“ For the sake of the stage it will exert all its might to support the actors—and for the sake of the stage it will hold them in admonition. If the established principles of literature be violated by the actors, the very ground upon which the critic would support them, is blown up by a mine of their own construction, and not only they must sink, but the critic must, for the maintenance of a just cause, put his hand to their heads and give them a lanch. The theatre is a school for elocution or it is nothing. ”

“ For my part, I think it is the duty of all people who regard the credit of the city, or tender the peaceableness and comfort of society. Our theatre, gentlemen, has sunk to the worst state imaginable of licentiousness and savage riot. Don’t mistake me—I don’t mean behind the curtain; but before it. While we hold ourselves so proudly to the world, what must those foreigners think of us who visit our theatre. From a place of rational recreation, and improvement, it has become a mere bear-garden. The play is interrupted, and all enjoyment, save that of riot and brawling, killed in various ways. ”

“ If then the stage has been felt to produce such weighty effects in the more arduous part of human improvement, how ponderous in its operation must it not of necessity be, on the other hand, in the promotion of evil, if it exhibit to the growing generation corrupt examples and defective models, not only unrestrained and uncensured, but sanctioned with the applause of an uninstructed and misjudging multitude. Every plaudit which a vitious play, or a bad actor receives is a blow to the public morals, and the public taste. ”

“ To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age.
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wondered how they wept.
Warburton, the friend of Pope, a divine of the highest rank, wrote notes to Shakspeare. And an infinite number of the christian clergy of as orthodox piety as any that ever lived, have admired and loved plays and players. ”

“ The passion for inquiring into the lives of conspicuous men is so universally felt, that we cannot help indulging it in cases where not only the person is unknown, but where his actions are so remote, that we can neither form a picture of the one, nor any possible way be affected by the other. The delight with which children themselves read the histories of remarkable characters, and the avidity with which, at every period of life, we read biography, are proofs that this passion has it source in nature, abstracted from any connexion imagined to exist between the object and our own heart. ”

“ My happiness! ah! if the exalted virtues of a soul like yours, my uncle, despair of the capricious boon, how shall the undeserving Geraldine presume to hope?
Enter Rosabelle.
Ros. Oh! my lady, such news, he’s arrived, he’s in the hall.
6
Ger. My Florian?
Ros. No, lady, not your Florian, but my L’Eclair, not quite so great a hero as his master to be sure, but yet a real, proper, mettlesome soldier every inch; he looks about him among the men so fierce and so warlike; then with the women, he’s so impudent, and so audacious;—oh! he’s a special fellow. ”

“ Ella Rosenberg was followed by one of the most monstrous productions, the mind of man ever groaned withal. Never did melancholy madman labouring under the horrors of an inflammation of the brain—never did a wretch fevered with gluttony and intemperance, and writhing under the pressure of the night-mare, dream of more horrible circumstances than those which Mr. Lewis has offered in this prodigious melo-drame, for the ENTERTAINMENT of the British nation. Where will the taste of England stop in its descent? Where will the impositions on it by bastard genius end? ”

“ If indeed any man under the assumption of the critic’s name should attempt dogmatically to impose his dictum as a law upon the public, he would deserve to be repelled with indignity and rebuke. All the genuine critic will attempt to do, is to hold out those lights, with which his own study, experience, and observation have supplied him, in order to enable the public to discern more clearly what in the play or the actor is worthy of censure or applause—of rejection or adoption. ”

“ In no place does favouritism flourish with much more rank luxuriance than in that city—in no place do personal prepossessions more frequently operate to the overthrow of judgment, to the exclusion of merit, and to the fostering of incapacity. The multitude had their favourites whose merit touched the highest standard of their conceptions—any thing beyond that was hid in an intellectual mist. The taste of the many was formed upon the kind of merit which they so much admired in their favourites, and little did it relish that of Mr. Cooper. ”

