and Juliet--Love laughs at }
Locksmiths, for his own benefit. Romeo }

All those plays are well known. From the peculiar circumstances
attending their performance they call for a share of particular
attention, which would otherwise be superfluous. Where there is
something new, and much to be admired, it would be inexcusable to be
niggard of our labour, even were the labour painful, which in this
instance it is not. The performance of Master Payne pleased us so much
that we have often since derived great enjoyment from the recollection
of it; and to retrace upon paper the opinions with which it impressed
us, we now sit down with feelings very different from those, which, at
one time, we expected to accompany the task. Without the least
hesitation we confess, that when we were assured it would become our
duty to examine that young gentleman's pretensions, and compare his
sterling value with the general estimate of it, as reported from other
parts of the union, we felt greatly perplexed. On one hand strict
critical justice with the pledge which is given in our motto,
imperiously forbidding us to applaud him who does not deserve it, stared
us in the face with a peremptory inhibition from sacrificing truth to
ceremony, or prostrating our judgment before the feet of public
prejudice: while, on the other we were aware that nothing is so
obstinate as error--that fashionable idolatry is of all things the most
incorrigible by argument, and the least susceptible of conviction--that
while the dog-star of favouritism is vertical over a people, there is
no reasoning with them to effect; and that all the efforts of common
sense are but given to the wind, if employed to undeceive them, till the
brain fever has spent itself, and the public mind has settled down to a
state of rest. We had heard Master Payne's performances spoken of in a
style which quite overset our faith. Not one with whom we conversed
about him spoke within the bounds of reason: few indeed seemed to
understand the subject, or, if they did, to view it with the sober eye
of plain common rationality. The opinions of some carried their own
condemnation in their obvious extravagance; and hyperbolical admiration
fairly ran itself out of breath in speaking of the wonders of this
cisatlantic young Roscius.

While we knew that half of what was said was utterly impossible, we
thought it due to candor to believe that such a general opinion