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Lovegrove, &c., &c., a galaxy of talent concentrated in two theatres, and impossible to collect together again, even if it existed, under the free trade system. Yet, in those "palmy days," as mourners over the past are prone to designate them, the vagaries of public taste or caprice often called for "inexplicable dumb shows and noise," and vapid though glittering spectacles, to the exclusion of Shakespeare, Sheridan, and Congreve. The poet says: "Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rise

her head,

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But it was not the managers who were in fault. They yielded to the pressure from without, and the diminishing balance at the bankers.

During the season, now advancing to its close, nearly every theatre in London has been handed over to the prevailing mania for sensation melodramas, many of which are not even favourable specimens of the genus they represent. They are too much tainted by the leaven of immorality, the philosophy of the Dumas, Paul de Kock, and George Sand schools, which sometimes is not palpable on the surface, and so the poison creeps in until we are infected beyond cure, without premonitory symptoms. The "Dundreary" anomaly at the Haymarket is an exception exclusively sui generis, beyond classification, and the really unparalleled" success of which must have equally astonished the manager, the actor, and the audience. It seems unaccountable that the numerous family "of that ilk" should fill the theatre night after night, to witness the display of their own helpless inanities, each fancying that the caricature he so highly enjoys is a veritable portrait of his dear friend

and next-door neighbour. But the crowded audiences and the effect produced are palpable facts, in the face of which it is irritating to argue and idle to speculate.

We claim to be the foremost nation of the world, and in some respects we are not without solid grounds for the pretension. We aspire to take the lead in civilization, in education, in scientific discovery, in the exercise of all the higher intellectual faculties, in and in the study of ethical wisdom. the practice of morality and religion, Our resources are immense, and being at profound peace, we travel where we please, and obtain access to all the masterpieces of genius, ancient and modern, which cultivated minds delight to study, and the examination of which imparts a refined sentiment of the graceful and beautiful which called into exercise. Yet in spite of otherwise might never have been all these advantages and opportunities, we cannot justly call ourselves a people of lofty and purified taste in the fine arts, and all that belongs to them. We build churches, grotesque rather than inposing, and of no decided or uniform style of architecture; our legislative palaces, profuse in ornament, but crumbling in chronic decay before they are finished. Our public monuments-and foremost amongst them stands the National Gallery-are but too often unsightly masses in unsuitable localities. Our paintings are spoiled by the ruthless restorer, or thrust into corners where there is "no light, but darkness visible:" and although we have still a few good actors, and a national drama in reserve, of unequalled variety and brilliancy, all are sacrificed to exciting but debasing translations from the French, or to the theatrical concoctions of an ephemeral novel.

Even now, we see by daily advertisements and paragraphs, that limited liability companies are invited to form themselves for the erection of additional theatres, with increased accommodation, in Holborn, the Haymarket, and Pimlico; and in all probability, the plans, one and all, will be carried out. In England, as Sir Charles Coldstream says, if you want to build a St. Peter's,

* The leading incident in Theodore Hook's melodrama of "Tekeli." "A new asylum," Lord Byron says, "for distressed heroes."

VOL. LXI.NO. CCCLXVI.

48

you have only to name a committee, open a list of subscribers, meet at a dinner, and the thing is done. These new theatres will, doubtless, follow in the wake of the others, and "sensation spectacles," with stupendously new and hitherto unheard of effects, will continue to be the order of the day, until their temperature exceeds that of the boiling springs of Geyser, and the whole evaporate together in a blaze of spontaneous combustion.

And how is all this to be checked or reformed? Again and again we say, the managers cannot do it. The public engendered the evil, and the public alone can cure it. They might be in some degree led thereto by newspaper criticism, if newspaper criticism were as wholesome as it might be made, in an age when there are so many able journals, read by all who can read, and so much literary talent of a high order engaged in their service. But theatrical articles are seldom written con amore, or with careful thought and deliberation. They merge too often into routine, and are dashed off in a hurry to meet the morning issue, and are seldom so elaborately digested as to assume the character of a lecture or analysis, calculated to instruct the novice or check the errors of the profession. We have living critics as able and as acute as the Hazletts and Hunts of a former day, but the system admits of much improvement tending to the most beneficial results.