“ In England, where the clouds of religious intolerance were first broken and dispersed by the reformation, the stage has flourished, and exhibited a mass of excellence and a constellation of genius unparalleled in the annals of the world. There it has been encouraged and admired by men whose authority, as persons deeply versed in christian theology and learned as it is given to human creatures to be, we do not scruple to prefer to that of the persons who raise their voices against the stage. ”

“ The truth is evident in the wretched state of dramatic taste in England at this moment, where, corrupted by the spectacles and mummery of the Italian opera, by the rage for preternatural agency acquired from the reading of ghost novels and romances, and by the introduction of German plays or translations, the people can relish nothing but melo-drame, show, extravagant incident, stage effect and situation—goblins, demons, fiddling, capering and pantomime, and the managers, in order to live, are compelled to gratify the deluded tasteless multitude at an incalculable expense. ”

“ It is astonishing how constantly fond overweening prejudice deceives itself. The philosopher who told the powerful despot, his sovereign, that there was no royal way to mathematics, was believed, because the despot had common sense—but a headstrong multitude can never be persuaded that a person can be incompetent to any one thing, if they only will him to be great in it: and thus it has happened not infrequently, in all cities as well as Philadelphia, that splendid talents have stood behind as lackeys, while doleful incapacity has feasted upon public favour. ”

“ No actor ever made so much money in America as Mr. Cooper. By a skilful distribution of his time and exertions, he takes care never to stay so long in one place as to satiate the public appetite. Regardless of the fatigues of travelling, and always supplied with the best cattle, he flies from city to city over this extended union, like a comet; one day he is seen at New-York, the very next he performs in Philadelphia. ”

“ Eugenia flies by the stairs to the upper chamber. Longueville, after a short pause of indecisive passion, draws a poniard and seizes upon Bertrand.
Long. Wretch!
Bert. Strike! yes, deep in this guilty bosom, strike at once, and rid me of despair.
Long. Thou double traitor! thy perjuries now meet their just reward. Tremble at impending death.
Bert. No; I have not feared to live in vice, and will not shrink at least to die for virtue. ”

“ Enter Florian.
Flor. Ha! lights still burning—fortunately then he has not retired to rest,—baron! baron!
Runs to the door.
Eug. (Shrieks.) Ah! the voice of succour—turn, turn in pity—snatch me from despair—preserve me from the grave.
Flor. Heavens!
Involuntarily he withdraws the bar, and Eugenia darting forth, clings wildly round him.
Flor. Unhappy woman! whence these transports?
Eug. Swear to preserve me, swear not to yield me to the murderer’s dagger; no, no, you have a human heart; am I not safe with you? ”

“ He exits suddenly, and prevents Florian by his action from any reply.
Flor. Heard I aright? Yes, he pronounced it—“Geraldine is thine.” Earth’s gross substantial touch is felt no more: I mount in air, and rest on sunbeams! Oh! if I dream now—royal Mab! abuse me ever with thy dear deceits; for in serious wakeful hours, truth ne’er can touch my senses with a joy so bright. O! I could sing, dance, laugh, shout; and yet methinks, had I a woman’s privilege, I’d rather weep; for tears are pleasure’s oracles as well as grief’s.
Enter L’Eclair. ”

“ That extraordinary man’s name is immortalized by Cicero, who has in various parts of his works panegyrized him no less for his virtues than for his talents. Of him, that great orator, philosopher and moralist has recorded, that he was a being so perfect that any person who excelled in any art was usually called a Roscius—that he knew better than any other man how to inculcate virtue, and that he was more pure in his private life than any man in Rome. ”

“ How much more beneficial as a mass of precept and example, and how much more captivating as a narrative must be the biography of any person who has held a conspicuous place for any length of time in the eye of the world, particularly if, by the industrious exercise of vigorous or brilliant talents, he has contributed more than his share to the happiness, the improvement, or the innocent pleasure of society. ”

