful satire is the most important thing in the 
 play. 
 
 The Silver Shield another original comedy of three acts, 
 produced May IS, 1885, seems to me to show an advance over The Glass 
 of Fashion . Mr. Archer, however, believes it to have been an earl- 
 ier work, and speaks of it as a play of "masterly dialogue but of 
 mediocre plot." The characterization and the dialogue in this play 
 seem to me much better than in The Glass of Fashion. The Athenaeum 
 praised it, saying that a "long step in dramatic advancement had 
 been taken with the presentation of a play which was not a farcical 
 but genuine comedy." The review spoke also of the "amusing and ap- 
 propriate dialogue" as well as of the consistency of characteriza- 
 tion. Even The Saturday Review gave this rather left-handed compli 
 ment, "The play has very distinct merits, and though its defects 
 are even more prominent, they are well within the author's power to 
 eradicate . " 
 

 
- 37 - 
 
 The8e faults are the constant introduction of a couple 
 of superfluous low comedy characters, a few rather startling coin- 
 cidences, and a wedding ring which after lying on the floor for 
 many minutes is still warm. Two plots, both cf which are intro- 
 duced in the first act, run parallel through the play. Wed, a 
 young dramatist, is disowned by his father Sir Humphrey for marry- 
 ing Sir Humphrey's ward Lucy. In the same act Tom Potter, a young 
 painter, who after a long separation believes his wife dead, dis- 
 covers her in an actress, Alma Blake. When Wed, in writing a play 
 for Alma, writes a love letter as part of the action, Lucy dis- 
 covering the letter, believes her husband in love with Alma and 
 leaves him. Alma, having had somewhat the same situation in her 
 life, divines the trouble, but is unable to find Lucy. But when 
 Alma quarrels with her manager Dick over the amount of her salary, 
 Dick threatens to hire another actress, who is discovered to be 
 Lucy. A reconciliation is then effected between Tom and Alma, and 
 between Ned and Lucy. 
 
 The play is interesting for its idea and for the insight 
 which it gives into Grundy's ow r n experience. Here, Grundy, in 
 writing of people and of a life which he knew thoroughly, makes 
 use of some very effective and telling characterization. Alma, 
 the actress with her many tantrums but genuinely good heart, is 
 a real person. Dodson Dick the manager, is a bit caricatured, 
 but forms an amusing picture of the manager with whom Grundy had 
 to deal. At one point Dick brings back Ned's play unopened. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Capital comedy - won’t do at all. 
 
 Ned 
 
 Why you've not opened it. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 38 - 
 
 
 Alma 
 
 No need to open it - won't do at alii 
 
 Then Dick speaks of the dramatic criticism of a play, 
 which Grundy evidently intended for a satire on the criticism of 
 the day. 
 
 Dick (reading) 
 
 M orning Ne ws : "It is not often that we have to chronicle 
 
 so signal a fiasco.” Daily Post; "Seldom of late years 
 has a first night audience been so emphatic in its con- 
 demnation." Evening Mail: "The play is absolutely desti- 
 tute of merit . " 
 
 Then Dick makes Ned a typical proposal. 
 
 Dick 
 
 I'll make you a proposition. If you'll let Sparkle (a 
 hack playwright]] look over your comedy, write up Blake's 
 part, re-cast the plot, and smarten up the dialogue, I 
 bring the piece out under Sparkle's name, pay him the 
 fees - and - and your fortune's made. 
 
 Grundy's reaction to the accusation made by many cri- 
 tics that he was a cynic is shown in this speech: 
 
 "And what's a cynic? A poor devil, who's fool enough 
 to put into words the harshness wise men put into their deeds, 
 and fool enough to put into deeds the kindness wise men put into 
 their words. Your cynic is the softest of mankind and as a rule, 
 he's been in love before he was a cynic." 
 
 Grundy's idealism comes out strongly in this play. It 
 is a man of ideals who asks that we understand before we judge, 
 arri. who believes that with full comprehension of the facts, we 
 cannot criticise severely. The symbolism of the shield with two 
 sides, gold and silver, is sometimes overdone, but it is effective 
 in most cases. It is, moreover a new element in English drama , 
 
 an element which ties up with the symbolism being developed by 
 Ibsen on the continent. Grundy's use of symbols is less artistic, 
 
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-39- 
 
 but none the less genuine and valuable in that it opened new paths 
 to the English dramatist. 
 
 The Silver Shield closed Grundy’s period of apprentice- 
 ship and also his time of greatest influence. He had forged ahead, 
 given new ideas and forms for other dramatists to follow. He had 
 perhaps achieved his most notable successes in the realm of comedy. 
 In the dialogue of In Honour Bound . The Snowball and The Silver 
 Shield he had accomplished much in conciseness, directness, clever- 
 ness and dramatic consistency. In comic value he had for the most 
 part done away with the stock comic characters and in their place, 
 introduced a comedy which depended on ingenious situations and 
 real personalities. He had done much for the play of ideas, of 
 ideas which touched beneath the surface. In The Silver Shield . 
 
 The Glass of Fashion and In Honour Bound , beneath the ingenuity and 
 the sharp, humorous dialogue lie definite situations and ideas. At 
 this time he was practically the only man doing this. But the 
 change was coming. In 1864, Jones' Saints and Sinners appeared and 
 in 1889, Pinero’s The Profligate . Ibsen was being played on the 
 continent and was soon to come to England. Grundy's period of 
 struggle was over. He was to be allowed to do more or less that 
 he wanted to. The question was now whether he would be able to. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-40- 
 
 IV. 
 
 Grundy, as Exponent of His Age. 
 
 It is difficult to build an iron fence around a man's 
 work, or to set up a milestone and say this far his influence ex- 
 tends and no farther. Influence is, moreover, a subtle, elusive 
 thing; it has a way of creeping out where one least expects it and 
 of refusing to be bound by fences or limited to certain districts. 
 
 It is much like the omnipresent dandelion, which mysteriously crops 
 out in the front yard just when one thinks it finally eradicated. 
 
 In like manner, Grundy's work although of more potent influence be- 
 fore 1886, may have been here and there of influence in the nineties. 
 In the latter period, however, because his ideas run parallel with 
 those of his contemporaries, his influence counts only as ideas 
 appearing simultaneously react on each other. Mr. Dickinson has 
 said, "He (Grundy) is always fighting his time or falling outside 
 it. He lacked the flexibility to adapt himself to his age.” ^ For 
 a brief period, from 1886 to 1896, Grundy, if he did not conscious- 
 ly adapt himself to his age, did at least, I believe, fall to a 
 large extent into line with it. The drama was at this time advanc- 
 ing in two directions; in the development of the thesis play, or the 
 play of ideas, and in the development of the play dealing with psy- 
 chological analysis of character. These two principles were not, 
 of course, incompatible and were, in fact, often combined as in 
 Ibsen's Hedda Gabler or in Shaw's Candida . In using the well-made 
 play as a vehicle for his idea and in giving character development 
 second place, Grundy was tending to fall behind his time, but in 
 
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 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama o f England , p. 86-87 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-41- 
 
 ad. he ring to and promoting with all his force the thesis play, he was 
 fully in accord with his age. He, himself, gave voice to his prin- 
 ciples when he said, ”Just as the theatre is unsuited to the subtle 
 analysis of character, it is admirably adapted to the posing of 
 problems and the dramatic discussion of themes.” 2 In tone and in 
 atmosphere , in the earnest desire to show truthfully some evil of 
 society, Grundy's plays of this period may be compared with any of 
 the social plays of Jones, Pinero, and even of Shaw and Galsworthy. 
 Where they fall short - altho a few capably drawn characters appear- 
 is in their failure to probe beneath the surface of the human heart 
 and mind. Other dramatists of the day were, however, displaying 
 much the same characteristics. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray , for in- 
 stance, altho powerful as a thesis play, fails to give entire dra- 
 matic consistency to the character of Paula. 
 
 Of the twenty-three plays Grundy wrote during this period, 
 twelve were original, one a libretto and ten adaptations. In re- 
 alityonly the last three years are of real significance. From 
 1886 until 1893 only three plays appeared which are worthy of no- 
 tice, A Fool' s Paradise , T he Dean's Daughter and A Pair of Specta - 
 c les . Encouraged by the fortune which came to him in 1887 with 
 the production of the Adelphi melodrama The Bells of Haslemere 
 Grundy marked time with a series of similar pot-boilers and adapta- 
 tions. But in the years from 1893 to 1696, seven plays were pro- 
 duced, five of which were original powerful plays, dealing with 
 some problem of society. Grundy in these three years reached the 
 apex of his career. Had he been able to abandon the well-made 
 play, he might have achieved, instead of the sensational glory of 
 
 i 
 
 The Theatre , Vol. 27, p. 200. 
 

