1826.] On the Decline oflhe British Drama. 43 



]iabits, opinions, and in!>titutions, conspired to mitigate their force, as 

 well as to arrest their progress, and to give them an influence on litera- 

 ture, very different from that which similar causes exert in an earlier 

 age. In former times, the poet and his readers not only lived in scenes 

 like those which he represented, but had little concej)tion or ambition 

 of a better state. Improvement was in the womb of I'uturity. The 

 things which they relished and admired in poetry (except only where 

 it dealed with superstition), were such as coincided with their notions 

 of probability, founded on their own experience. But superstition, at 

 the period of which we s|)eak, had not yet lost its hold of the popular 

 belief; and even when l)eings were introduced under its sanction, wiiich 

 had no existence in nature, they were made to speak and act as human 

 beings would have done ; and it was always neccssai^)' that the Influence 

 which they excitetl on human agents, should be in accordance with 

 what were then the usual feelings, habits, and characters of men. The 

 preternatural beings of Shaksj)eare — his Ariel, and his Cihost in Hamlet — 

 j)roduced, upon the ])ersons with whom they ilealed in the drama, just 

 the result which the audience or the readers in Shaksj)eare's days 

 would have expected, had such beings appearetl in real life, and been 

 known to them by experience. My that test alone could they judge 

 the merits of any of the works of the imagination ; and, rude as their 

 taste may be called, it is probjdjle that no such works were ever long 

 popular among them which contained much that offended against their 

 knowledge or opinion of nature. But the taste lor the exhibition of 

 vehement feeling, and wild adventure, which has sprung up in our age, 

 and which, if not created, has been vastly heightened by the wonderful 

 and agitating events of these times, differs materially from the same 

 propensity among our forefathers. In us, it is acct)mpanied by liabits 

 and opinions which would revolt against that state of society to which 

 these themes relate. The events which assisted the growth of this 

 propensity in us soon passed away, and were such as we can neither 

 believe, nor wish, that we shall ever see repeated. They were sudden, 

 convulsive, unnatural movements in the body of society, that shocked 

 the spirit of the times ; so, likewise, the marvellous and the terrible, 

 for which the present generation have contracted a taste, belong to a 

 condition of society of which we could not brook the existence. And 

 our relish for these themes is not derived from the legitimate source 

 of pleasure in the elegant arts — asense of successful imitation — but arises 

 chiefly from intense mental excitement. Thej' are to the mind, what 

 ragouts and spiced meats are to a palate which has half lost its liking 

 for simple food. 



The consequence of this is precisely what might have been expected, 

 in an age such as ours. There is a complete schism between the read- 

 ing and the playgoing public. Such an innovation in literature as we 

 have described, inasmuch as it unfetters genius, and gives scope to 

 bold and original conceptions, must, to that extent, be popular with all 

 classes. But since it is also largely productive of the marvellous and 

 the extravagant, of improbable fiction and passion pushed to excess ; 

 though it secures the applause of tlie majority, who praise because they 

 are pleased, and are pleased because they are agitated, it will not 

 meet the same fate among those whose minds are more reflecting and 

 cultivated, and in whom the imagination is habitually ruled by the 

 judgment. There is, therefore, a perpetual conflict waged by the 



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