When Whitehead, the poet laureate, addressed his fulsome panegyric to Garrick, containing these lines

"A nation's taste depends on you,
Perhaps a nation's virtue too,"

it was no wonder that the wicked satirist, Foote, clapped his wings, and crowed out,

"Cock a doodle doo!"

Garrick swallowed the flattery. He was cormorant enough to have digested even a stronger dose; but he had been too long a manager not to know better than that, and he laughed in

his sleeve at the hyperbolical nonsense. He felt that the manager depended on the public, and never lost sight of the axiom. When Sir John Fielding asked him to discontinue the "Beggar's Opera," which, he said, filled his office with thieves and pickpockets, Garrick replied that it filled his treasury, which was a clear proof that the people liked it; and when some further conversation took place on the subject, he observed, insolently enough, that he would dramatize the "Pilgrim's Progress" if he thought it was wanted. This flippant remark being repeated, perhaps with additions, led to comments not to his advantage; and Garrick, ever tremblingly alive to censure, said it was a mere post-prandial joke, without any serious meaning, and ought not to have been repeated. If every man's tabletalk were to be set up as the standard by which to estimate his serious character and intentions, we might truly exclaim with honest Falstaff, "Heaven help the wicked."

Garrick smiled complacently on Whitehead, invited him to his select parties, listened with suppressed delight and affected modesty when his ode was read, and acted his two heavy tragedies of the "Roman Father" and "Creusa," supported by himself, Barry, Mossop, and Mrs. Pritchard. But he knew there was superior truth in the prologue he had so often repeated, of his surly friend and monitor, Samuel Johnson, and with the concluding lines of which, as equally applicable to the audiences of 1863, we close our article:

"Hard is his lot who here by fortune plac'd,

Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste; With every meteor of caprice must play, And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day.

Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice;

The stage but echoes back the public

voice:

The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,

For we who live to please must please to live."

INDEX TO VOL. LXI

Abhrain an Bhuideil; A Song. By Hya- Crimean War; Review of Mr. Kinglake's

cinth Con Carolan, 284.

Adventure, An Indian, 564.

Agricultural Change and Manufacturing
Promise in Ireland, 238.

American Press, The Character of the, 365.
Annals, Family-Patrician Adventure and
Catastrophe, 324.

Art Writing; Old Styles, 316.

Ballad Poetry of Ireland, An Essay on,
442.

Battle of the Alma, The, 272.
BELLA DONNA; or, the Cross before the
Name. A Romance.-Chap. I., The Sun-
day Feast; Chap. II., Jenny Bell; Chap.
III., The Rev. Charlton Wells; Chap.
IV., A Duet; Chap. V., In the Drawing-
room; Chap. VI., Mr. Franklyn's Sanc-
tum, page 273. Chap. VII., Jenny Bell
outcast; Chap. VIII., Domestic Battle;
Chap. IX., Surrender; Chap. X., Jenny's
Wanderings, page 391. Chap. XI., A
Distracted Cleric; Chap. XII., Mr.
Crowle; Chap. XIII., "The Sensible
Girl;" Chap. XIV., "Charlotte versus
Jenny," page 529. Chap. XV., By
Little and Little;" Chap. XVI., The
Cross before the Name! Book the Se-
cond-Chap. I., Jenny Bell in Service;
Chap. II., A Country Visiter, page 666.
To be continued.

46

Biographers, Shakespeare's, 3.
British Columbia, A Cruise about, 482.
British Newspaper, The: The Penny Theory
and its Solution, 361.

British Provincial Press, The Political and
Social Value of, 371.
Brittany, Glimpses of, 286.

Catastrophe, A Patrician, 324.
Catullus, Part I., 539; Part II., 673.
Census Returns, The Irish; as affecting the
Irish Church, 618.

Change, Agricultural in Ireland, traced,
238.

Character of Lord Raglan, 269.
Circy, Voltaire in, 168.