 
 
 
 
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-42- 
 
 Sowing the Wind something worthy of lasting fame. 
 
 Standing out from the theatrical rubbish of the seven 
 years during which Grundy marked time, are two plays A Fool’s 
 P aradise and A Pair of Spectacle s. Another play The Dean 1 8 Daugh - 
 ter may be noted as being typical of most of the work Grundy was 
 producing in those years. The latter play is an adaptation by F.C. 
 Philips and Grundy of the novel The Dean a nd His Da ughter by 
 Philips. The theme, the evils arising from a marriage for money 
 instead of for love, possesses some measure of strength, but the 
 characters are so falsified, so obviously stage types and the moti- 
 vation is at times so faulty that the play becomes a vague unreal- 
 ity. It was, however, popular because of its brilliant and witty 
 dialogue. Nevertheless, the critic of the Saturday R e view objects 
 to it not because it is ” untrue to life but because it is not in- 
 teresting or agreeable.” 
 
 A year and a half elapsed from the presentation of _A 
 Fool 1 s Paradise at the Greenwich Prince of Wales until it appear- 
 ed at the Gaiety Theatre, London in February, 1889. The play is 
 distinctive as Grundy’s first attempt at a tragic ending. It is 
 so 'written, however, that we fail to feel the tragedy of it any 
 more than Sir Peter who philosophically exclaims after Beatrice 
 commits suicide, ”And she is better dead.” In Beatrice, we have 
 an unscrupulous woman of the Hedda Gabler type, who, motivated by 
 a jealous pique and a desire for her husband’s money, attempts to 
 poison him. Trapped by Sir Peter, the family physician, she calm- 
 ly drinks the poison herself and saying "Good night to all of you*, 
 considerately leaves the room to die. The sub-plot, a love affair 
 
 between Kate, a nurse and companion, and Normantower, a former 
 

 
 
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-43- 
 
 lover of Beatrice is well linked with the main theme. The ending, 
 although only mildly tragic, is an attempt to reintroduce into 
 English drama the unhappy ending. Dickinson writes: "Grundy very 
 
 early attempts to introduce the unhappy ending of death into his 
 adaptations and original plays. This he does in A Bunch of Violets 
 and A Fool 's Paradise and Pinero and Jones do the same after him, 
 but no one has succeeded in making the English audience accept the 
 climacteric death. The moral tone, the contention that the "wages 
 of sin is death", is emphasized throughout the play. The fault 
 lies in the weakness of the heroine and in the failure to show suf- 
 ficient motivation for her deed. Beatrice seems to be dominated 
 neither by love nor by greed, although these traits are given as the 
 reason for her action. Kate, on the other hand, is admirably drawn. 
 Her endeavor to be calm and her final breaking into tears when she 
 accused Normantower of wanting to marry her for money, are rather 
 finely handled. Had Grundy made of Beatrice as distinct a personal- 
 ity the play would be comparable to dramas of Ibsen. 
 
 A greater contrast could hardly be found than that be- 
 tween the sombre morality of A Fool's Paradise and the bubbling, 
 youthful idealism of A Pair of Spectacles. The latter play re- 
 flects, I think, the gentle spirit which lay beneath the harsh 
 cynicism and bitterness of the playwright. It is, 30 far as I 
 know, the only purely whimsical and fantastic thing Grundy ever 
 did. A Pair of Spectacles is frankly a fairy-tale - it makes no 
 graver pretensions - with an allegorical and symbolical undercur- 
 rent. It is queer that, popular as the play proved to be, Grundy 
 did not attempt more in the same vein. The play is a study of two 
 
 3 
 
 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama o f England, p. 88. 
 

 
 
 
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moods of Benjamin Goldfinch. In the first, disillusioned by the 
 deceit of those he has befriended, he cries, "I study men and wo- 
 raen like insects, through a microscope. I take diabolical delight 
 in watching them squirm. Worms all of them.” In the second mood, 
 restored to his former affability, he can believe, "If there be 
 some imposters in the world I'd rather trust and be deceived than 
 suspect and be mistaken." Grundy, unquestionably, sympathizes with 
 the latter mood; he believes that, even if fraud is prevalent in 
 the world, men oan and should be trusted. Walkley writes of the 
 play, after tracing its origins through Terence, Shadwell and Labich 
 to Grundy, "Mr. Grundy's version is much better fun. And he has 
 added innumerable good things of his own - -- -- -- -- He has 
 struck a deeper chord than Labiche in the character of Goldfinch. 
 
 He has sounded the note of seriousness, a note never once heard in 
 the whole repertory of Labiche." 4 
 
 Goldfinch may be compared with Christopher Wellwyn of 
 Galsworthy's Pigeon . The Pigeon has much the same theme as A Pair 
 of Spectacles, the relations of a confiding generous man with the 
 deceit of the world. Goldfinch orders shoes for which he can have 
 no conceivable use in order that his bootmaker may live; Wellwyn 
 is willing to give away his last suit of clothes to the man who 
 implores his aid. Galsworthy, however, gets beneath the surface 
 of Wellwyn’ s character as Grundy does not with Goldfinch. Gals- 
 worthy pokes sly fun at his "pigeon" through the characters of 
 the three ir re claimable s whom Wellwyn befriends. Ann and the 
 three theorists about charity in The Pigeon correspond in A Pair 
 of Spectacles , to the character cf Gregory, who suspects fraud 
 
 4 Walkley, Playhouse Impressions ,. p. 138-143. 
 

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-45- 
 
 back of every request. Where, however, Gregory is stingy because 
 of natural selfishness, Ann's parsimony comes from necessity and 
 from a desire to save her father from utter ruin. Wellwyn is as 
 utterly hopeless on the side of unscientific generosity as is Gold- 
 finch, but he is more human, more helpless. There is less moraliz- 
 ing in The Pigeon than in A Pair of Spectacles; Wellwyn gives rath- 
 er because he cannot help himself than from any conviction that his 
 money is a trust. Grundy also missed an opportunity in not depict- 
 ing more clearly the people who duped Goldfinch. Galsworthy’s French- 
 man, his flower-seller and her husband give much of the charm to his 
 play. There are possibly other points of contact between Gals- 
 worthy and Grundy. Both men possess idealism; both wish to right 
 wrongs. Both dramatists, moreover, project their personalities 
 into their plays; neither sees life clearly from a distance. In 
 Galsworthy there is, however, clearer portrayal of character, less 
 of the moral and more of the artistic than in Grundy. 
 
 We come now to Grundy’s period of greatest activity, the 
 period in which, freed from restraint, he attempted to contribute 
 something of value to the serious drama. By 1893, that "epoch- 
 making play" The Second Mrs. Tanqueray had been produced and The 
 Independent Theatre, sponsored by Grein was, to the horror of many 
 Englishmen and the delight of a few, producing Ibsen, Strindberg 
 and Shaw. Grundy, with such encouragement given to serious drama, 
 left farce and adaptation and began to produce in rapid succession 
 six social plays. One, The Slaves of the Ring, had been written 
 eighteen years earlier, but the others were all new. Grundy started 
 the group with a bombshell, an attack on the English treatment of 
 illegitimacy. In spite of the fact that it had an old story. Sow- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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-46- 
 
 ing the Wind , produced. September 30, 1893, was a tremendous sensa- 
 tion. Grundy pleads and pleads well the cause of illegitimate 
 children. He does this, moreover, with simplicity and sincerity. 
 The plot of the play lacks the artificiality, the bewildering 
 moves and counter moves of which many plays of Grundy are full. 
 Again, in this play, we have two characters of the type of Gregory 
 and Goldfinch. Again we see the triumph of good over evil. Sow- 
 ing the Wind is, however, a serious play, not a fantasy or alle- 
 gory. Brabazon, who is willing to believe good of everyone, in- 
 sists, nevertheless, that his adopted son shall marry a girl of 
 spotless reputation. He, therefore, backed by the cynic and mi- 
 sogynist, Watkin, refuses to let Ned marry a singer who seems to 
 have been involved with Lord Petworth, an old roue. But when 
 Brabazon discovers that the girl Rosamond is his child, whose 
 mother he deserted, he is eager to welcome her to his heart and 
 to have Ned marry her. 
 
