st of the
modern authors have copied him; but where Shakespeare is applauded,
they are hissed, and you can believe that the veneration in which the
old author is held increases proportionately to the contempt for the new
ones. It is not considered that he should not be copied; the failure of
his imitators only leads to his being thought inimitable. You are aware
that in the tragedy of the Moor of Venice, a very touching piece, a
husband smothers his wife on the stage, and that when the poor woman is
being smothered, she cries out that she is unjustly slain. You know that
in "Hamlet" the grave-diggers drink, and sing catches while digging a
grave, and joke about the skulls they come across in a manner suited to
the class of men who do such work. But it will surprise you to learn
that these vulgarities were imitated during the reign of Charles
II.--the heyday of polite manners, the golden age of the fine arts.

The first Englishman to write a really sane tragic piece, elegant from
beginning to end, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His "Cato in Utica"
is a masterpiece in diction and in beauty of verse. Cato himself seems
to me the finest character in any drama; but the others are far inferior
to him, and the piece is disfigured by a most unconvincing love-intrigue
which inflicts a weariness that kills the play. The custom of dragging
in a superfluous love-affair came from Paris to London, along with our
ribbons and our wigs, about 1660. The ladies who adorn the theatres with
their presence insist upon hearing of nothing but love. The wise Addison
was weak enough to bend the severity of his nature in compliance with
the manners of his time; he spoilt a masterpiece through simple desire
to please.

Since "Cato," dramas have become more regular, audiences more exacting,
authors more correct and less daring. I have seen some new plays that
are judicious, but uninspiring. It would seem that the English, so far,
have only been meant to produce irregular beauties. The brilliant
monstrosities of Shakespeare please a thousand times more than discreet
modern productions. The poetic genius of the English, up to now,
resembles a gnarled tree planted by nature, casting out branches right
and left, growing unequally and forcefully; seek to shape it into the
trim likeness of the trees of the garden at Marly, and it perishes.

The man who has carried farthest the glory of the English comic stage is
Mr. Congreve. He has written few piece