men in all their forms of conduct, from converse with society, and from an attentive and accurate examination of that complex miscellany, the living world. To know the drama we must know men; and "if we would know men (says Rousseau) it is necessary that we should see them act." It is equally necessary too that we should lift the veil which time has thrown over the past, and see how men have thought and acted through the lapse of ages upon the uniform principles of human passion, which ever have been and ever will be the same, and by that means distinguish that which is natural, innate and permanent in man, from that which is adventitious and acquired. He whose knowledge of the world is circumscribed within the narrow limits of one generation or one society can know man only as he appears in the superficial colouring and peculiar modification of personal habit, derived from the fashions, the modes, and the capricious changes of that time, and that society, while the great body of human nature remains buried from his sight. "The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes (says the gigantic critic Johnson) are dissolved by the chance which combined them, but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase nor suffers decay." And assuredly there was never an age in which man so masked his nature under modish innovations as he does in the present.

The works of the ancients, says a great writer, are the mines from which alone the treasures of true criticism are to be dug up-the pure sources of that penetration which enables us to distinguish legitimate excellence from spurious pretensions to it. He, therefore, who would get at the true principles of dramatic criticism ought to read the poetry and criticism of the two great ancient languages, and to have formed some acquaintance with those authors, whether ancient or modern, who have furnished the world with the great leading principles upon which dramatic poetry is constructed. Doctor Johnson has informed us that before the time of Dryden, the structure of dramatic poetry

was not generally understood; and what was the conscquence?" AUDIENCES," continues the doctor, "APPLAUDED BY INSTINCT, AND POETS OFTEN PLEASED BY CHANCE."*

Without calling in the aid of such high authority, no risk of contradiction can be incurred by asserting that he must be radically deficient in the requisites of a dramatic critic, who is not sufficiently versed in philological literature to discriminate between the various qualities of diction-to distinguish the language of the schools from that of the multitude the polished diction of refinement from the coarse style of household colloquy-the splendid, figurative, and impressive combination of terms adapted to poetry, from those plain and familiar expressions suited to the sobriety of prose; and finally, to form a just estimate of a poet's pretensions to that delicacy in the selection of words which constitutes what is called beauty in style. Nor is this all, he should be perfectly competent to form a judgment of the fable and its contrivance, to determine according to the canons of criticism laid down by the greatest professors of the art, whether the scheme of a piece be obscured by unnatural complexity or rendered jejune and uninteresting by extreme simplicity, and familiarity of design-whether description be bloated, or overcharged, or imagery misplaced or extravagant; and lastly, whether the performance be on the whole deficient in, or replete with moral institution.

The editors are free to confess that while they enumerate the requisites necessary to a critic, they tremble for their own incompetency. Labour however shall not be sparedand they cherish the most sanguine hopes of supplying their general deficiency by candour and integrity; being determined while they endeavour with encouragement and applause to foster the rising genius and growing merit of the stage, to rescue it from the encroachment of sturdy incapacity, and while they sit in judgment for the security of the public taste, to be as far as the canons of dramatic criticism will

VOL. I.

* See Johnson's Life of Dryden,

I

allow, the strenuous advocates of the valuable man and unassuming actor-still keeping in sight that impressive truth contained in the motto: "HE THAT APPLAUDS HIM WHO DOES NOT DESERVE PRAISE, IS ENDEAVOURING to deceiVE THE PUBLIC; HE THAT HISSES IN MALICE OR IN SPORT IS AN OPPRESSOR AND A ROBBER.'

The editors have said thus much merely to explain their motives, and to smooth their way to the discharge of a task, in the performance of which they will necessarily be exposed to many invidious remarks from the misconceptions of presumptuous ignorance. Having done so they fearlessly commit the subject to the public judgment, and proceed to the execution of their duty.

DRAMATIC CENSOR.

The Philadelphia Theatre opened on Monday the 20th of November, with

"A CURE FOR THE HEART-ACH."

IT has been said by a great moral philosopher that fashion supplies the place of reason. On superficial consideration the assertion will appear paradoxical; but there is much truth in it, and much biting satire too, upon the absurdities of the world. Fashion could not supply the place of reason, if reason were not absent; and most irrational and unaccountable indeed are all her ladyship's ways. Her capriciousness is proverbial, and her agency is generally illustrated by comparison with the most unsteady elements of the physical world. We say "Fashion that fluctuating lady," alluding to the ebbing and flowing of the tide-and "Fashion that weathercock," implying that she veers about with every puff of wind. There are some few cases, however, on the other hand, in which she may be compared to a rock, because she stands immovably fixt to her seat; supplying, according to the idea of the philosopher abovementioned, the place of reason, who stands self-exiled forever. It would seem as if fashion never could take repose but in supreme irrationality. There and there alone she is firm. Whoever will take the trouble (or rather the pleasure) to read "Browne's Vulgar Errors," will see how much deeper

root absurd notions strike in "the brain of this foolish compounded clay man," than those that belong to sound sense and reason. The insignia of fashion, therefore, may be considered in relation to the human head, as the notification on the door of an empty house, signifying that the family has removed to another tenement. Hence no one of common sense expects any caprice of that lady to be accounted for on rational grounds. There is one of her freaks, however, which we have endeavoured to trace to its source in the wilds of luxuriant absurdity, and have never been able to succeed. Nay, we venture to affirm that if the most sagacious man in America were asked, why it was considered a violation of the laws of fashion for a lady to attend the theatre on the opening night of a season, he would be puzzled for any other reply than that it was permanently fashionable, because it was prodigiously absurd. On the opening of our theatre this season the house was full of MEN. The audience presented one dark tissue of drab and brown, and black and blue woolen drapery, with here and there a solitary exception of cheering female attire. Had there been a heavy fall of snow, the ladies would have been sleighing-had there been a public ball the darkness of the streets would have been broken by multitudes of attractive meteors in muslin, either "hanging on the cheek of night," or hurried along like gossamer through the air. But fashion has so ordained it: and a good play and after-piece were well represented to a house which, from the little intermixture of the lovely sex, somewhat resembled the auditory of a surgeon's dissecting theatre.

Mr. Morton's comedy "A Cure for the Heart Ach,” is by this time so well known that to relate the fable of it here, would be uselessly to encumber the work. Of the quality of this production it would be difficult for criticism to speak candidly, without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present deplorable condition. The body of dramatic writers of the