n courts of great houses, which were
sometimes covered, in whole or in part, with an awning to keep off the
sun. The word _sale_, which is used as a stage direction, meaning not
_exit_, but he enters, i.e. he comes out of the house into the open
air, is an evidence of the old practice. We are inclined to think
that the morning is more favourable to dramatic excellence than the
evening. The daylight accords with the truth and sobriety of nature,
and it is the season of cool judgment: the gilded, the painted, the
tawdry, the meretricious--spangles and tinsel, and tarnished and
glittering trumpery--demand the glare of candle-light and the shades
of night. It is certain, that the best pieces were written for the
day; and it is probable, that the best actors were those who performed
whilst the sun was above the horizon. The childish trash which now
occupies so large a portion of the public attention could not, it is
evident, keep possession of the stage, if it were to be presented, not
at ten o'clock at night, but twelve hours earlier. Much would need to
be changed in the dresses, scenery, and decorations, and in many other
respects, in the pieces, the solid merits of which would be able to
undergo the severe ordeal; and if we consider _what_ changes would be
required to adapt them to the altered hours, we shall find that they
will be all in favour of good taste, and on the side of nature and
simplicity. The day is a holy thing; Homer aptly calls it [Greek:
ieron aemar], and it still retains something of the sacred simplicity
of ancient times. It is, at all events, less sophisticated and
polluted than the modern night, a period which is not devoted to
wholesome sleep, but to various constraints and sufferings, called,
in bitter mockery, Pleasure. The late evening, being a modern
invention, is therefore devoted to fashion; to recur to the simple and
pure in theatricals, it would probably be necessary to effect an
escape from a period of time, which has never been employed in the
full integrity of tasteful elegance; and thus to break the spell, by
which the whole realm of fancy has long been bewitched. An absurd and
inconvenient practice, which is almost peculiar to this country, of
attending public places in that uncomfortable condition, which is
technically called being dressed, but which is in truth, especially in
females, being more or less naked and undressed, might more easily be
dispensed with by day, and on that account