1826. ] L 45] 
THE, THEATRE—ITS LITERATURE, AND GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. 
Tue theatre, its management, and the contribution of material’for its support, 
did form a part of the literary business of the country. This was the ease, im 
some degree, even so lately as thirty years ago; but it is searcely so any longer. 
The aggregate quantity of theatrical entertainment exhibited in London has 
been doubled within the last twenty years. Several new theatres have been 
opened, and the cost of working all has greatly increased within that time, 
The new dramas produced have been (as regards number) three to one beyond 
what they were. The gains of public performers have risen to a height, 
perfectly unprecedented—and perhaps-rather absurd. The general trade, in 
fact, of stage exhibition, is carried on at an outlay fully double that which was 
allotted to it twenty years ago; and yet dramatic literature was never perhaps 
at so low an ebbas it is at present ;—the condition of the London stage (as 
regards its display of actors) has not been often so weak ; and “ theatrical pro- 
perty,”—that is to say, the business of upholding and carrying dramatic enter- 
tainments—scarcely ever so unproductive. 
As there can be no effect in these days, for which we cannot at once trace out 
a cause, five hundred speculators within the last five years have accounted for 
this state of things upon the stage; and all have accounted for it (with equal inge- 
nuity) in different ways. One set of gentlemen say that it is “ the late dinner 
hours,” which prevent people, in the upper ranks, from coming to the theatre so 
early as seven o’clock. Another set blame the increased pride of the higher 
classes, that—dinner or no dinner—will not let them come to aplace of public 
entertainment at all. The saints—and some who are not saints—wish to have 
the police of the lobbies improved—and truly that desire does not seem 
altogether unreasonable ; disappointed poets lay the whole blame at the door 
of “the Managers,” who will, contumaciously, ruin themselves by producing 
only the worst pieces—i. e. other pieces than those of the complainants. 
Many contend that it is a “ Genius” we wait for—some literary star who shall 
arise in the dramatic hemisphere, and, at one touch of his pen, make play- 
going again popular. And the people older than forty, who cannot see and hear 
quite so well as they did twenty years ago, say, that all writing, or acting, must 
be useless, with the present unreasonable dimension of our theatres. 
Now the “ Managers,” truth to say, have sharp work enough to carry of the 
war. They have to keep up the attraction of their theatres—which is a good 
deal; and to keep up their character—which is a good deal more. They must 
please the recherché people—if they can; or else, though these pay very little 
to the house, they raise a cry, which the fools fall into. And they must please 
the fools—who pay all—or else they shut up to a certainty. The low in 
condition, and the high; the ignorant, and the cultivated; the grave, and the 
ebullient ; the thick-sculled, and the witty; from among all these varieties 
of character, they have to derive their emolument—all are to be considered 
and satisfied; brought together, and without mutual offence, under one roof; 
prevailed upon to form part of the same company, and to be amused with the 
same entertainment. 
And if there were not a natural tendency in things to adapt themselves to 
circumstances, difficult as this task must be, it would hardly be so well 
accomplished as it is at present. The people in the boxes sit and tolerate stale 
jokes, because they are guessed to be not yet familiar in the gallery. The 
people in the galleries listen, without cracking nuts, to poetical soliloquies, 
and long scientific pieces of music, which they neither care for nor understand, 
out of deference to those in the boxes. And broad humour in comedy; real 
pathos, or passion, in tragedy; simple melody in opera; and scenery and 
neck-breaking in ballet or pantomime, are delights common to both parties. 
Our dramatie writing, however, as it exists at the present day—putting aside 
the question, what power there may or may not be for better—is of a very low 
order. With all the certain puff, and ready introduction to publicity, which 
_ writing for the stage affords, we have not one man among our systematic 
play-writers, who stands much higher than as an impounder of chance coffee- 
