1830 ] Theatrical Mailers. 091 



of a rare and peculiar kind of talent. So far, it must be stimulated by 

 finding that its labours are sufficiently remunerated. But of all public 

 writing, a play is the most liable to be undone by the commonest con- 

 tingency : the failure of an actor in his part, a popular prejudice against 

 the writer or the subject, or any one of the common impulses that may 

 urge the multitude to injustice or absurdity, will totally destroy the la- 

 bours of months in an hour. In fact, dramatic writing, from its peculi- 

 arity and from its extreme precariousness, ought to have the prospect of 

 larger emolument, in case of success, than any other exertion of general 

 literature. There is as little doubt, also, that if it were adequately en- 

 couraged by managers, its productiveness would rapidly reward their 

 largest remuneration to the writer. 



But in the present state of the case, managers expend on a monkey 

 or a pretty puppet, on a dancer or a droll, those resources which would 

 enable them to sustain a succession of original and able plays on the 

 stage. The whole secret of managerial success lies in the power of ob- 

 taining the assistance of able dramatists. Where that is neglected, not 

 all the skill of all the scene-painters and spectacle-contrivers on earth can 

 redeem the theatre from ruin. 



The course has been run before our eyes a dozen times within a dozen 

 years. Every theatre in London and round London has been plunged 

 in desperate difficulties, and the sponge has been in general the only dis- 

 charge of the manager. 



The nature of property in plays also operates as a formidable obstacle 

 to exertion. It contradicts all the rules of literary property. If an au- 

 thor produce a book, he has his right in it for life, and it is available for 

 a certain period after his decease ; and this on the plain reason that the 

 labour of the mind deserves protection as much as the labour of the 

 hands. But the dramatic writer has no such protection. If his play be 

 performed at one London theatre, it may be seized on by every theatre 

 in England, and be turned into a source of profit, no part of which 

 reaches the man most entitled to it. To take the instance of Colman's 

 John Bull. For this it is true that he received what was considered at 

 the time a very liberal remuneration, about 1000/. ; but Harris the mana- 

 ger declared that his theatre cleared by that play 12,0001., and, from its 

 long popularity in the country theatres, the probable produce was not 

 less than 50,000/. ! If Colman's work had been called a Novel, this in- 

 terloping upon his property would have been arrested by the arm of 

 the law ! 



But the case is not less unjustifiable when the author chooses to pub- 

 lish his play before its performance. From this moment any theatre may 

 seize upon it, not merely without any remuneration to the writer, but 

 in despite of him ; nay, where he had never intended his play for repre- 

 sentation. Managers, too, may not merely seize it wholly, but mutilate it, 

 and make it ridiculous in any way they please. This outrage has been 

 so long exclaimed against, that an attempt is likely to be made in the 

 next session to put the dramatist on a footing with other writers, and 

 secure to him the right which every man ought to possess in his own 

 efforts, whether bodily or intellectual. 



In France regulations have been long since enacted, by which the au 

 thor of a successful play is entitled to a tenth of the actual receipts at the 

 door of every theatre throughout the kingdom, as long as it continues to, 

 be represented : none can be a fairer arrangement, for the provincial 



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