 In spite of many old-fashioned characteristics, the 
 play is, undoubtedly, powerful and intensely dramatic. Grundy's 
 "sens de theatre" is displayed to a remarkable degree in this 
 play. The Saturday Review spoke of it as the "most powerful as 
 well as the most serious and characteristic thing Grundy had done. 
 Mr. Archer wrote, "The play is by far the best Mr. Grundy has ever 
 done, because in it he has abandoned ingenuity in favor of simpli- 
 city and nature." 5 The plot moves with a straightforwardness and 
 directness that is admirable. Although some of the long didactic 
 speeches might well be condensed, practically nothing could be 
 omitted. One wishes occasionally that Grundy would not melodra- 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1893, p. 232. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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-47- 
 
 mat ize. After all, middle aged men of Brabazon's type, do not fall 
 on their knees, crying, "The sin was mine - the punishment is hers! 
 
 I sowed the wind and she has reaped the whirlwind. Nay! It is not 
 yet reaped! Pity me. Heaven! visit thy wrath on me, not - on my 
 child!” Even while deploring such things, which were, after all, 
 common enough in the drama of the 1 nineties, one cannot help ad- 
 miring the vigor of mind displayed in the working out of the plot 
 and that idealism which led to ardent championship of the illegi- 
 timate child. The close of the third act, in which Brabazon learns 
 that the mother of the girl, whom he is trying to persuade not to 
 marry his adopted son, was the woman he deserted, rises to an in- 
 tensely dramatic pitch. Undoubtedly, there is something of melo- 
 drama in it, but it carries one triumphantly along to the end. 
 
 When the play was produced, although the conclusion was guessed long 
 before the curtain fell, the audience, absorbed by the rapid human- 
 ly appealing action, remained to the end. 
 
 The next play. An Old Jew , produced three months later, 
 is noteworthy for its satire and for its characterization. In 
 Julius Stern, a second Monte Cristo, Grundy would seem to have drawn 
 a really great and heroic character. Stern becomes by the end of 
 the play fantastic and shadowy, but he nevertheless dominates the 
 action. Filon said that "his sadness, his wandering and mysterious 
 life, his authority of voice and bearing, that fatal gift of his 
 for turning everything he touches into gold point to some symboli- 
 cal intention. It is no longer A Jew ; it is The Je w - the Jew re- 
 habilitated and becoming now, in his turn, a dispenser of social 
 justice." The theme of the play, that of a man who, after leaving 
 
 6 
 
 Filon, The English Stag e, p. 229. 
 

 
 
 
 
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-48- 
 
 hia faithless wife, is unable to stay far from hia children or to 
 keep hia hand from guiding their deatinies, affords an opportunity 
 for a deep analysis of human virtue and vices. Grundy fails to go 
 very far because he is overcome by his desire to satirize. Mr. 
 Archer wrote that the play was "clever but as a work of art, an ef- 
 fort of thought, it breaks down at almost every point. It has by 
 no means enhanced my esteem for Mr. Grundy as an observer, a think- 
 er or a dramatic artist." 7 The Saturday Review, on the other hand, 
 spoke of the fineness of the las-c act, of the effective characteri- 
 zation, and of the boldness and originality of the play. What seems 
 to have kept the play from being a true piece of characterization 
 and a thoughtful analysis of life, was the fact, that at one point, 
 the theme offered Grundy an irresistible opportunity to satirize 
 newspaper criticism. A whole act which passes in the smoking room 
 of a club is given over to bitter condemnation, almost to abuse 
 of newspapers. It is very evident from Archer’s review that he 
 took some of this to himself. He believed that, although the satire 
 was to an extent justified, it was not fully representative, and 
 that it marred the play as an artistic production. An Old Jew is 
 another play with a moral, although, as Filon points out, "it does 
 not satisfy ordinary morality, yet leaves a man better and more 
 
 strong." "It would be easy," he continues, "to point out its faults 
 
 «8 
 
 it is very difficult to explain its charm." 
 
 Four months passed and Grundy was again ready with a play, 
 dealing with the weakness of the social structure. A Bunch of Vio- 
 lets founded on Octavo Fe.uillet's Mont joy e is distinctive for its 
 
 Archer, Theatr i cal World, 1894, p. 11. 
 
 Filon, The English Stag e, p. 227. 
 
 8 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-49- 
 
 terseness of style, its strength and sympathy of writing, its lack 
 of hero or any outstanding character and for its political satire. 
 
 The satirical element, which involves a burlesque labor delegation 
 and the enunciation of rather peculiar economic principles on the 
 part of Sir Philip, is somewhat of a failure. "To a dramatist,” 
 writes Archer, "who is really up-to-date, philanthropic finance, 
 with its political side-issues, evidently offers a fruitful theme. 
 
 But 'he will not pour his matter into an old French mould, and he 
 will try to obtain something of a philosophic, a scientific under- 
 standing of the situation, before proceeding to fashion it to his 
 
 Q 
 
 artistic ends." Undoubtedly, but it was to be many years before 
 such plays as Galsworthy's Strife . treating scientifically the la- 
 bor problem, were to appear. Labor, which in its scientific and psy- 
 chological aspects was a new field for the dramatist, was treated as 
 accurately by Grundy as by the majority of playwrights of his day. 
 
 The main plot of A Bunch of Violets d eals with the results of a 
 double bigamy case. Sir Philip and Mrs. Murgatroyd, formerly mar- 
 ried, meet again; Sir Philip ruined and discovered by his wife, com- 
 mits suicide. The play is built like a house of cards; the first at- 
 tempt at examination knocks it over. The action is, however, so 
 straightforward and the dialogue so crisp and direct that the play 
 holds the interest to the end. Sir Philip’s refusal to part with his 
 daughter’s violets even to save himself from ruin may be regarded 
 as sentimental claptrap, but it brought tears to the eyes of the 
 audience of the 'nineties. Grundy has journalistic quickness of per- 
 ception and ability to see what would appeal to the public. 
 
 The Ne w Woman, produced September 1, 1894, was greeted 
 
 9 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1894, p. 124. 
 

 
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-50- 
 
 by an almost effusive burst of enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Archer. 
 For him, the play marked a return of Mr. Grundy to the ranks of 
 "live dramatists”. "Only a few years ago," wrote Archer, "he 
 [Grundy] seemed to have lost all ambition - to be incapable of ris- 
 ing higher than Scribe in theory, and capable of sinking infinitely 
 lower in practise. He then enumerated the plays which had mark- 
 ed Grundy's advance, A Fool’s Par adise, A White Lie and especially 
 Sowing the Wind. "We have", he continued, "in The New Woman , a live 
 play, a play which is distinctly in the movement , and which indi- 
 cates real progress on the part of one of our ablest writers. "' l1 
 Here, then, is a play by Grundy which not only deals with a problem 
 but which deals with it simply and in such a manner as to emphasize 
 the emotions of the characters. It is a play with something of the 
 theme of Hauptmann's Sunken Bell ; the struggle between the senses 
 and the intellect, the necessity for the blending of the two in man, 
 and - in Grundy's play - the final return to the appeal of the 
 senses. It is a subtle problem and one calling for delicacy of 
 treatment and deftness of characterization. Archer summed up the 
 construction thus: it has "two acts of the most brilliant dialo- 
 
 gue, and of delicate unostentatious constructive skill; one act of 
 vigorous, emotional drama; and an idyllic, sympathetic, conciliato- 
 ry, illusory conclusion." Where the play seems to have fallen down 
 is in its failure to make the "new woman" convincing. She is not 
 new at all, and is sometimes a puppet with rather unreasonable 
 actions. However, in its theme, in its adoption of simple techni- 
 que and in its attempt to portray the emotions of characters, the 
 10 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World , 1894, p. 335. 
 
 11 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World t 1894, p. 333. 
 
-51- 
 
 play undoubtedly marks an advance in the quality of Grundy's work. 
 
 Slaves of the Ring , produced December 29, 1894, has been 
 discussed in the preceding chapter. Having written it eighteen 
 years before, Grundy had after many refusals laid it away among the 
 dusty manuscripts - of which he doubtless had many - to bring it 
 forth in 1894. It is also a thesis play, a bit more old-fashioned 
 than the others of this group. 
 
 The Greatest of These - first saw the light in the pro- 
 vinces. M. Filon, appending a footnote to his chapter on Grundy, 
 hailed it as the masterpiece, which he had, on the same page, pre- 
 dicted that Grundy would some day write. Other critics did not, 
 however, give it an equal amount of praise. Shaw dismissed it as 
 being violently polemical, didactic and old fashioned. Archer, 
 ever the gentler critic, spoke of the lack of clearness and the 
 rhetorical expression of character, but granted the play the merit 
 of power, intelligence and conviction. He also praised, as the 
 best thing Grundy had ever done, the character of Armitage and 
 likened him to Ibsen’s Consul Bernick. Again, in this play, we 
 have moral satire, this time an attack upon the rt inhuman egoism of 
 respectability", that outcry which Grundy was perpetually, earnest- 
 ly and sincerely making against what he believed to be the shams 
 of society. If he falsified the social order sometimes in the pro- 
 cess, he at least saw the evils of his environment and tried to 
 
 present them effectively in his plays. "He had", according to 
 
 12 
 
 Dickinson, "the will to truth if not the insight to truth." 
 
