J830.] Affairs in General 691 



Byron's poetry was not dramatic., but melo-dramatic. He could do nothing 

 without harems, turbans, Turks, and three-tailed pashas. In tragedy 

 he failed altogether ; and though we shall see Macready looking as fierce 

 as triple whiskers and a bandit costume of the most approved ferocity 

 can make him, a terror to the stage, and obnoxious to the scaffold at 

 every glance ; yet he will have his trouble for the pleasure of over- 

 throwing Werner once more. 



But the theatres wisely do not limit themselves to the trifling matters 

 of plays. They are never happy unless when to their scenic exhibitions 

 they can add an appearance in the courts of law. The majors and 

 minors are now preparing for desperate bills of costs, which they will 

 have the pleasure of being compelled to pay, though they should come 

 to no further conclusions. The preliminary operations of the campaign 

 have commenced, in the challenge of a minor manager to a major mana- 

 ger, and in the threat to throw a fellow out of the window, or give him 

 his alternative of being roasted on the green-room fire, where he had 

 been detected with a pen and ink, taking notes of something or other for 

 the benefit of the forthcoming litigation. 



The Duke of Montrose, late Lord Chamberlain, in his capacity of 

 mediator between the managers and proprietors of the principal London 

 theatres, arranged that the Haymarket should remain open four months 

 in the summer, and that during three of those months Drury-lane and 

 Covent-garden Theatres should be entirely closed. 



But the poor duke had no more chance of reconciling even the winter 

 and summer theatres, than he had of reconciling the sheep to the butcher, 

 or the client to the lawyer. The summer theatres complain that they 

 are undone by the restriction, and demand why they must be condemned 

 to idleness during eight months out of the twelve, while the winter 

 theatres have leave to expatiate over nine. The reason is not easily to 

 be found out. But a new tribe of antagonists have started up, the 

 suburb theatres, the Coburg and the Surrey, with the East London and 

 the West London, and probably others, which have escaped our dis- 

 covery. Those assailants divide the prey with the majors, nay, some- 

 times pluck the prize out of their hands. But the Duke of Devonshire 

 is again Lord Chamberlain ; terrible tidings for George Colman, Jun. 

 His scrupulosity of conscience will be tortured as badly as before by 

 the unfeeling duke. He will see the erasures of his pious pen restored, 

 and the fatal time come back when a lover in a comedy may call his 

 mistress an angel with guilty impunity. Still, we are glad that the 

 duke has come back ; he is a gentleman, though a whig ; has some fond- 

 ness for literature, and a certain knowledge of the drama. The little old 

 Duke of Montrose was a gentleman, too, but he knew as much of the 

 drama, as of the Copernican System ; and was much more eminent for 

 the punctual receipt of his salary than for his patronage of the stage. 

 We hope the Duke of Devonshire will shew us the difference between 

 an English nobleman and a little pensioner ; that he will disdain to 

 accept his salary, which is for a sinecure, and of which he ought to 

 scorn to touch a shilling ; and that he will expend it on patronizing the k 

 stage, which is to be patronized only by encouraging the dramatic^ 

 authorship of England. When Halifax was minister, the stage was 

 pretty much in its present condition, all Frencl^fied, all overrun with 

 contemptible translations from our neighbours. He, at once, offered 

 five hundred pounds for the best comedy, a sum more than equivalent 



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