the old dramatic memoirs which make a
library in themselves, and we shall see what
a different place the profession held. The old
Dublin theatre was a portion of Dublin life
itself. Not forty years ago it was the fashionable
lounge, and ladies of quality had their
boxes, and went about every second night.
There it was that Mr. Croker brought out his
witty Familiar Epistles, which dealt with the
Irish stage much as Churchill had done with
the English. It succeeded, as far as sale went,
quite as well as Churchill's, and though the
initials only of the actors' names were given,
every one could fill up the blank. No lady or
gentleman of that city would give themselves
that trouble now.

One reason is, there are no plays, properly
speaking—that is, pieces based on a profound
study of human character, of its eternal and
unchanging humours and characteristics common
to every age and country. The present
race of play-writers think only of the
surface oddities of particular actors, which must
be "written up" to, or of that taste, which
is yet no taste—the miserable appetite for
"sensation" effects. This is not even a healthy
appetite; it is the mere fancy of a convalescent,
which nothing pleases. Sensationalism is
founded on a false principle; it appeals only to
one sense, which is soon wearied, and soon
ceases to astonish or delight.

As to plays, looking back, how infinitely
superior were the pieces of older days! We
have only to turn over Garrick's correspondence
to see the pains with which every drama
was " blocked out," considered by many wise
heads, altered and shaped, and, above all, how
long a play took to write. A more curious
feature was the part the manager, who had vast
experience, took in the composition and alteration.
They were not "knocked off" as now;
the play was written to be read. This was part
of the author's profits, which often brought in an
additional hundred pounds to his share. But if
these modern pieces, which depend so much on
realistic effects, as the fire-engines, and real
horses, and real houses, &c., be sold in book
shape, or exhibited on paper, there would be
little left to print.

If we turn over Bell's British Theatre, we
shall be astonished at the storehouse it is of
humours and characters. The comedies of the
last century were great and important works,
full of variety, full of buoyancy, life, and vigour.
Nothing need be said of the immortal Good-natured
Man and She Stoops to Conquer, treasuries
of wit and humour; but there are others scarcely
known, save to students of that period of literature,
that run those masterpieces very closely.
Doctor Hoadley, a clergyman, wrote a comedy
called The Suspicious Husband, which, for gaiety
and bustle and liveliness of speech, is delightful.
Garrick's Ranger, the leading character, was long
talked of by play-goers. Arthur Murphy's plays
are all excellent. The Way to Keep Him, All
in the Wrong, The Citizen, and The Upholsterer,
are broadly humorous, bold, and carefully
finished; full of life, with every character standing
out. This, indeed, explains the secret of
the line of good actors who then flourished.
They were given parts which bore study and
pondering over, and which had stuff in them,
and were, in fact, " characters." What a
company of dégagé writers! The gay but too free-
and-easy Mrs. Centlivre, the jovial General
Burgoyne, and the boisterous trio of Hibernians,
Bickerstaff, O'Keefe, and Kane O'Hara, author
of Midas.

Put Midas beside the best of our modern
burlesques, Ixion, and what a difference! The
true fault of the writing of modern burlesques—
and it is a fatal one—is, that they are written
with too professedly burlesque an air. The
secret of the unapproached success of Swift's
burlesques, Gulliver, and The Modest Proposal
for Curing and Eating Irish Children, was their
genuine gravity of treatment, the perfect air of
seriousness. Our modern burlesques approach
this subject with an open irreverence and
professed playing of the fool. Not so with
Midas, and not so even with Mr. Planché.
Taking up the succession, let us name Cumberland's
West Indian, and Garrick and Colman's
immortal Clandestine Marriage, a play that,
like The Suspicious Husband, would well bear
revival, though, indeed, to such a proposal it
might be answered, as old Cibber answered a
manager, " But where the devil are your actors?"
Lord Ogleby would make the fortune of any
actor, and Mrs. Heidigger would give an opening
to a new Mrs. Clive. In High Life Below Stairs,
still occasionally acted in the provinces, is a
situation as real at this moment as it was a
hundred years ago, and therefore well founded
as a point of humour. But the golden age was
not exhausted even with those days; and though
Thomas Morton caught the morbid German tone
of his day and discovered dramatic murders done
thirty years ago by finding bloody clothes and
daggers in old trunks, still such absurdities are
redeemed by varied character, humour, and gaiety.
Speed the Plough, with Sir Abel and Bob Handy,
and never-dying Mrs. Grundy, and the cheerful
country dance, are a most welcome night's
entertainment, even in indifferent hands. Who has
not roared over The Cure for the Heartache,
with the two Rapids and the Nabob? or over
the no less excellent Heir-at-Law and Doctor
Pangloss? Think of the Jealous Wife and Mr.
and Mrs. Oakley. What firm clear colour—like
Hogarth's or Leslie's—what good solid character,
near which our modern figures seem all thin
lath and plaster! Add the Rivals of the
admirable Brinsley Sheridan, and his School for
Scandal. But the series is endless. Then, were
there comedies to act, players to act them, and
audiences to relish both. What have we now
to look to? During the present generation
there has been but one good and true play
written on the old principle, and which has held
its ground, THE LADY OF LYONS; for the pieces
of the late Douglas Jerrold, admirable as they
were for wit, were scarcely stagey enough to
attract the masses. That wonderful piece, simple
in its story, with no sensation, appeals to the
eternal source of interest which is found in all