alte in his
air, in his open shirt collar, black head, and wild and melancholy
look." The dialogue that ensues with the classicist after the
disappearance of the other, is quite as ridiculous as the foregoing one,
and quite as well calculated to give her Ladyship a fit of the "doubts,"
though it does not appear that she suffered by them a second time. We
may mention, before leaving this subject, that when the romanticist told
her, in the extract we have just made, that Othello was in preparation
for the _Theatre Francais_, he told her truth; but, if we are not very
much mistaken, the other piece of information he communicated--that
Hamlet and Macbeth are stock-tragedies at that theatre--could only have
been related by a gentleman of great fertility of imagination. Othello,
we know, was actually performed, and went off tolerably well until the
final scene, but then the nerves of the Frenchmen were put to a trial
they could not by any possibility endure. The sight of a Moor and an
Infidel, endeavouring to smother a lady and a Christian, so completely
aroused all the gallant and religious sensibilities of the audience,
that shouts of _terrible, abominable_, resounded from every part of the
house, and Monsieur Othello was (theatrically) damned for his
wickedness. As far as we know, he never showed his copper-coloured
visage again at the _Theatre Francais_, but contented himself
thenceforward with running after poor Desdemona, and stabbing her behind
the scene at the opera, where this minor exhibition of cruelty is
tolerated in consideration of the _roulades_, with which he smooths her
passage into the other world.

Speaking of theatres puts us in mind, as the story-tellers say, of a
remark made by her Ladyship in the chapter she has devoted to the
theatres of Paris, which we wish to notice. She says, "it is strange,
that among the many men of genius who have treated the subject of the
unities, none should have clearly laid it down, that the great object of
dramatic composition is the satisfaction of the audience, no matter by
what means." What a fine thing it is to be endowed with uncommon powers
of original thought! It is so delightful to be able to belie the
assertion, that it is too late now to think of propounding any new idea,
every thing having already been said that can be said about any thing!
Here, ye croakers about modern degeneracy, here is something that should
cover you with confusion and shame. Lady Morgan, af