this limited capacity, it is incumbent upon them to explain by what moral phenomenon the powers of wit, which are daily unfolding themselves with progressive vigour in every department of literature, should have become paralysed by the atmosphere of a theatre, and smitten into fatuity by the hand of Thalia. Upon the fact we are, to a certain extent, agreed; but not upon the cause-they imagine themselves to have discovered it in the inferior qualities of authors; we venture to attribute it to the altered composition of audiences, and gigantic dimensions of theatres. Fashion we know is omnipotent, and it pleased the goddess, in a moment of irritation against the drama, to infect her votaries with the mania of music. National taste was against it, but the affectation of enthusiasm is as contagious as the reality. Music became as ordained a portion of education as the alphabet; its professors were elevated into an importance which must have been astonishing even to themselves; people of consequence vied with each other in the magnificence of their concerts; the Opera House was exalted into the Elysium of the polished orders, and the theatre was abandoned to John Bull, as still represented by the inferior classes. Such was once the rage for shoulder-knots as we are told in the Tale of a Tub, that it was common to exclaim, on meeting one without this appendage, "That fellow can have no soul, where is his shoulder-knot?" and he who, with any pretension's to gentility, should now-a-days avow his ignorance of flats and sharps, would expose himself to a similar burst of indignant amazement. A scrutinizing eye will not fail to discover, that the higher classes now rarely form any portion of theatrical audiences, except they are driven to the theatre by some distinguished singer or operatic attraction? the females, who were once banished from dramatic representations, are now, in the upper circles at least, the principal instigators to their countenance, and naturally limit their patronage to that science which they can best comprehend, and for which they have the keenest relish. Thus is the support of fashion confined to the support of music: the lateness of modern hours, which renders it impossible to visit the theatre without the painful effort of a domestic revolution, confirms the indolent and luxurious in their seclusion from its walls; and its benches are abandoned, with a few trifling exceptions, to the middling and lower ranks of society. Of such a desertion the moral effects are instantly felt by the dramatist, who is unquestionably much more likely to know the exact taste of his audience than the critics who arraign him. Would he ingratiate himself with such an auditory by abstruse classical allusions, and elaborate wit? When Gibbet exclaims, in the Beaux Stratagem," Any thing for one's country-I am a Roman for that"and Aimwell replies, "One of the first, I'll lay my life" we may imagine that a great portion of the audience of FARQUHAR's day would understand the joke of this remote allusion; but we may safely pronounce that it is much too fine and etherial to come within the grasp of any available proportion of a modern pit. Our straightforward Bourgeoisie understand not this circular mode of attack; the chambers of their brain have no side doors; you must enter point-blank, or you waste your efforts upon an impenetrable wall. Now, as the very essence of wit consists in the unexpected association of naturally disconnected images, by means of certain collateral points of resemblance, it follows that it can be very little adapted to the capacity of these rectilinear gentry. In the admirable comedy of the School for Scandal, the points are of too refined and abstracted a nature for practical effect upon such auditors; the reputation of its dialogue has been echoed from the closet to the theatre; John Bull piques himself upon relishing that which the best tastes have pronounced to be exquiste. But a comedy must have other principles of vitality, or it will never live to enjoy this reflected support; writers look to immediate popularity and the main chance; they endeavour to adapt their merchandise to the mart, and dramatic dialogue degenerates into cant words, loyalty, coffee-house jokes for the consumption of the men-sentimentality, prettiness, and infantine oratory, for the occasions of the ladies. If it be little worth an author's while to let off a volley of wit which may fly over the heads of his game, it can hardly be expected that he should furnish good jokes for the purpose of seeing them cracked between the actors and the orchestra, which, in the gigantic dimensions of a modern theatre, will frequently be the extent of their range. Dialogue, to be relished, must be heard; and unless an actor be gifted with the lungs of a Stentor, so as to discharge a bon-mot with the impetus and report of a fowling-piece, it evaporates like a flash in the pan, which may startle the exhibitor, and one or two of his brother sportsmen, but can never produce an effect upon that against which it is levelled. It is a remark as old as Cicero, that impressions are less vividly received through the ear, than through the eye: in addressing the former organ, we have also to contend with the variety of tastes arising from the difference of mental faculties, as originally constituted, or affected by education; and hence a dramatic colloquy, which may be precisely adapted to the level of the medium ranks of intellect, may be too refined for the vulgar, and too familiar for the cultivated classes of society. But in communicating with the eye, there is no distinction of ranks, no shades of comprehension, no limitations of language or of nation, no exposure to keen and angry criticism. Large as our theatres are, all can see; and if we would speak to all, we must approach VOL II. Ee them through the only universal medium-the eye. Such being the advantages of the ocular over the auricular style of dramatic writing, can we wonder that it is eagerly adopted even by those who may perhaps despise the lenten entertainment which is alone adapted to the mansion of the guests; and who, instead of the "feast of reason and the flow of soul," are compelled to invent wooden or earthenware Dram. Pers., to exchange repartees between joint-stools and tables, to elicit wit from mahogany, and affect an audience with the catastrophe of crashing china? To be a good comic dramatist, in the old and genuine acceptation of the word; required a combination of no ordinary talents. To the illumination of wit, that heavenly meteor of the mind which is not to be lighted up at the midnight lamp, nor conveyed to us by reflection, he was expected to add a solid judgment adequate to restrain and regulate the fire of his genius: a penetration that, like the electric fluid, should perforate and decompound every object on which it alighted: a keen perception of the fantastic inconsistencies which such an intuition will discover, and a happy faculty of bringing them forward in the most ludicrous attitudes: fancy, to invent an action which would de-, velop his characters, and interest an audience, without outraging nature: erudition, to ennoble his dialogue, and embellish his dramatic structure with classical images: taste, to preside over all, like a tutelary deity, and round it into beauty by her graceful touches. These were the qualifications formerly deemed essential in the composition of a perfect dramatist; and while such an opinion existed, we cannot be surprised that those who ventured into the arena were combatants of no vulgar prowess. Still less can we be surprised, if in these days, when the art itself has degenerated into pantomime, artists, utterly ungifted with the lofty endowments we have enumerated, should start from their Baotian abodes, take possession of the stage, and be able to arrest the degrading applauses of a degraded audience by every species of mountebank mummery. From the moment it became established that dialogue alone was insufficient to fill these vast edifices, it was easy to foresee that the temple of Thalia would quickly be converted into her mausoleum; that the stage would be successively trodden by beings progressively declining in the scale of reason, and finally become polluted by the beasts of the field. Nor has the debasing influence of these stupendous theatres been limited to authors: performers have participated in their baneful operation, and have been tempted, if not compelled, to become instrumental in the degradation of the drama. With a jealous sensibility, constantly and keenly awake to the manifestations of popular applause, on which their existence so materially depends, they could not fail to discover that they, too, must address themselves to the eyes rather than to the understandings of their spectators; that no joke was half so productive of applause as a practical one; and that muscular sallies and manual rejoinders were the species of wit best calculated for general demand, and best paid by ready returns of applause. "For this hands, lips, and eyes, are put so school, If a performer be furnished with a clap-trap or a |