y. He tried soldiering (at least the militia) and
medicine; but his bent towards the stage was too strong, and he became
an actor, though never a very successful one, and a teacher of acting,
though never a manager. He was about thirty when he turned dramatist,
and though his plays justify the theatrical maxim that no one who has
not practical knowledge of the stage can write a good acting play, they
also justify the maxim of the study that in his day literary excellence
had in some mysterious way obtained or suffered a divorce from dramatic
merit. Not that these plays are exactly contemptible as literature, but
that as literature they are not in the least remarkable. The most famous
of his tragedies is _Virginius_, which dates, as performed in London at
least, from 1820. It was preceded and followed by others, of which the
best are perhaps _Caius Gracchus_ (1815), and _William Tell_ (1834). His
comedies have worn better, and _The Hunchback_ (1832), and the _Love
Chase_ (1836), are still interesting examples of last-century artificial
comedy slightly refreshed. Independently of his technical knowledge,
Knowles really had that knowledge of human nature without which drama is
impossible, and he could write very respectable English. But the fatal
thing about him is that he is content to dwell in decencies for ever.
There is no inspiration in him; his style, his verse, his theme, his
character, his treatment are all emphatically mediocre, and his
technique as a dramatist deserves only a little, though a little, warmer
praise.

Better as literature, and at least as good as drama, are the best plays
of the first Lord Lytton, another of the eminent hands of Macready, who
undoubtedly counted for something in the success of _The Lady of Lyons_,
_Richelieu_, and _Money_, the two first produced in 1838, and the last
in 1840. _Richelieu_ is the nearest to Knowles in competence without
excellence, the other two perhaps excel if not positively yet
relatively. Many spectators quite recently, while unable to check
laughter at the grandiloquent sentimentality and the stock situations of
_The Lady of Lyons_, have been unable to avoid being touched by its real
though ordinary pathos, and moved by its astonishing cleverness; while
_Money_ is probably the very best comic example of the hybrid kind above
referred to, the modernised artificial comedy. But Bulwer's other plays,
though the unsuccessful _Duchesse de la Valliere_ is not bad readin