the life-blood of the poet pulses through the first
part, while the second is, as it were, a mere storehouse of splendid
intellectual supply which he has wrought into elaborate phantasmagoria,
dazzling in their brilliancy and wonderful in their variety, but all
alike difficult to comprehend and sympathize with--the rare mental
fragments, precious like diamond dust, left after the cutting of those
two perfect gems.

Free-trade had hardly uttered a whisper yet upon any subject of national
importance when the monopoly of theatrical property was attacked by Mr.
Arnold, of the English Opera House, who assailed the patents of the two
great theaters, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and demanded that the
right to act the legitimate drama (till then their especial privilege)
should be extended to all British subjects desirous to open play-houses
and perform plays. A lawsuit ensued, and the proprietors of the great
houses--"his Majesty's servants," by his Majesty's royal patent since
the days of the merry monarch--defended their monopoly to the best of
their ability. My father, questioned before a committee of the House of
Commons upon the subject, showed forth the evils likely, in his opinion,
to result to the dramatic art and the public taste by throwing open to
unlimited speculation the right to establish theaters and give
theatrical representations. The great companies of good sterling actors
would be broken up and dispersed, and there would no longer exist
establishments sufficiently important to maintain any large body of
them; the best plays would no longer find adequate representatives in
any but a few of the principal parts, the characters of theatrical
pieces produced would be lowered, the school of fine and careful acting
would be lost, no play of Shakespeare's could be decorously put on the
stage, and the profession and the public would alike fare the worse for
the change. But he was one of the patented proprietors, one of the
monopolists, a party most deeply interested in the issue, and therefore,
perhaps, an incompetent judge in the matter. The cause went against us,
and every item of his prophecy concerning the stage has undoubtedly come
to pass. The fine companies of the great theaters were dissolved, and
each member of the body that together formed so bright a constellation
went off to be the solitary star or planet of some minor sphere. The
best plays no longer found decent representatives for any but one or two