character. They must have diverted, but could never have powerfully moved their audience; they were listened to like the taletellers of the East, for the mere interest of the story, not for the poetry, either of passion or of style. The other class may contain Kyd, the author of the Spanish Tragedy, and Chettle, the author of Hoffman, a writer-witness the scene quoted by Mr. Collier from the pleasant comedy of Patient Grizzle'-capable of better things. These writers attempted to strike the truly tragic chords of terror and pity, but with coarse and violent hands. They were ever in King Cambyses' vein.' They spilt blood like water, and fortunate was the hero or heroine who escaped alive out of their hands; torture and mutilation were among their ordinary means of exciting emotion; and with them the excellence of tragedy seemed to consist in the extent of the general massacre; the grandeur of the catastrophe in the number of corpses which strewed the stage. Such was the state of the theatre when, in 1591, according to Mr. Collier, Shakspeare began the humble work of reproducing the standing dramas of the stage; and, in 1593, first ventured upon original composition. During his course his genius was unquestionably excited; and no doubt his dramatic skill improved and quickened by the competition of writers more powerful than any who preceded him: still he was first in the field, and it is far more probable that the lamps of his greater rivals were kindled at his central fire, than that his fire burned much brighter by any light which flowed back from them. Perhaps, however, this question cannot be fairly discussed till we have a much more accurate chronology of Shakspeare's plays, and those of his more distinguished contemporaries, than we possess at present; and for this important continuation of the history of the drama we trust that we shall soon stand indebted to Mr. Collier, than whom no one can be better qualified for the undertaking. The result of the present investigation may be stated thus:-that Shakspeare was by no means, strictly speaking, the creator of the English drama, if by the drama be meant the public representation of pieces, as numerous and diversified as the stock possessed by the players in Hamlet, and recited with such minuteness by good old Polonius. If the skill of casting into a dramatic form, developing with more or less art, and eliciting, from the language of the interlocutors, a continuous narrative either of real or fictitious history,if even to sketch a broad and rude outline of character, but with little individuality,-if the use of blank verse, more or less skilfully constructed, be all that constitutes the dramatic art-all this existed long before the appearance of Shakspeare;-but if he first embodied all this in the most splendid poetry,-if he allied, so as did never poet, the utmost liberty of the imagination with the truth and reality of nature;-if, by his intuitive philosophy, he had such an insight into the human mind, that metaphysicians adduce his characters, as they would those of living men, to illustrate their doctrines ;-if-but we scarcely knew how to commence, and we certainly shall not know how to close our account of all those points in which he rose above his predecessors-and if in the sphere of his own unrivalled excellence he was alike without precedent or example-what shall be said? Let the reader compare his King John, his Lear, and his Measure for Measure, with the old plays on these subjects, published by Steevens; or his Shylock' with even Marlowe's Jew of Malta,' and he will scarcely form too high an estimate of the distance to which, after a few, perhaps, less vigorous efforts, he sprung in advance of all his predecessors, and reached at once that summit, towards which even his own most worthy contemporary rivals, and all succeeding poets, have toiled in vain. Shakspeare did not create the stage, but he created dramatic poetry,—that poetry which enables us not only to rival, but even to surpass, the most perfect forms of the art ever exhi bited either on the ancient or the modern scene. The reader who is curious in such matters will find in Mr. Collier's work a rich store of information on all subjects connected with the early stage-with the theatrical manners of the times, the size and position of the theatres, the scenery, the properties, and the different companies of actors. It presents an extraordinary contrast between the poverty, the miserable make-shift contrivance of the scenery, the meanness of the building, and, we cannot help suspecting, the general inferiority of the acting,—and the splendid poetry, the unparalleled perfection of the dramas which were represented. On the modern stage, how strangely is all this reversed! We will preserve a prudent silence on the latter part of the comparison; but we are inclined to believe that, as far as the dramatic art can owe its excellence or degradation to external cir * We have been disappointed in the personal anecdotes of Shakspeare, of which we expected, from Mr. Collier's language, both new and more important details. Some of the players' petitions and accounts, in which his name appears, are, no doubt, valuable, as throwing light upon his early life; and there is one story not tending to raise the moral character of the poet, which, though by no means unlikely to be true, may also be one of those ben trovati anecdotes which are not more likely to be true from being currently repeated. The following specimen of his convivial humours 'at the Mitre' is not without interest: Shakspeare's Verse. 'Give me a cup of rich Canary wine, Which was the Mitre's (drinks) and now is mine, Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives as well as lines till now had lasted!' Why has not Mr. Collier favoured us with the other song, 'From the rich Lavinian Shore,' contained, he says, in the same manuscript? cumstances, cumstances, the very magnificence to which we have attained in the construction of theatres, our modern perfection in scenic mechanism, even our superiority in the histrionic art, have had rather a detrimental than a favourable influence on the genius of the dramatic writer. On the last-mentioned point, of course, we have little more than conjecture, though the advice to the players in Hamlet seems to be in our favour, and the number of rival companies, in which no one maintained an acknowledged and incontestable superiority, would rather indicate general mediocrity than transcendant excellence in any one; but we cannot help suspecting that as the rush-strewn boards of the Blackfriarsthe Globe, with its straw-thatched stage, the audience, as usual, being exposed to the open air-and the Fortune, the external measurement of which extended to the vast size of eighty square feet, would cut but a