Contrast of Ireland in 1841 and 1861, with
reference to National Prosperity, 244, 245.

Volumes, 259.
Critics, Shakespeare's, 3.

Cruise about British Columbia, A, 482.

Death of Voltaire, 168.

Denmark, the Isles of; Customs of the
People, &c., 499.

Dr. D'Aubigne's Genevan Volumes, re-
viewed, 568.

Duan na Claev, a Legend in Verse, by
Hyacinth Con Carolan, 210.

Failure and Vices of the English Convict
Fairy Drama, A, by T. Irwin, 461.
System, 116,
Family Annals, 324.

From Jaffa to Jerusalem, 477.

Genevan Republic, the Earlier Heroes of,
and their Story, 568.
Genius, Voltaire's, examined, 93.
George Stephenson, his Biography, 405.
Glimpses of Brittany, 286.

Greek and Eastern Art, by Dr. Pentagram,
315.

Gresset, La Bruyere, and Rochefoucauld,
399.

Growth of British Journalism, 361.

Ireland as a Flax-Growing Country, 247.
Irish Church, The, Position and Claims of,
618.

Judicial Oath, The, 654.

La Bruyere, Gresset, and Rochefoucauld,
399.

Lady May's Mystery,-a Tale, 107.
Lament for Donnybrook, A, by the Last
Minstrel of the Liberty, 331.
Lancashire Relief, Emigration as an Agency
of, 595.

Legalia, the Judicial Oath, 654.
Leinster Folk-Lore, No. VI., 81.

Life and Eccentricities of George Sand, 217.
Life and Genius of Voltaire, 93.
Life in Russia, Sketches, 349.

Lines by Hon. Mrs. Norton to the Rev.
Edward Coleridge, 150.

Literature, Macaronic, 379.

LITTLE FLAGGS-The Alms-house Found-
ling. Part II.-Chap. IX., A Letter from
Tilby; Chap. X., The Halting Place;
Chap. XI., Richard Drover's Business
at Tilby; Chap. XII., Away from the
Alms-house; Chap. XIII., The Arrival
at the Inn; Chap. XIV., The Manor,
page 69. Part III.-Chap. XV., George
Raynor; Chap. XVI., Arthur Hopton;
Chap. XVII., An Unwelcome Guest;
Chap. XVIII., Perplexity; Chap. XIX.,
Mr. Raynor causes Surprise, page 188.
Part IV. Chap. XX., The Writing in
the Book; Chap. XXI., A Letter; Lord
Dulheadie; Chap. XXII., David Wynne
gets into Disgrace; Chap. XXIII, Mary
Flaggs continues her Reading; Chap.
XXIV., Distress of Mind; Chap. XXV.,
The Escape, page 301; Chap. XXVI.,
Two Letters; Chap. XXVII., A Re-
markable Meeting; Chap. XXVIII., Dis-
closures of Crime; Chap. XXIX., Mr.
Lipwell; Interview with David Wynne;
Chap. XXX, The Winding-up, page
415.

Macaronic Literature, its Curiosities, 379.
Machiavelli, Niccolo, a Study of, 485.
Mackerel, Yatching for, at Guernsey, 233.
Manon, by Herr Vanderhaussen, 587.
Manufacturing Promise in Ireland, its
directions indicated, 238.

Mildrington, the Barrister, reviewed, 703.
Minstrelsy, Rustic, in Ireland, 442.
Missionary Efforts and Progress of the Irish
Church, 618.

Modern Novel and Romance, an Essay on,
436.

Modern Preaching as an Art and an
Influence, 131.

Mystery, Lady May's,-a Tale, 107.

Novels, Reviewed:-"Chronicles of Carling-
ford," by Mrs. Oliphant-"A Daughter
of Eve," by Hain Friswell-"Mildring-
ton the Barrister "-" The House by the
Church-yard"-" Barrington," by Char-
les Lever" Thalatta "-" David El-
ginbrod," by George Macdonald-"Lady
Audley's Secret," by Miss Braddon-
"Orley Farm," by Mr. Trollope-" No
Name," by Wilkie Collins.