 The Greatest of These - is in reality the last original 
 play of Grundy’s of any vigor or strength. The Late Mr. Castello , 
 
 12 
 
 Dickinson, Contemporary Drama of England, p. 89. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-52- 
 
 which followed three months later, was more or less of a pot-boiler, 
 a return to the sort of thing which Grundy did easily, the rather 
 artificial play, characterized by Shaw as a "mechanical rabbit", 
 the play with brilliantly clever dialogue, but with shallow charact- 
 erization and failure to probe beneath the surface of life. It is 
 the type of comedy often effective on the stage - the Good Grac iou s 
 Annabelle sort of thing - which, produces laughter but leaves no 
 effect. The story is that of the cure of a flirt who without really 
 caring for anyone captivates all the lovers of her less fascinating 
 sister. Mrs. Costello's mother, who is abnormally and tediously ab- 
 sorbed with the stock-market, is also satirized. The play forms a 
 clever farce; it is not a good comedy. 
 
 With The Late Mr. G a stello Grundy* s original work 
 practically ends. In the three years from 1893 to 1896 he had 
 reached the summit of his career. If he had not equalled the work 
 of Shaw, Wilde, Jones and Pinero, he had at least produced plays 
 comparable to theirs. He had promoted the thesis play. He had, 
 indeed, eagerly and with enthusiasm written of the evils of society 
 with a view to correcting them. He was ready to help in the revi- 
 val of serious drama. Even in characterization he had not always 
 failed. If he did not present psychological analyses of characters, 
 he gave us such characters as Arm it age in The Greatest of These - 
 Brabazon in Sowing the Win d and Benjamin Goldfinch in A Pair of 
 Spectacles , who live in cur memory. Shining through many of his 
 plays, moreover, is the lovable quality of Grundy’s idealism, which 
 led him to attack the oppressor and to champion, even if sentiment- 
 ally, the cause of the oppressed. But the flare of Grundy's genius 
 
 was to die; Mr. Archer's enthusiasm, his joy at perceiving signs of 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 53 - 
 
 genius in a man whom he believed capable of great things, was dim- 
 med. Grundy failed to fulfill the promise of these few years; he was 
 unable to go farther with the forward movement of English drama. 
 

 
 
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-54- 
 
 V. 
 
 Grundy, as "Playwright of the Past." 
 
 It is an almost unfailing phenomenon that some bright 
 morning - or perhaps it should be a rainy one - a man wakes to the 
 realization that his age - be it in science, art, letters, mechanics 
 or methods of filing - is slowly slipping away from him. Perhaps 
 he will let it slip, and go happily down-stairs to his coffee and 
 toast. But if he is of the Sydney Grundy type he will fight for the 
 principles of his age against the encroaching ideas of the new gen- 
 eration. When, in 1896, Grundy saw work appearing which he was in- 
 capable of doing and which - to do him justice - he sincerely be- 
 lieved not to be of the best dramatic calibre, he wrote a sombrely 
 pessimistic article for the March 1896 number of The Theatre en- 
 titled "Marching to Our Doom." Back of the exaggerated seriousness 
 of it, the condemnation of first-night audiences, and the plea to 
 Pinero not to heed the advice of the ’tranks and egotists" is an al- 
 most pathetic defense of Grundy’s play, the "well-made" play. The 
 only way he sees to prove his point to the practical minded English 
 is through the box-office. He therefore hides his defense of the 
 Scribe play behind a consideration of the economies of the theatre, 
 of the necessity of writing something that shall pay. Nevertheless, 
 he speaks with contempt of the theorists, who he says "stand to the 
 average playgoer in the same relation as a Scandinavian stove to an 
 honest, open, cheerful English hearth." "What is the matter with 
 them", he continues, "is that they are not dramatists, and have no 
 sympathy with dramatists. They are essentially men of letters, 
 students, scholars; they look at everything from the point of view 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-55- 
 
 of the library, the cloister, the academy. If they will analyze 
 their own temperaments, they will find that they have a certain anti- 
 pathy to the corporeal theatre, and a violent repugnance to an au- 
 dience. Plays ought to be read, not acted; the actors are a super- 
 fluous and distorting medium." 1 
 
 To this vigorously written article of Grundy’s, a host 
 of protests soon appeared. Evidently the subject was, at that time, 
 
 of immediate appeal. One of the first answers was Archer’s article 
 
 o 
 
 "Mr. Grundy’s Crack of Doom." Shaw wrote of this review, that Archer 
 had "gone on the war-path against Mr. Grundy, and tomahawked his ar- 
 guments, scalped his figures, burnt his facts alive, and insulted 
 their ashes with taunting demands for the production of the returns 
 from Slaves of the Ring , Mr. Cmstello, and so on, in order to compare 
 
 3 
 
 them with the returns from the later Pinero plays." Archer claims 
 that The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith , a "mere character study", accord- 
 ing to Grundy, brought in more money than The Late Mr. Castello. 
 
 An Old Jew or Slaves of the Rin g and implies, therefore, that it 
 is a better play. Such an argument is, of course, fallacious to a 
 large extent, but Archer is only answering Grundy on his own ground. 
 Archer claims, moreover, that Grundy is wrong in stating the move- 
 ment is from the well-made to the ill-made play; it is rather from 
 the well-made to the better-made play. Neither does he believe that 
 progress is ever achieved by writing down to the public. He also 
 reminds Grundy that in writing The Greatest of These- and Sowing the 
 Wind he wrote not to please the public but to "satisfy his own soul. 1 ' 
 
 1 The Theatre , Vol. 27, p. 136. 
 
 2 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World, 1896, p. 413. 
 
 3 
 
 Shaw, Dramatic Opinions, Vol. I, p. 354. 
 

 . 
 
 
 
 I 
 
-56- 
 
 Shaw characteristically takes up the argument, by recom- 
 mending Grundy's article as good reading if only for the reference 
 to Shaw himself as the "crankiest of stove-pipe fanatics". Shaw's 
 one point of attack seems to be that Grundy does not really know 
 the "mechanical rabbit "type of play which he champions. 
 
 To these two articles Grundy replies in a more good- 
 humored vein in the April Theatre . Evidently, as he says, he feels 
 "much better since he accused Mr. Shaw of "too prolonged a contem- 
 plation of Scandinavian stove-pipes". In losing much of the bitter- 
 ness which beclouded the atmosphere of his first article, Grundy 
 more clearly enunciates his position. He says in regard to the box- 
 office side of the theatre, "I am as * scornful* as I was sixteen 
 years ago of * the theory that it is a critic's business to estimate 
 the money in' a play or to prognosticate its fate - - - When I ar- 
 gued that, 'if the public is thoughtless and vulgar, thoughtless- 
 ness and vulgarity are the factors of the problem which we have to 
 solve', I did not propose that the solution should be an ignoble 
 one." In regard to the structure of a play, he enthusiastically 
 corroborates the position of The Stage that "no dramatist can set 
 
 his figures on the stage psychologically and dramatically without 
 
 4 
 
 the subtlest organic forms." 
 
 In the same number of The Theatr e two articles in reply 
 to Grundy appeared. In "The Difficulties of the Serious Drama", 
 the author declared that Grundy's fretful arguments are unbased, 
 vague phantoms conceived out of his head. H. Hamilton Frye follows 
 with a condemnation of Grundy's ideas as mere contradictions from 
 a man with a grievance. 
 
 4 
 
 The Theatre , Vol. 27, p. 199. 
 
I 
 
 
 
-57- 
 
 All of the critics emphasize the materialistic side of 
 Grundy’s articles and fail to see that he was trying for the most 
 part to justify the type of play he could write. He was unwilling 
 to be a "playwright of the past"; never, even up to his death, did 
 he stop fighting. He insisted, however, on hiding his ideals under 
 a thick cloak of materialism. Archer, who understood him better 
 than anyone else, said in continuing the argument, "Mr. Grundy’s 
 practice is almost always better than his principles. While he 
 is shouting ’Stop heri Euck her!’ he turns the crank to full speed 
 ahead! ------- Is it so very unchivalrous to remind a man 
 
 who is arguing like Falstaff, that yesterday he was fighting like 
 Hotspur and will be again tomorrow? - - - - If he tells me that the 
 old-fashioned technique ("of The Greatest of These -~j at least, was 
 a concession to the alleged requirements of the great public, again 
 I tell him I know better. It is part of his artistic ideal, to 
 which he has in this case been absolutely faithful.*’® Certainly 
 Grundy’s work contradicts his theory, time and again. His theory 
 came as a result of many years of hard experience; his practice 
 came from an innate longing for expression. When he wrote that 
 "plays too far in advance of public taste are, like legislation 
 too far in advance of public opinion, a dead letter", he was speak- 
 ing from what many years of rebuffs and misunderstandings had 
 taught him. But when he nad written Slaves of the Ring he had 
 written against that pronouncement. 
 
