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order of dramatists, both acted and unacted, only await the man, come when he may, who, having the material means in his power, shall mould a form congenial to the present spirit of the age; and this once done, the abundant existing dramatic genius will gather round it, and the Drama again become popular. It will of course be understood, that no removal of legal restrictions, nor any other outward circumstances can bring about a new dramatic period, unless dramatists have a ready access to theatres, and the services of the best actors. Without these, any possible number of the most genuine dramatists would not be of the least avail. They would be like disembodied souls; or like a waggon load of gold on the wrong side of a turnpike, where gold was not recognized.

But with these necessary aids, a Drama will again be created. Theories that have long oppressed it, circumstances that have stunted and destroyed it, are rapidly passing away. The hope that external circumstances could re-ignite it, must now be for ever abandoned. Actor and actress, manager and mountebank, bandmaster and speculator, one after another, fail to do so; and the hope of their being ever able to effect a revival of the Drama, or a dramatic success of any kind, the most pertinacious of those fallacies clung to by those who call themselves "the practical men," is now utterly extinguished. The utmost that Garrick effected-perhaps the most generally accomplished and versatile actor that ever lived-was merely to make the theatre fashionable, and "a rage." If it be true that he also improved or even created a better taste, he did nothing to produce or aid the creation of the thing tasted. It was there before him. The same may be said of the Kembles; and of Edmund Kean. Much more has been aimed at by Mr. Macready, but not with much better success. Shakspere improved the Drama of his time, and created fresh dramas. An actor can only improve or injure taste. Mr. Macready has done both-improved taste in poetical scenery, and the "getting up," and injured it in almost confirming the taste for expensive upholstery and display. The imagination of creative dramatists can alone call forth any new spirit and form of Drama. The most profuse and admirable external aids can only foster mediocrity, and are so far detrimental because they dazzle and mislead

the public judgment till it cannot distinguish the essential from the extraneous.

That the good management of a theatre requires the power to be vested in one man, is no doubt true; and perhaps when we look at the discordant and conflicting talents, vanities, and interests, all in vigorous motion-his power should be almost despotic. But how far it is good for such management to be vested in a principal actor, in full possession of his acting faculties, is another question. Instead of enlarging the sphere of the drama, he is sure to narrow it to his own exclusive standard. Instead of rendering it universal, he will make it particular. Instead of a reflexion of humanity, it will become the pampered image of an individual. "I cannot see myself in this part," is a favourite expression of Mr. Farren's when he does not like a new play; and may be taken as a general characteristic of all the "stars." The stars, however, are disappearing, and with them the long suite of their retainers, the scenery-mongers, decorators, restorers, tailors, antiquarians, upholsterers, who have had their day. Capitalists have backed them with unbounded wealth; experience has lent them all her aid; trickery all her cunning; puffery all her placards, bills, paragraphs, and the getting up of "stories;" the press all its hundred tongues, telling of their nightly doings-besides the special tongues in cases where a public organ has been a private engine-and what has been the result? Bankruptcies, failures, dispersions, flights, half-salaries, no salaries, farewell dinners, debts, prisons, and fresh candidates for the fatal seat. The fresh candidate, who in most cases is a fine old hand at a failure, usually finds a fresh capitalist to back him. "He is a man of such practical experience!" says the capitalist. Mooncalf! of what is his experience? Are not the practical results of all his efforts precisely of a kind to make every capitalist in his rational senses, start back from his disastrous "experience ?" But there is also another peculiarity attached to a managerial lease-holder. He pays people if he can; if he cannot, he laughs in their faces. Anybody else would be arrested, or knocked down, or something. He stands in a sporting attitude; and nothing happens to him! Every now and then, when a dashing speculating sort of "man about town" finds himself totally without money, and does not know

what in the world to do next, he says to himself,"Damme! I'll take a theatre!" Very likely he will find backers with money as soon as he has taken it; in any case, the proprietors are all too happy to let him the house. He invariably fails. Some are paid, many not. Who cares? That dashing speculator is not a scamp, "bless your heart!"-but an excellent good fellow. He has such enterprise in him!-such experience! Why, the impudent rogue absolutely risked nothing-he had nothing to risk. Oh, but he has such enterprise! And thus with two unexamined catchwords-enterprise and experience-the proprietors of theatres, and the poor mooncalf capitalist, delude and injure themselves and the public.

How totally inapplicable to Mr. Macready must be any of the preceding remarks, with reference to pecuniary dealings, need not be repeated; it is the more to be regretted that the system he pursued of profuse expenditure upon extrinsic adornments, was of a kind which never can prove successful, and which, for his sake, as well as that of the poetry of the Drama, we most earnestly trust he will never repeat.

During periods when the Drama and the stage have been almost at the last ebb, it should be recollected that Sheridan Knowles and Mr. Macready have continually exerted themselves to open new springs, or recal the retiring waters. If in vain, their indefatigable energies are at least worthy of admiration. Both have

now been before the public these twenty-five or thirty years, and have well earned the estimation they have obtained. Mr. Knowles commenced his career as an actor, but has some time since abandoned it. He is still in vigorous life, and full of excellent spirits-poetical, convivial, and Hibernian. In private he is a prodigious favourite with all who know him; frank, burly, smiling, offhand, voluble, and saying whatever comes uppermost; with a large heart beating under a great broad and deep chest, not easily accessible to care or trouble, but constitutionally jovial and happy. Mr. Macready in private is good-natured, easy, unaffected, without the least attempt at display, extremely gentleman-like, habitually grave, and constitutionally saturnine. His smile is melancholy, and his expression is occasionally of great kindness. He speaks little; with frequent hesitation, but well: with good sense, and

enlarged and benevolent sympathies, moral and political. His views of art are confused between the real and ideal. Mr. Knowles occasionally delivers Lectures on the Drama, which are conspicuous for no philosophy or art, and an abundance of good humour and the warmest admiration of his favourite authors.

66

MISS E. B. BARRETT

AND

MRS. NORTON.

Flower of the Soul! emblem of sentient Thoughts,
With prayer on prayer to chorded harps ascending,
Till at the clouded Portals, humbly bending,
"They, like the holy martyrs' pale cohorts,

Wait solemnly-while sounds of dew descending
Their presence recognise, approve, and bless ;-
Flower! shedding fragrance from a dark recess,
'Thy roots lie passive on this mortal soil;

Thy beauty blooms on high-serene beyond our coil!"

"As one who drinks from a charmed cup

Of foaming and sparkling and murmuring wine,
Which a mighty Enchantress, filling up,

Invites to love with her lips divine."-SHELLEY.

"Thy Mind shines through thee like a radiant sun,
Although thy body be a beauteous cloud."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

It is anything but handsome towards those who were criticised, or fair towards the adventurous critic, to regard, as some have done, the article on "Modern English Poetesses," which appeared a few years ago in the Quarterly Review," as a tribute merely of admiration. It was a tribute of justice; and hardly that, because nine ladies were reviewed, of very different kind and degree of merit, all in the same article. Eight were allowed to wear their laurels; the ninth fell a victim. Passing over the victim, who shall be nameless, we will say, that the poetical genius, the impassioned fervour, the knowledge of genuine nature and of society, of books, of languages, of all that is implied by the term of accomplishment, and, "though last, not least," the highly cultivated talent in the poetic art, displayed by the other eight, are such as to entitle them to a higher position than several of the " received" poets of the past and present centuries.

The list we have named comprises, Mrs. Norton; Miss E. B. Barrett; Maria del Occidente; Lady Northampton (author of "Irene"); Caroline Southey; Miss Lowe; the Author of "IX Poems;" Sara Coleridge;

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