Old Recollections and Modern Contrasts,
by an Octogenarian, 428.

Patrician Adventure and Catastrophe, 324.
Peculiarities of Irish Emigration, 240,
241.

Penal System, the English; its Failure and
its Vices, 116.
POEMS:-Lines to the Rev. Edward Cole-
ridge, Rector of Maple-Durham, by the
Hon. Mrs. Norton, 150; Duan Na
Claev-the Legend of the Glaive, by
Hyacinth Con Carolan, 210; Abhrain
an Bhuideil-the Song of the Bottle of
Whiskey, by Hyacinth Con Carolan,

284; A Lament for Donnybrook-a Lay
of the Last Minstrel of the Liberty,
331; Songs of Ulster, in many Moods,
No. II." Dirty Water and Clean," by
Francis Davis, 347; "The Love Letter
-a Fairy Drama," by T. Irwin, 461;
Rustic Minstrelsy and Indigenous Bal-
lad Poetry of Ireland, 442; Songs of
Ulster, No. III.-" No Jock without a
Jenny," by Francis Davis, 586.

Position and Claims of the Irish Church,
The, considered, 618.
Potsdam, Voltaire in, 168.
Preaching, Modern, as an Art and an In-
fluence, 131.

Professor Cairnes on America, Our Answer
to, 604.

REVIEWS:-"Five Months on the Yang-
tsze," by Thomas W. Blakiston, late
Captain R.A., 24; "Female Life in
Prison," by a Prison Matron, 120;
"Charge of the Bishop of London in
1862;" "Preachers and Preaching-a
Critique, with Practical Hints," by a
"Dear Hearer,". 131; "Irish Census
and Agricultural Reports- the West of
Ireland: its Existing Condition and
Prospects;""The Manufacturing Capa-
bilities of Ireland," 238; "The In-
vasion of the Crimea," by A. W.
Kinglake, 259; "Macaronéana Andra,
overum Nouveaux Mélanges de Littéra-
ture Macaronique," par Octave Déle-
pierre, 379; "Lives of the Engineers,"
by Samuel Smiles, 405; "Travels in
British Columbia," by Captain C. E.
Barrett-Lennard, 482; "History of
the Reformation in Europe in the time of
Calvin," by T. H. Merle D'Aubigne,
vols. 1 and 2; "Geneva and France;'
"The Life, Labours, and Writings of
Calvin," by Felix Bungener, 568;
"The Slave Power," by J. E. Cairnes,
M.A., second edition, 604; "The
Taeping Rebellion in China," by Com-
mander Lindesay Brine, R. N., F.R.A.S.,
30; "The Irish Convict System," by
Baron Von Holtzendorff, of Berlin, 125;
"On the Cultivation of Cotton in Italy,"
by M. Devincenzi, 252; "Chronicles
of Carlingford," by Mrs. Oliphant, 437;
"A Daughter of Eve," by Hain Friswell,
439; "The House by the Church-
yard," 441; "Mildrington the Bar-
rister," 703; Archdeacon Stopford on
the Redistribution of the Revenues of the
Irish Church, 618.

Roman Catholic Prelates, The "Declara-

tions" of, on the Irish Church, 618.
Russian Sketches of Russian Life, 349.

Sand, George, Life, Eccentricities, and
Literature of, 217.

Sark and Guernsey, Yachting for Mackerel
off, 233.
Shakespeare, his Biographers and Critics, 3.

Slavery and Secession: Our Answer to
Professor Cairnes, 604.
Songs of Ulster, in many Moods, by Francis
Davis, No. II., 347; No. III., 586.
Song Writers-Moore, Beranger, Tennyson,
by Dr. Pentagram, 599.
Souvestre and Brittany, 286.

Stephenson, George, The Life of, by Smiles,
reviewed, 405.