 The last word in the controversy over the "well-made" 
 play was, after all, written by Grundy in his preface to Archer’s 
 Theatrical World of 1897. " My contention", he writes, "has ever 
 
 5 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World , 1896, p. 181-182. 
 
-58- 
 
 been, that form is one of the most beautiful manifestations of art - 
 I contend that to put into dramatic form and shapeliness the confused 
 tangle which we find in life is the very art and business of the 
 dramatic author - - - The real question is, 'Is form an element of 
 the highest art?’ 1,6 Grundy believed that it was, and for that rea- 
 son he wrote the "well-made” play, not because as he implied in many 
 of his articles, "the dear old simple-minded" English public demand- 
 ed it, or because the "sober-minded, thoughtful mass of the English 
 public are not play goers. In this article Grundy claimed that 
 his reasons for writing adaptation were two-fold: first, that adapta- 
 tion was as successful and as highly praised as original work and 
 second, that adaptation could be written hastily to supply a theatri- 
 cal gap. The truth was that in the years 1893 - 1897 Grundy's adap- 
 tations ran forty-seven weeks, while his original plays - the best 
 work he had ever done - ran sixty-nine weeks. In the same years, 
 moreover, the original work of the English authors occupied five 
 hundred thirty weeks compared with five hundred thirty-four weeks 
 
 p 
 
 given to adaptation. 
 
 The comparative failure of his original plays and the 
 unwelcome suspicion - which was rapidly becoming a conviction - that 
 the well-made play was a thing of the past, must in a measure ac- 
 count for the fact that from 1896 until his death in 1914, Grundy 
 wrote almost nothing but adaptation. He was not, after all, to 
 fight again like Hotspur. When a man has, in the face of continued 
 opposition, sought to "satisfy his soul" for something like twenty- 
 four years, he grows weary of the attempt. Adaptation was easy 
 
 6 Archer, Theatrical World, 1897, introduction, p. XIII, XIV. 
 
 ^ Archer, Theatrical World, 1897, introduction,p.XVI . 
 
 8 
 
 Archer. Theatrical World, 1897, pp. 371-373 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-59- 
 
 and safe. From 1897 on Grundy was an onlooker; although he continu- 
 ed to write, he was distinctly out of the dramatic movement. He did 
 however, make just before his death one last attempt to justify his 
 position and to depict failure for the monopoly of the theatre by 
 literature . 
 
 His plays of this last period are very much like one 
 another. It will be sufficient, I think, to mention three of them. 
 The first, A Marriage of Conv en ience , is an adaptation from Alex- 
 andre Dumas’ Un Mariage so .ua Louis Q.uinze. it was produced June 
 5, 1897, and had a long run of sixteen weeks. In this rather charm- 
 ing- but slight little comedy, Grundy sticks very closely to the 
 French original. In not attempting to Anglicize either characters 
 or situation he has carried out the romantic tone much more success- 
 fully than if he had made an English play of it. Archer wrote that 
 "this gay and graceful trifle was well worth translating." Grundy 
 did a good piece of work and gave an amusing picture of the attempls 
 of a French couple to hide their increasing love for each other by 
 pretending love for old flames. But translation is not, of course, 
 the primary work of a first class aramatiet. 
 
 During this period Grundy adapted a number of one-act 
 comediettas from the French. Among these is Sympathetic Souls 
 from Scribe’s Les Inconsolables . If such a play as Sympathetic 
 Souls is compared with Grundy’s one act comedy, In Honour Bound, 
 written back in 1880, a distinct falling off in dramatic values 
 and ideas is noticed. The later play is a picture of type charact- 
 ers; the earlier possesses dramatic interest, a definite plot, 
 action and some able characterization. Sympathetic Souls enter- 
 tains with its satire on the person who rejoices in her sorrow. 
 

 
-60- 
 
 "You know”, weeps Mrs. Bellringer, "the only pleasure left to me is 
 my unhappiness." But when she meets a gentleman, afflicted in much 
 the same manner, she agrees ro share her misery. The characters are 
 over drawn; they have none of the naturalness of Sir Philip in In 
 Honour Bound. 
 
 As illustrative of a little later work, comes Frocks and 
 Fri 11s , another adaptation. This play depended for its measure of 
 success almost entirely on the glories of a dressmaking establish- 
 ment. Of it Grein wrote that "there is not an ounce of human nature 
 in it - - - Every joke, every situation, every morsel of comic re- 
 lief, every piece of furniture has its mathematically appointed 
 g 
 
 place." Max Beerbohm, however, sounds the death knell for Grundy 
 when he takes him gently from the pedestal which he had so long oc- 
 cupied with Jones and Pinero. Beerbohm, moreover, reproaohes Grundy 
 for his failure to do anything bigger than adaptation, saying, 
 "Nullity in the case of so talented a writer as Mr. Grundy is repre- 
 hensible." If it is reprehensible, it is surely at this stage of hi£ 
 life understandable. 
 
 The Play of the Future . a defense of the past and an 
 indictment of the present condition of drama, closed Grundy’s liter- 
 ary career. In this little pamphlet written shortly before his 
 death, Grundy, while acknowledging that the movement has left him 
 behind, still denies to that movement soundness and health. "Yes;" 
 he cries, "the drama is literature; but literature is not the drama, 
 and it is time it ceased to be whispered in corners and were pro- 
 claimed on the house-tops, that a theatre is not a library, that a 
 play ought to be written to be acted; and that to a rea l d ramatist 
 
 g 
 
 Grein, Dramatic Criticism, 1900-1901, p. 291. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 61 - 
 
 it matte r s n o more how hie drama r eads than how a hen crows . 'Liter- 
 ature' is the cant, 'literature' is the curse of our theatrical day 
 and generation - and such literature! literature without a heart, 
 literature without a soul, literature without a body, literature 
 without blood, literature with nothing but a blase brain-box. n1 ^ 
 Grundy condemns Shaw as a public danger and says that "like Carthage 
 Mr. Shaw must be destroyed." Barker is an "inveterate mendicant" 
 although an "earnest seeker after truth", while Wilde's "bloom is 
 the bloom upon the cheeks of Phryne , bought at a chemist's in the 
 Haymarket." Grundy claims, moreover, for himself and his contem- 
 poraries a measure of influence on the drama, and predicts for the 
 future a return to "the consummate draftsmanship of Sardou" and to 
 a catholicity of theme and purpose. "The footlights will resume 
 their pride of place, and the public be privileged to enjoy now and 
 again that most refreshing of all intellectual recreations, the 
 purely artificial drama - evenings with a great gulf, fixed between 
 actors and audience - the gulf of mystery - a drama like nothing in 
 nature, like nothing in life, but their, distilled essence." 11 This 
 is, after all, the vigorous cry of a man who will never be complete- 
 ly beaten, who even as he realizes that his work is outmoded, re- 
 turns affectionately to a consideration of that work. It is, the 
 "playwright of the past", who finding himself almost alone in his 
 principles, still cries, "It is not I who have altered, it is 
 Bolingbroke; and I am so built - I did not build myself - that I 
 cannot let Bolingbroke have his way." 1 ^ 
 
 10 
 
 Grundy , 
 
 Play 
 
 of 
 
 the 
 
 Future , 
 
 P* 
 
 11 
 
 Grundy , 
 
 Play 
 
 of 
 
 the 
 
 Future , 
 
 pp. 
 
