692 Theatrical Matters. [JUNE, 



theatres will not perform the piece longer than they find it worth their 

 while. 



In Russia a similar arrangement has been lately enacted. It now re- 

 mains for the friends of the drama in England to adopt the principle, 

 and by it lay a basis for the revival of the literature of the stage. To 

 the common argument, that the little trifling translations from the French 

 are overpaid already, and that the law needs not take the trouble of 

 making fortunes for, the translators, we answer, that those translations 

 have been encouraged only by the dearth of original writing, and that 

 the revival of original writing would rapidly extinguish them, and will 

 be the only thing that can. 



The most natural consequence of a law protecting dramatic writing, 

 would be to turn the efforts of men of ability to it as a regular pursuit ; 

 the only mode in which great skill in stage-authorship can be attained, 

 or the stage can be supplied with a constant succession of performances 

 adequate to attract a manly popularity. Though Shakspeare and She- 

 ridan are gone, human nature is not fallow for ever ; public attention to 

 the rising talent of the stage is a stimulant which has never failed j and 

 we might in the course of a few years see the deserted walls of our thea- 

 tres crowded by the first personages of the empire, to witness the young 

 genius of men that are in their day to remind us of the imperishable 

 vigour of the British mind. 



To the possible objection, that, notwithstanding the French law, the 

 national drama has gone down in France, and the theatres are suffering 

 under serious embarrassments ; we are entitled to reply, that no encou- 

 ragement of law can alter the nature of a people, that the French are by 

 nature farceurs, and that they seem incapable of either the sublime or 

 beautiful, the higher tragedy or the higher comedy. Their farces are in 

 general excellent : failing in point of force, they perfectly succeed in the 

 light touches of character, in dexterity of intrigue, and in neatness of 

 phrase. Their dialogue wants point, strength, and peculiarity. But 

 the Frenchman in a farce scarcely requires dialogue. He makes up for 

 the want of wit in words by wit in pantomime : his tongue is scarcely 

 required when he can make free use of his limbs : from the eyebrows to 

 the feet he is all busy with telling his meaning : he wears persuasion in 

 the eternal shrug of his shoulders, and declaims alike with his hand or 

 his heel. So, the French theatres of farce are flourishing ; and the 

 Theatre de Madame, in which Scribe produces all \\isfarceur spoil from 

 every stage of the earth German, Spanish, English, Polish, Russian is 

 the most productive mint within the realm of half the sovereigns of the 

 northern hemisphere. 



The public business of Parliament prevented the attempt to make any 

 serious impression on the legislature in behalf of this natural right of au- 

 thorship. But we rely upon the effect of the universal public conviction 

 that some effort ought to be made to protect one of the very finest tri- 

 umphs of the human mind. What, at this hour, constitutes the chief glory 

 of Greece, in the eyes of scholarship, but the Greek tragedies ? What 

 shines as the central jewel in the coronet of England's intellectual su- 

 premacy? the living glory of Shakspeare's drama. To excite the 

 vigour of the English mind to follow this splendour, would be among 

 the noblest national services, and, for such, the authorship of the stage 

 has a right to call on the highest zeal and energy of the legislature. 