STERNE AND HIS DAY. Book III.-
"The
Country Parson;" Chap. I., The Parson's
Lady; Chap. II., Domestic Life; Chap.
III., Sutton Vicarage; Chap. IV., Par-
son Yorick; Chap. V., Mr. Sterne plays
upon the Bass Viol; Chap. VI., Mr.
Sterne at his Easel; Chap. VII., Mr.
Sterne in the Fields, page 54. Chap.
VIII., Little Lydia the First; Chap. IX.,

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Crazy Castle;" Chap X., "My Cou-
sin Anthony;" Chap. XI., Crazy Castle
Library; Chap. XII., Yorick and Euge-
nius, page 199. Chap. XIII, The
"Demoniacs;" Chap. XIV., Social Skir-
mishes; Chap. XV., Doctor Slop; Chap.
XVI., Dr. Slop's Armoury; Chap.XVIII.,
Jacques Sterne, LL.D., again; Chap.
XVIII., A Night Piece; Chap. XIX.,
Doctor Slop's Original, page 335. Chap.
XX., Shandy Family Quarrels; Chap.
XXI., Calumny exposed; Chap. XXII.,
Death of Jacques Sterne, LL.D.; Chap.
XXIII., Mr. Sterne a Wit; Chap. XXIV.,
The Charity Sermon: Chap. XXV., The
Assize Sermon, page 468. Chap. XXVI.,
Mr. Sterne's Second Love, "Dear, dear
Kitty; Chap. XXVII., Tristram Writ-
ten; Chap. XXVIII., Petty Annoy-
ances, page 553. Book IV.-Chap. I.,
London Glories: The Fashionable Author;
Chap. II., An Episcopal Patron; Chap.
III., Advancement; Chap. IV., Fashion-
able Follies, page 706. To be continued.
Supernatural, The Science and Traditions
of the, 687.

Taepings in China, The, Captain Blakis-

ton's "Five Month's on the Yang-tsze,"
reviewed, 24.

Theatric Representation, Mechanism, and
Decoration, 715.

The British Newspaper-the Penny Theory
examined, 359.

The Case of the Irish Church stated, 618.

733

The Earlier Heroes of the Genevan Repub-
lic, 568.

The English Penal System Discussed, 116.
THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD: A
The Great Essayists of France, 514.
Souvenir of Chapelizod.
de Cresseron.-Chapter CXIII., The
By Charles
Wehr-wolf; Chap. CXIV., In which Dr.
Toole and Dirty Davy confer in the Blue-
room; Chap. CXV, What Dr. Sturk
brought to mind; Chap. CXVI., Relating
all that Dr. Toole heard at Mr. Luke
Gamble's; Chap. CXVII., Dr. Pell re-
fuses his fee, and Dr. Sturk leaves his
bed-chamber; Chap. CXVIII., About
the rightful Mrs. Nutter of the Mills, page
34. Chap. CXIX., In which the News
reaches Mr. Mervyn; Chap. CXX., In
which Obediah arrives; Chap. CXXI.,
In which Charles Archer puts himself
upon the country; Chap. CXXII., In
which Mr. Paul Dangerfield makes some
frank admissions; Chap. CXXIII., In
The Land of the Princess-Denmark and
which the Story ends, page 151.
The Legend of the Glaive; by Hyacinth
its People, 499.
Con Carolan, 210.

Voltaire, his Life and his Times, 93; Vol-
taire in London, Circy, Potsdam, Ferney;
Death, 168.

Witchcraft, Magic, and Sorcery, 687.
WYLDER'S HAND: A Serial Tale. By the

Author of "The House by the Church-
yard." Part I., Chap. I., Relating how I
drove through the village of Eglingden
with Mark Wylder's Letter in my valise;
Chap. II., In which I enter the Drawing-
room; Chap. III., Concerning our Din-
ner-party at Brandon; Chap. IV., In
which we go to the Drawing-room, and
the party breaks up; Chap. V., In which
my slumber is disturbed; Chap. VI., In
which Dorcas Brandon speaks; Chap.
VII., Relating how a London Gentle-
man appeared in Redman's Dell, page
634. To be continued.

Yang-tsze River, The, and Taëpings, in
China, 24.

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