 12 
 
 Grundy , 
 
 Play 
 
 of 
 
 the 
 
 Fut ure , 
 
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-62- 
 
 VI. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 In a neat, trenchant little epigram George Bernard Shaw 
 sums up what he considers to be Grundy’s place in the history of 
 English drama. "There was”, writes Shaw, in a letter concerning 
 Grundy, "3ome of the pathos of failure about him; but you can hardly 
 say that he was a failure. What you can say, I think, is that he 
 was a warning, rather than an example." 1 In other words, for Mr. 
 Shaw, Grundy’s work marked the sign-post on the drama road with, 
 "Banger! Stop!" rather than with, "Safety! Go ahead!" A warning 
 even though it is indicative of the worse phase of Grundy’s writing, 
 is often salutary, and as essential to the safety of a movement as 
 the best of examples. There was, however, I think, much more than 
 this purely negative side to Grundy. Such plays as I n H onour Bou nd , 
 The Glass of Fashion and The Silver Sh ie ld opened a clearly-defined, 
 trustworthy path for the young playwright to follow, a path marked 
 by the careful consideration of problems and by as earnest an at- 
 tempt to show the evils of society and the shams of hypocrisy as in 
 any play by a contemporary dramatist. Where, of course, he served as 
 a ?;arning was in the direction of the well-made play. But he did 
 much more than to ruin the machinery of the "mechanical rabbit" play 
 by winding it too tightly. At his best he was capable of producing 
 a play with compactly built plot, dazzlingly brilliant dialogue, a- 
 ble characterization and a definite problem, unconventional perhaps, 
 but vital and interesting. Such plays were The Grea test of These - 
 and Sowing the Wind. In theme, dialogue and even sometimes in tech- 
 1 See A PP®ndix , p. 69. 
 
-63- 
 
 nique, it would not have hurt any dramatist to follow his example, 
 unless, of course, he adhered to it too tenaciously. Many did, I 
 think, feel his influence and, consciously or unconsciously, profited, 
 by his successes as well as by his failures. Grundy himself express- 
 ed it correctly when he wrote, "It (the presentD would not have been 
 possible without our labours; where we sowed, it reaps." 
 
 Again Mr. Shaw writes: "During the ten years 1885 - 1895 
 Grundy was classed with Pinero and Jones as one of the three leading 
 playwrights of the day; and it can hardly be said that this was less 
 than he deserved; it was on the contrary a remarkable bit of luck for 
 him. In those years, 1885 - 1895, Grundy was doing his best work, 
 work the quality of which, I think, entitled him, if not to be class- 
 ed exactly with Pinero and Jones, at least to a place directly after 
 them. It was not, altogether , good fortune but ability and hard work 
 which for a period of time put Grundy in the front rank of English 
 dramatists. While Grundy was producing Sowing the Wind, An Old Jew , 
 and The New Woman , Jones was writing The Liars and Michael and his 
 Lost Angel and Pinero The Profligate ana The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. 
 Sowing the Wind is unquestionably neither sc strong nor so powerful 
 a play as The Second Mrs. Tanqueray or Michael . It is the same type 
 of play, however - a play, dealing without flinching or hesitancy 
 with a real problem of society. I do not think, moreover, that ei- 
 ther the play of Jones or that of Pinero is much superior in con- 
 struction to Sowi ng the Win d. The latter moves simply and naturally 
 to a logical conclusion. What Grundy’s play lacks, of course, is 
 realistic and deep characterization; in this respect, it falls de- 
 
 ^ See Appendix , p . 68-63 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 I 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
finitely behind the work of Jones and Pinero. Grundy undoubtedly 
 ranked third among the the three dramatists, but that he held such 
 a position w as due rather to his merit than to any "remarkable bit 
 of luck". 
 
 Where Grundy failed most completely, after all, was in 
 that quality which perhaps only great dramatists possess, his abili- 
 ty to sustain himself. Never in hie fifty or more plays do we have 
 a perfect piece of work. A brilliant bit of dialogue in The Silver 
 Shield , able characterization in A Pair of Spectacle s, some reveal- 
 ing and deep analysis of human motives in Sowing the Wind, a smash- 
 ing blow at hypocrisy in The Greatest of These - , all are admirable 
 qualities repeated again and again. But never does a character 
 stand out wholly and completely, never is a play worked out to an 
 entirely satisfactory solution. In An Old Jew , for instance, Grundy 
 misses what might have been a masterly depiction of a great person- 
 ality, to express his aversion to newspaper criticism. In A Fool 's 
 Paradise we are not altogether sure whether Grundy condemns the 
 woman who attempts to poison her husband or not. In almost every 
 one of his plays there is a slump at some point. Dramatic virtues 
 and vices are so thoroughly mixed that a critic in reviewing 
 Grundy’s plays will always be compelled to use a plentiful supply 
 of "althoughs", "buts" and "in spite ofs". Mr. Shaw hits the rea- 
 son for this when he says that Grundy "never worked out his posi- 
 tion intellectually". Because his own ideas were never altogether 
 clear in his mind, he could never fully develop the characters or 
 plays which embodied those ideas. 
 
 It would be difficult to sum up his philosophy of life. 
 As Shaw says, he believed our morality to be "hypocritical and in- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 65 - 
 
 human". He did, however, get "beyond making vague bids for sympathy 
 with adultery". What Grundy wanted rather than to condone immoral- 
 ity was to condemn Pharisaism and to plead for complete understand- 
 ing before giving judgment. Because he was morbidly sensitive him- 
 self to public opinion and to the harshness of unfriendly critics, 
 he attempted to show, as in The Silver Shield, that condemnation 
 is often based on misconception rather than on actual truth. This 
 same sensitiveness led him, as Mr. Shaw intimates, to imagine that 
 he was more misunderstood possibly than he was. Certainly, the 
 large amount of adverse criticism which he received early in his 
 career affected him more than it would a more callous soul. When 
 he began to write, adaptation, farce and, at the best, "cup and sau- 
 cer" comedy dominated the English stage. At his death plays deal- 
 ing with serious problems of society were familiar to English au- 
 diences. It is not too much to say that he helped materially to 
 make this possible. That he did not do more was due partly to his 
 own limitations but largely to his age. It was his misfortune rath- 
 er than his fault that when his mind was clear and his ideals fresh, 
 his age should not have been ready for him, and that when the time 
 was ripe for work which according to logical development of talent 
 he should have been able to produce, his mind was clouded by bitter- 
 ness, resulting from neglect and real or fancied abuse. 
 
 Whatever else Grundy was, he was an idealist, believing 
 in men and sympathizing with them in their triumphs and defeats. 
 
 His idealism may have led him astray, may even have been partially 
 responsible for his failure to "work out his position intellectu- 
 ally". He was, however, by temperament, a fighter and a champion 
 of ideas. William Archer summed up the idealism of the man and the 
 
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- 66 - 
 
 faults and. virtues of the playwright most completely when he wrote: 
 "He knew very well - or at any rate he believed - that 
 the public was thoughtless; he gave it the best of his thoughts. He 
 knew that it hated to be preached at: he preached at it with all his 
 might. He knew that it was impatient of laborious analysis of char- 
 acter: he gave it, if not laborious analysis, at least leisurely and 
 detailed synthesis. Again and again he suspended the action - for 
 which alone the public is understood to yearn - while some social 
 or moral question was being deliberately thrashed out. In short, he 
 calmly ignored the (real or imaginary) demands of the bugbear public 
 and wrote simply to satisfy himself. Or rather, to put it more ac- 
 curately, he wrote, as every artist must, for an ideal audience, for 
 
 „3 
 
 those who think, who feel, who know." 
 
 3 
 
 Archer, Theatrical World , 1896, pp. 182-183. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 67 - 
 
 VII. 
 
 Appendix 
 
 In an effort to secure information concerning Grundy's life 
 and work, Professor Hillebrand has written to various friends and 
 acquaintances of the playwright . Of the replies received those 
 from William Archer, George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Kendal have 
 proved of especial interest and value and are therefore here in- 
 cluded . 
 
 I . 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Were you in England I could tell you many many anec- 
 dotes of our friend Sydney Grundy - but I canno t write them. Now 
 you are in correspondence with his wife a devoted second wife, and 
 his daughter, you will gain much information. I wonder if this 
 world will ever comprehend and acknowledge what a clever man he 
 was. I fear not. The world cannot judge anything unless you 
 carry a placard of your good points on both chest and back for 
 them to read!.' 
 
 Y. V. Sincerely 
 Madge Kendal . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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- 68 - 
 
 II . 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 In the nineties I contributed to The Saturday Review 
 criticisms of those plays of Grundy's which were produced in London 
 between 1895 and 1898. You will find in the collection entitled. 
 Dramatic Opinions and Essays published by Brentanos an article on 
 Slaves of the Ring, another headed Pinero and Grundy on G.B.S., and 
 a third called Mr. Grundy's Improvements on Dumas. 
 