sorry figure by the side of our Covent Garden or Drury Lane ;- as the immovable scene, and the balcony, which served for battlement or window, or any other purpose, would have small chances with the exquisite perspectives or constantly shifting views of Stanfield;-as the damask coat with copar lace,' the gowne of caleco for the queene,' or even Tamberlayne's breches of crimson vellvet,' and a robe for to goe invisebell,' would shew rather dingily amid the accurate and classical costume of Kemble's Coriolanus, or his churchman's magnificence in Wolsey; in like manner, to those who have seen Kemble and Siddons in their glory, or witnessed the dawn of their gifted relative, Miss Kemble-or are now watching the last efforts of Mr. Young-the performances of Lewin, and Heming, and Alleyne, and even of Richard Burbage himself, would have appeared, at best, of the order of our provincial stars-of our better itinerants. On this point we are at issue with Mr. Collier: but, at all events, he must acknowledge that the boy queens and heroines must have been but poor substitutes for our accomplished actresses. The decline of the stage has been the constant complaint in every country where it has risen to any great height. It might seem that, like empire, dramatic excellence never revisits the same region having reached its zenith, it hastens to its setting, and sinks for ever. The indignant Athenian complained that his degenerate countrymen abandoned to marionettes the theatre where the plays of Euripides had worked the audience to the noblest enthusiasm, and that they raised a statue to a ventriloquist by the side of Aschylus :-Αθηναῖοι δὲ Ποθεινῷ τῷ νευροσπάστη τὴν σκηνὴν ἔδωκαν, ἀφ ̓ ἧς ἐνεθεσίων οἱ περὶ Εὐριπιδήν. Αθηναῖοι δὲ καὶ Εὐρυκλείδην ἐν τῷ θεάτρω ἀνέστησαν μετὰ τῶν περὶ Αἰσχύλον.—Athenaeus, I., 35. The lines of Horace are too well known to be adduced as a pro ( phetic phetic anticipation of the English, rather than a real description of the Roman theatre; but many a prediction has made its fortune with less resemblance to its later antitype. ⚫ Indocti stolidique, et depugnare parati, Si discordet eques, media inter carmina poscunt This season presents us with the wild beasts-the next will probably have the bruisers at hand, at the call of the upper gallery; and Horace must certainly have had in his second sight' the royal white elephant of Siam, enacted, without regard indeed to complexion, by the distinguished four-footed debutante of last year. As to the procession, described to the very life, what piece has any chance of success without something equally brilliant to dazzle the eyes of the knights' of Cornhill? But these are obvious evils, the natural consequences of that monopoly, unknown in the history of the earlier stage, which, having begun by doing its utmost to ruin the drama, with more than poetic justice ends by ruining the proprietors. Hence the absolute necessity of show and decoration in theatres which have far outgrown the ordinary faculties both of actors and spectators; where no one can be heard without an exertion of voice, almost always fatal to its melody and to its variety of intonation; and where no one can hear without an overstrained attention, the effort of which is often so painful as to destroy all the interest of the scene. Hence, a more serious evil! in order, at all events, to people this enormous edifice-those disgraceful arrangements, which would not be endured in the most dissolute capital of the Continent, and which seem intended to justify the moral denunciations of those who entertain religious scruples about the stage. Hence, at all events to dazzle the eyes, the body of the house is lighted and gilt with such excessive splendour, as to be highly detrimental to scenic effect, which requires that the light should be concentered as much as possible upon the stage; while the scenery, obliged to out-glitter the body of the theatre, can rarely venture on chaste or quiet colouring. These, however, as we have observed, observed, are obvious evils; but we are inclined to take into the account another circumstance, little suspected to be highly prejudicial to the genuine drama,—the perfection of the histrionic art. The actor, from a subordinate part of the general illusion, has usurped the principal, and claims as his own the whole undivided interest of the audience. With our simpler ancestors the play was everything-the actor, we conceive, of much less importance. At the theatre their imaginations were excited, their minds instructed, their hearts moved, and, according to the old Grecian doctrine, purged by terror and pity;—provided the story riveted their attention-if the characters were but true to nature-if the poetry elevated their souls-so they wept and laughed, they were little fastidious about the decorations or appointments; they were too much the willing slaves of the illusion to be easily disturbed; they were too deeply absorbed, for the cold and deadening process of criticising the performers. Who now, when the first ardour of early youth is passed, goes to the theatre to see a tragedy? It is to see the popular actor sustain a certain part:Shakspeare or Massinger, or Otway, attract us not; it is Young, or Miss O'Neill, or Miss Kemble. No new comedy even has the least chance of popularity, unless the characters happen to suit the peculiar talent of the Listons and Mrs. Yateses of the day. Since the departure of Mrs. Siddons, how many of our noblest dramas remain undisturbed on the shelf-or, if rashly revived, must be played to empty walls? Would we evoke Shakspeare from the grave, we must call up Garrick also. But, to say nothing of Shakspeare, we will venture to predict, that so long as the dramatic writer is sunk to a subordinate station in the general corps dramatique,' second to the mechanist and scene-painter, as well as to the actor-only in somewhat higher relative position than the opera poet to the composer of the music; so long as even a really good play, feebly or inadequately performed, would have no chance of success, -so long the drama will remain far below the poetic average of the elder period. But, after all, the present is an undramatic age-nor is this the case only in England. Even in Paris, now-a-days, there is rarely more than one theatre open, and that of moderate dimensions, for the genuine drama of Racine and Molière; nor is that one, at least since the exit of Talma, by any means well attended. Political excitement will indeed draw crowds to new tragedies like Jouy's Sylla, and great sensation may be excited by such daring dramatic revolutionists as Victor Hugo; but in general the French capital is as indifferent to the affiches of the Theatre Français, as our own, beyond a certain circle, to those of Covent Garden. Had we space we could enlarge on the |