THE DRAMATIC PATENTS ...EXAMINED. 273 



whom only, they could hope to promote any interest. They talked 

 as they have always talked, as if the public were not in any way 

 concerned,, and might be safely left out of the question. 



When the new house was opened in 1809, and people complained 

 both of its size and the price of admission, they were told they might 

 keep away ; and when the public became somewhat outrageous and 

 demanded an end of the monopoly, that they might be better accom- 

 dated elsewhere, they were treated with contumely. The folly has 

 repaid itself it has sought and found its appropriate reward. The 

 public took the advice so absurdly and arrogantly given they staid 

 away ; and we now see the consequences, in the claims for the original 

 outlay being doubled in amount in the depression of theatrical talent 

 in authors in the paucity of genius in actors, notwithstanding the 

 number of persons as capable of attaining to excellence in this as in 

 other professions in numerous debts, some of them scarcely better 

 than frauds on the sufferers and now in the discharge of a large 

 number of persons who have no other means of subsistence in a 

 lamentable reduction of the scanty wages of those who remain, and 

 in the salaries of such of the performers as, from meanness or neces- 

 sity,can be induced to degrade themselves by consenting to play at both 

 houses for the sole advantage, as it is insanely expected, of one per- 

 son, put forward as the lessee of both houses ; who, proceeding on the 

 notion which has governed all proprietors, lessees, and managers for 

 years past, thus adds one more to the many insults the public have 

 received ; and then, with a silliness even beyond that of his predeces- 

 sors, expects that the public, who are thus treated, will, with a mean- 

 ness which does not attach to them, do that for him which has been 

 systematically refused for so many years to his predecessors. 



The remedy for the evils which the great houses have inflicted is 

 somewhat doubtful, and must be matter of experiment. The pro- 

 blem to be solved is this. Have the taste and manners of the people 

 so changed that the performance of English tragedies and comedies 

 can no longer command the attention of a sufficient number of spec- 

 tators in houses where all may hear and see? or will the public sup- 

 port those who, loving their art, are desirous to practice it in perfec- 

 tion in houses to which admission may be procured on reasonable 

 terms, and from which many of the shameful and shameless annoy- 

 ances to which respectable persons are subjected in the great houses 

 may be prevented ? 



No other remedy remains, and unless the taste for what has been 

 called the legitimate drama is actually extinct, houses in a free state 

 of competition, which will hold rather more than half the number of 

 spectators necessary to fill houses so large as those of Coveiit-garden 

 and Drury-lane, will assuredly revive the taste for theatrical enter- 

 tainments, encourage literature, call forth genius, and secure rational 

 and satisfactory amusements for the people. 



It would be a work of supererogation to detail the losses of Drury- 

 lane house, as has been done by Covent-garden house. The two 

 cases are so much alike that the exhibition of one of them is sufficient. 



In the last session of parliament, a bill to permit the erection of 

 other play-houses was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. 

 M. M. No. 99. 2 N 