 These three articles should be read now with some allow- 
 ance for the fact that I was engaged in discrediting the trade in 
 "well-made" plays from Paris, constructed according to the Scribe 
 formula. Grundy was more than a practitioner in this school: he 
 was a devotee; and when I hit out right and left at the "well-made" 
 plays, ridiculing all their tricks and describing them as mechanical 
 rabbits and clockwork mice and the like, I was blaspheming against 
 the only religion Grundy had ever acquired. Consequently Grundy 
 never alluded to me in print except in terms of the most contemptu- 
 ous hostility. But we were none the worse friends personally. When 
 he was dying - it took a long time, poor fellow - he would write 
 fierce letters to the press against me, and then write quite affec- 
 tionate private letters to me. I do not think there was any cabal 
 against Grundy. As he was a man who lived on resentments (which 
 are very good fun and quite nourishing if you have the temperament 
 for them) he invented cabals and "rings". and all sorts of things to 
 resent and denounce; and so Mrs. Kendal no doubt got from himself 
 
 the impression that he was misunderstood and illused. But during 
 
. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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-69- 
 
 the ten years 1885 - 95 Grundy was cla.ssed with Pinero and Jones as 
 one of the three leading playwrights of the day; and it can hardly 
 be said that this was less than he deserved; it was, on the contrary, 
 a remarkable bit of luck for him. When the reaction against what 
 I used to call Sardoodledom came, and Barrie came to the front in the 
 theatre, Grundy faded into an adapter of French plays. But he had 
 never been successful as an original writer, because though he real- 
 ly did try to be original in his subjects, if not in his technique 
 he never mastered his own ideas. He thought our morality was hypo- 
 critical and inhuman; and for him morality meant sex morality. Some 
 private affair of his own, the particulars of which you have perhaps 
 learnt, rankled in him, I tnink. But he never worked out his posi- 
 tion intellectually, and did not get beyond making vague bids for 
 sympathy with adultery, and mixing them up hopelessly with the Pari- 
 sian stage tradition in such matters. 
 
 If he had made up his mind seriously as to what he be- 
 lieved, and emptied out his bag of mechanical ifjacks and construction 
 he might have arrived somewhere; but this is only to say that if he 
 had not been Sydney Grundy he might have been someone else. There 
 was some of the pathos of failure about him; but you can hardly say 
 that he was a failure. What you can say, I think, is that he was 
 a warning rather than an example. Like all men who quarrel with 
 conventional morality without taking the trouble to find out what 
 is wrong with it, he ended as a cynic. 
 
 Faithfully 
 
 G. Bernard Shaw. 
 

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- 70 - 
 
 III. 
 
 Dear Professor Hillebrand: 
 
 I seize a moment in the midst of rehearsals to reply to 
 your letter regarding Sydney Grundy. 
 
 I could perhaps answer it more fully were I in England; 
 but even there it would be difficult to get much information regard- 
 ing him. Many of his plays were never printed. If you would send 
 me a list those to which you have not had access, I should be glad 
 to find out, on my return to London, whether they are obtainable. 
 
 His widow may have his mss, but I have quite lost sight of her. It 
 is possible, however, that one might get on her track. 
 
 I knew him well, but never enquired into his biography, 
 because I knew that there had been some trouble in his early life 
 which had procured him in some quarters the reputation of a man of 
 loose morals. I fancy it was almost entirely undeserved - probably 
 some sentimental imbroglio was harshly interpreted by the Pharisaism 
 of his native place, Manchester. His father, I believe had been 
 mayor, at or any rate, alderman of that city. He retained through 
 life a slight north country accent, many north country peculiarities. 
 He told me (I think) that it was a Frenchman who taught him French 
 in Manchester who instilled into him that admiration for Eugene 
 Scribe which established his dramatic method, and which, unfortunate- 
 ly, he never outgrew. His French, however, remained very imperfect. 
 He was capable of rather gross mis-translat ions . For instance he 
 
 would translate ’’chance" simple "chance" instead of "good fortune". 
 
 Strong traces of his sentimental experience and his 
 
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- 71 - 
 
 rebellion against conventions are to be found in his novel "The Days 
 of his Vanity." I once possessed a copy of it, but it has by now 
 disappeared. I doubt whether its three volumes are recoverable ex- 
 cept in the British Museum. 
 
 I believe that the play ultimately produced under the 
 title of "Slaves of the Ring" was quite an early work; but it was 
 far before its time when he wrote it in the ’seventies, and far be- 
 hind its time when he was at last able to produce it in the ’nine- 
 ties. While he was still in Manchester, I think he had some short 
 play or plays produced by the Kendals. Mrs. Kendal could now, if 
 she would, give much information as to his early career. I fancy 
 (but this is little more than conjecture) that the local scandal led 
 to an estrangement between them. I remember him once telling me 
 that a Manchester critic - I think it was in Manchester - had de- 
 nounced his work as being "eaten up with the cancer, or canker, or 
 chancre of immorality". (Grundy used all three words, I presume im- 
 plying that he did not remember which the critic had employed.) 
 
 Unable to get original plays acted, he fell back on ad- 
 aptations, and made some mark with "Mammon" (Mont joye) "The Snowball" 
 (Oscar) and "In Honor Bound" (Une Chaine). He lived for many years 
 in quite narrow circumstances - in a very small house in West Dut- 
 wich. He had one daughter, Lily Grundy, who went on the stage but 
 did not make any career. Presumably she married. Fortune came to 
 him with a series of Adelphi melodramas notably "The Bells of 
 Haslemere," which he did alone or in collaboration. He then moved 
 to a larger house in the West End - Winter Lodge, Addison Road - 
 and he had ultimately a house at (I think) Margate, where he had a 
 telescope and studied astronomy. In his late years he became a 
 

 
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- 73 - 
 
 Baconian. I remember his once telling me very solemnly that the 
 following year (I forget what year it was) would be forever famous 
 in the history of literature - and I think it was because he expect- 
 ed some Bacon mss (perhaps new plays by Bacon-Shapespeare ) to be 
 discovered by some American engineers who had, by a process of 
 stringent deduction, discovered where a box-full of documents had 
 been deposited. I have always associated this mare's nest of his 
 with the investigations which were ultimately made in the bed of the 
 Wye. But he may have had something else in mind. 
 
 In his last years he printed (privately I think) a 
 pamphlet good-naturedly attacking the dramatic movement which had 
 left him behind. I might be able to lay my hand on it in London. 
 
 He died, I believe of cancer. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 William Archer. 
 

 
 
 
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-73 - 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A List of Grundy’s Plays 
 
 With 
 
 A Little Change . 
 
 All at Sea. 
 
 Reading for the B ar . 
 
 Mammon . 
 
 Man Propose s. 
 
 The Snowball . 
 
 A Bad Bargain . 
 
 After Long Years. 
 
 In Honour Bound. 
 
 Popsy Wopsy (libretto.). 
 
 Over the Ga rd en Wall . 
 
 D ust . 
 
 The Vicar of Bray (libretto). 
 The Novel-Reade r. 
 
 Rachel . 
 
 The Qu een’s Favourite . 
 
 The Glass of Fashion . 
 
 Hare and Hounds . 
 
 La Cosaque. 
 
 Pocahontas (libretto). 
 
 The Silver Shield . 
 
 Clito. 
 
 A Wife*s Sacrifice. 
 
 date of first performance. 
 
 July 13, 1872. 
 August 8, 1873. 
 October 2, 1876. 
 April 7, 1877. 
 
 March 18, 1878. 
 February 2, 1879. 
 
 1879. 
 
 December 6, 1879. 
 September 25, 1880. 
 October 4, 1880. 
 July 20, 1881. 
 November 12, 1881. 
 July 22, 188 <6. 
 August 28, 1882. 
 April 14, 1883. 
 
 June 2, 1883. 
 
 March 26, 1883. 
 August 13, 1883. 
 April 7, 1884. 
 December 26, 1884. 
 May 19, 1885. 
 
 May 1, 1886. 
 
 May 25, 1886. 
 

 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-74- 
 
 The Bells of Haslemere. 
 
 July 28, 1887. 
 
 A Fool’s Paradise. 
 
 October 7, 1887. 
 
 The Arabian Nights. 
 
 November 5, 1887. 
 
 The Pompadour. 
 
 March 31, 1888. 
 
 Mamma . 
 
 April 16, 1888. 
 
 The Union Jack. 
 
 July 18, 1888. 
 
 A White Lie. 
 
 February 8, 1889. 
 
 Esther Sandraz . 
 
 June 11, 1889. 
 
 Deep Waters. 
 
 September 19, 1889 
 
 A Pair of Spectacles. 
 
 February 22, 1890. 
 
 A Village Priest. 
 
 April 3, 1890. 
 
 A House of Cards. 
 
 November 13, 1891. 
 
 Haddon Hall (libretto). 
 
