It is, by dint of elaborate stage management, possible to bring a mob upon the boards, but the largest mob ever known is nothing but a floating atom of the people; and the people of which the politician has to think does not consist of knots of rioters in the street, but of some million absolutely distinct individuals, each sitting in his own breakfast room reading his own morning paper.

To give even the faintest suggestion of the strength and size of the people in this sense in the course of a dramatic performance is obviously impossible.
That is why it is so easy on the stage to concentrate all the pathos and dignity upon such persons as Charles I.and Mary Queen of Scots, the vampires of their people, because within the minute limits of a stage there is room for their small virtues and no room for their enormous crimes.

It would be impossible to find a stronger example than the case of _Strafford_.

It is clear that no one could possibly tell the whole truth about the life and death of Strafford, politically considered, in a play.

Strafford was one of the greatest men ever born in England, and he attempted to found a great English official despotism.