interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and
their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty
are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the
evil examples of the former reigns.

In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon
as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral
house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent
opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but
afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting
authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in
1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled
from attending to his duties that the prince became regent, and assumed
the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.

In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be
wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by
historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier
drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art
on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had
checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned
to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the
better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made
at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the
older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better
taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly
due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised,
rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later,
Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers
married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could
display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and
blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.

It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more
powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers
did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and
repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.
In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the
romant