 September 24, 1892 
 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 
 September 30, 1893 
 
 An Old Jew. 
 
 January 6, 1894. 
 
 A Bunch of Violets. 
 
 April 25, 1894. 
 
 The New Woman. 
 
 September 1, 1894. 
 
 Slaves of the Ring. 
 
 December 29, 1894. 
 
 The Greatest of These - 
 
 September 13, 1895 
 
 The Late Mr. Caatello. 
 
 December 28, 1895. 
 
 A Marriage of Convenience. 
 
 June 5, 1897. 
 
 The Silver Key. 
 
 July 10, 1897. 
 
 The Musketeers. 
 
 November 3, 1898. 
 
 The Degenerates. 
 
 August 31, 1899. 
 
 The Black Tulip. 
 
 October 28, 1899. 
 
 Sympathetic Souls. 
 
 February 26, 1900. 
 
 The Head of Romulus. 
 
 May 10, 1900. 
 
 A Debt of Honour. 
 
 September 1, 1900. 
 
I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-?5- 
 
 Frocks a nd Frills. 
 
 The Garden of Lies^ 
 The Diplomatists . 
 Business is Busin ess. 
 A Fearful Joy. 
 
 World Without End. 
 
 January 2, 1902. 
 September 3, 1904. 
 February 11, 1905. 
 May* 13, 1905. 
 
 April 13, 1908. 
 
 1914. 
 

-76- 
 
 IX. 
 
 Bibliography. 
 
 A. General reference. 
 
 1. Adams, W. D. A Dic tiona ry of the Drama, A-G . Philadelphia, 
 1904. 
 
 3. Clarence, Reginald. The Stage Cyclopedia . London, 1909. 
 
 3. Hines, Dixie and Hanaford, Harry Prescott. Who * 3 Who in 
 
 Music and Drama. New York, 1914. 
 
 4. Parker, John. Who ! s Who i n the Theat re. Boston, 1914. 
 
 B. Stage history. 
 
 1. Baker, H. Barton. History of the English Stage . London, 
 
 1904. 
 
 2. Borsa, Mario. The English Stage of To-d ay. New York, 1908. 
 
 3. Courtney, W. L. Old Saws and Modern Instances, London, 
 
 1919. 
 
 4. Dickinson, Thomas H. The Contemporary Drama of England . 
 
 Eoston, 1917. 
 
 5. Filon, Augustin. The English Stage. New York, 1897* 
 
 6. Gilbert, William Schenk. A Stag e Play . New York, 1916. 
 
 7. Hibbert, H. G. Fifty Years of a Londoner^ Life. New York, 
 
 1916. 
 
 A Playgoer f s Memori es. London, 1930. 
 
 8. Maude, Cyril. The Haymarket Theatr e. London, 1903. 
 
 9. Schell ing, Felix E. English Drama . New York, 1914. 
 
 10. Scott, Clement. The Drama of Yesterday and To-da y. 2 vols. 
 New York, 1899. 
 
-77- 
 
 C. Biographies. 
 
 1. Bancroft, M. W. and Sir. S. B. Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft on and 
 
 off the stage. 2 vole. London, 1888. 
 
 2. Pemberton, L. Edgar. The Kenda la. New York, 1900. 
 
 D. List of plays - 
 
 1. Boucicault, Dion. Arrah-Na-Pogue . Chicago. 
 
 3. Byron, H. J. Uncle . Philadelphia, 1900. 
 
 3. Galsworthy, John. Plays . Third series. New York, 1914. 
 
 4. Grundy, Sydney. 1 
 
 T he Arabian Nights. New York. 
 
 A Bunch of Violets . New York, 1901. 
 
 The Dean 1 a Daughter. London, 1891. 
 
 A Fool^ Paradise . New York. 
 
 The Glass of Fashion. New York, 1898. 
 
 T he Head of Romulus. New York, 1900. 
 
 I n Honour Bound. New York. 
 
 The Late Mr. Caatello . New York, 1901. 
 
 A Little Change . New York. 
 
 A Marriage of Convenience . New York, 1900. 
 
 A Pair of Spectacles . New York, 1898. 
 
 T he Silver Shield. New York, 1898. 
 
 The Snowball . New Yor k . 
 
 Sowing the Wind. New York, 1901. 
 
 Sympathetic Souls. New York, 1900. 
 
 The Vicar of Bray. London, 1899. 
 
 5. Pinero, Sir. A. W. 
 
 The Magistrate. Boston, 1892. 
 
 1 So far as I have been able to ascertain, these are the only plays 
 ___of_GTundy 1 s which have been published. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
-78- 
 
 The Profligate* Boston, 1893. 
 
 The Second Mrs. Tanqueray . Boston, 1894. 
 
 6. Robertson, Thomas William. The Principal Dramatic Works 
 
 of T. W. Robertson . 2 vol. London, 1889. 
 
 7. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earne st. New York. 
 E. Reviews and criticisms. 
 
 1. Archer, William. About th e Theatre. London, 1886. 
 
 The Theatrical World , for 1893-^97. London. 
 
 2. Reviews in The Athenaeum of: 
 
 The Arabian Nights. 
 
 1887-2: 
 
 649. 
 
 Clito. 
 
 1886-1: 
 
 627. 
 
 Dust . 
 
 1881-2: 
 
 123. 
 
 A Fool's Paradise. 
 
 1889-1: 
 
 323. 
 
 The Glass of Fashion 
 
 .1883-2: 
 
 346. 
 
 Grundy's Life. 
 
 1914-2: 
 
 60. 
 
 A Little Change. 
 
 1872-2: 
 
 90. 
 
 Over the Garden Wall 
 
 .1881-2: 
 
 123. 
 
 Rachel . 
 
 1883-1: 
 
 517. 
 
 Reading for the Bar. 
 
 1876-2: 
 
 476. 
 
 The Silver Shield. 
 
 1885-1: 
 
 673. 
 
 The Snowball. 
 
 1879-1: 
 
 195. 
 
 A Wife's Sacrifice. 
 
 1886-1: 
 
 725. 
 
 3. Grein, J. T. Dramatic Criticism , 1900-1901. London, 1902. 
 
 4. Reviews in The Saturday Review of: 
 
 The Black Tulip 
 
 87: 
 
 579 
 
 A Bunch of Violets. 
 
 78: 
 
 444 
 
 Business is Business 
 
 .99: 
 
 733 
 
 The Dean's Daughter. 
 
 66: 
 
 460 
 
-79- 
 
 A Debt of Honour. 
 
 88: 
 
 297. 
 
 The Degenerates. 
 
 87: 
 
 325. 
 
 A Fearful Joy. 
 
 105 
 
 : 525 
 
 Frocks and Frills. 
 
 93: 
 
 45. 
 
 The Glass of Fashion 
 
 .55: 
 
 340. 
 
 The Musketeers. 
 
 86: 
 
 630. 
 
 The New Woman. 
 
 78: 
 
 263 . 
 
 An Old Jew. 
 
 78: 
 
 68 . 
 
 A Pair of Spectacles 
 
 .93: 
 
 45. 
 
 The Pompadour. 
 
 65: 
 
 407. 
 
 The Silver Shield. 
 
 59: 
 
 685. 
 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 
 77: 
 
 412. 
 
 The Union Jack. 
 
 66: 
 
 109. 
 
 5. Shaw, George Bernard. Dramatic Opinions and Essays . 
 
 New York, 1916. 
 
 6. Walkley, A. B. Playhouse Impressions. London, 1902. 
 
 F. Magazine articles and pamphlets. 
 
 1. Boucicault, Dion. n The Decline of the Drama." 
 
 The North American Review, 125: 235. 
 
 2. Buchanan, Robert. "The Modern Drama and its Minor Critics? 
 
 The Contemporary Revie w. 56: 908. 
 
 3. Dickens, Charles. "The Difficulties of the Serious Drama." 
 
 The Theatre , 27:200. • 
 
 4. Franc, Miriam A. Ibsen in England. Boston, 1919. 
 
 5. Fyfe, H. Hamilton. " Mr. Grundy as Cassandra. " 
 
 The Theatre , 27: 203. 
 
 6. Grundy, Sydney. " Marching to Our Doom. " 
 
 The Theatr e , 27: 131 and 196. 
 

- 80 - 
 
 The Play of the Future, London, 1914. 
 
 7. Quilter, Harry. "The Decline of the Drama." 
 
 The Contemporary Review , 51: 547. 
 
 8. Scott, Clement. "A Critic on the Criticized." 
 
 The Theatre, 13: 297. 
 
 9. Watson, Malcolm. "Mr. Grundy and the Critics." 
 
 The Theatre, 24: 161.