46 On the Decline of the British Drama. [Jan. 



But his grandest triiunplis aie where he makes his persons speak. 

 Tliouglit, feeling, and passion have had no such interpreter since Shak- 

 speare. We do not think that sufficient justice has been always done to 

 the diction of this writer, which, with all its acknowledged faults, is, we 

 are convinced, one of the chief sources of that witchery which he exer- 

 cises with his readers. It is often careless and inaccurate, frequently 

 redundant, and sometimes, though very rarely, obscure. But let critics 

 and grammarians rail as they will, it possesses a union of strength, ease, 

 and harmony, which we verily believe is not equalled in English litera- 

 ture. In passages of high emotion that obscurity almost vanishes, which 

 nature seems to have decreed should attend the passage of such subtle 

 things as thought and emotion, through so gross a medium as language. 

 There is, then, in his diction, a clair-obscure, through which we per- 

 ceive the quiverings, the struggles, and the agonies of the human heart 

 brooding over its guilty purposes, and in its most torturing trials. 



Some of the dramatic poems of Byron proved of what he was capable, 

 and, perhaps, gave eaiuiest of what he would at some time or other have 

 performed, in tragedy written to be acted, as well as to be read. But 

 it is unnecessary to appeal to the peculiar talents of individual writers. 

 We may safely pronounce, that an age fertile in the other kinds of higher 

 poetry, must likewise possess the requisites for dramatic composition. 

 Genius, within its proper range, is far from being restricted. Poetry is 

 an imitation, sometimes of art, but most usually of nature ; and tragedy 

 is onl}' a part of its province. The modes of imitation are different, but 

 the powers required for them are the same. It is quite consistent with 

 this, that us man is the creature of habit, and as poets are not exempted 

 from this general law, a writer may become so much used to one species 

 of Composition, as to work with restraint and difficulty in others. But 

 we may be assured, that the same powers « hich made him triumph in 

 his first career would have ensured him success in the other, had this 

 been the sphere in which those powers were first exerted. 



We cannot help expressing here our regret, that a taste such as that 

 we have described, which has discouraged tragedy, and has almost 

 banished comedy from our drama, should be fostered and kept alive by 

 the absurd and needless confinement of the regular drama to our great 

 national theatres. It is natural that a community, in which the edu- 

 cated classes are so numerous and so much on the increase as ours, 

 should require places of public amusement to be multiplied. And it is 

 3 little hard upon such a community, that in all, except two, of the play- 

 houses, which their taste, or their caprice — but, at all events, which 

 their money supports, theu- amusements should be restricted. Since 

 the managers of these lesser houses arc not permitted to share legitimate 

 comedy and tragedy with their more favoured superiors, they are driven 

 to those very spectacles to which we have alluded, and which a vicious 

 taste only can relish. The consequence is, that by that mutual in- 

 fluence which literature and the public taste always exert upon each 

 other, the performances thus adapted to please the frequenters of the 

 theatre, confirm and inflame, and in some instances, perhaps, create the 

 propensities which they aie employed to please. The monopolists of 

 the greater houses are invaded in their turn, and forced upon endea- 

 vours, at great cost, to rival and excel their lesser brethren in this per- 

 version of the drama. The taste of the public is thus deprived of those 

 many means of amendment, which would arise from reflection and com- 