“ Eug. Longueville; he seeks my life: nay, nay, I am not mad, indeed I am not; turn not from me: look with compassion on a desolate, devoted creature, whom man conspires to wrong, and Heaven forgets to aid.
Flor. Appease these agonies; by my eternal hope, I swear, whatever the danger, or the foe that threatens, I will defend you with my life from injury.
Eug. A wretch’s blessing crown thee for the generous vow! oh! let my soul dissolve and gush in tears upon this gracious hand!
Eugenia enthusiastically clasps Florian’s hand, and covers it with tears and caresses ”

“ To know the drama we must know men; and “if we would know men (says Rousseau) it is necessary that we should see them act.” It is equally necessary too that we should lift the veil which time has thrown over the past, and see how men have thought and acted through the lapse of ages upon the uniform principles of human passion, which ever have been and ever will be the same, and by that means distinguish that which is natural, innate and permanent in man, from that which is adventitious and acquired. ”

“ As bad writing is infinitely easier than good, the pens of our living dramatic writers in general teem with an inconceivable fertility—and the purlieus of London are beat over in every direction to hunt up game suitable to the genius of their weak-winged muse; in short, to find out new modifications of character, attractive not by its consonance to man’s general nature, but by its eccentricity and departure from the ordinary tracks of human conduct. ”

“ It might not be difficult to prove by inference from a multitude of facts scattered through the history of the world, that a passion for the dramatic art is inherent in the nature of man. How else should it happen that in every age and nation of the world, vestiges remain of something resembling theatrical amusements. It is asserted that the people of China full three thousand years ago had something of the kind and presented on a public stage, in spectacle, dialogue and action, living pictures of men and manners, for the suppression of vice, and the circulation of virtue and morality. ”

“ Your charms will shine bright enough, lady, to dazzle a soldier’s eye.
Ger. Ah! no, Rosabelle—you would deceive your mistress. Florian returns not as he left us; his travelled eyes have gazed on beauties of the polished court—and now he will despise the wild untutored Geraldine.
Ros. Will he? Let him beware he shows not his contempt before me. What! my own beautiful and high-born mistress; the greatest heiress in all Alsace; to be despised by a foundling, picked up in a forest, and reared upon her uncle’s charity? ”

“ That fatal night, when the fierce Huguenots fired his castle, and buried both his wife and infant in the blazing ruin; that night of horrors has to his shocked and shrinking fancy still been ever present; there still it broods—settled, perpetual and alone! Ah! Rosabelle! the petulancies of misfortune claim our pity, not resentment. My dear uncle is a recluse, but not a misanthrope; he rejects the society of mankind, yet is he solicitous for their happiness ”

“ The hateful passions have no greater enemies than a delicate taste and a discerning judgment, which give the possessor an interest in the virtues and perfections of others, and prompt him to admire, to cherish, and make them known to the world. Criticism, the parent of these qualities, therefore, mends the heart, while it improves the understanding. The influence of critical knowledge is felt in every department of social life, as it supplies elegant subjects for conversation, and enlarges the scope, and extends the duration of intellectual enjoyment. ”

“ SCENE—The Chateau de Valmont and its environs, situate in the upper Alsace, near the River Rhine.
ACT I. SCENE I.—A hall in the Chateau de Valmont. Enter Bertrand, in agitation, followed by Longueville.
Ber. Forbear, my lord! to urge me further.—Would you tempt me to insure perdition?—my soul is heavy enough with weight of crimes already.
Long. Hypocrite! You, whom I have known in childhood—a villain, even from the cradle—committing crimes as pastimes—has your hand been exercised thus long in blood, to shake with conscience, and desert me now? ”

“ It is not merely on account of its effects upon the audience, but on that of the actors themselves, that the theatre calls loudly for a strict critical regimen. An actor resigned to his own opinion, and committed to the unrestrained licentious exercise of his own judgment, if he be not one in a million, sinks into negligence, becomes wilful, and if, as is nine times in ten the case, he should obtain the casual applause of a few stupid and injudicious spectators, becomes headstrong, refractory, and incorrigibly hardened in error. ”