and wide-extended luxury. This, no doubt, is a fertile and potent source of corruption in taste as well as morals; and it is not surprising, that many very rational enquirers have been satisfied with so plausible a solution. If we add to this the shameless effrontery with which those who have been appointed the guardians and dispensers of the popular amusements, acquiesce in the reproach, and, instead of resisting, as far as they are able, what they confess is wrong, do all in their power to foment and confirm the evil, we cannot long be amazed at the apathy with which this humiliating charge is so generally acceded to-but speculation and conjecture must retire before physical and positive causes; and I trust there is not much ingenuity required to acquit the public of this injurious imputation, and to fix it where chiefly, if not alone, it is due. That the exquisite dramas of our great poets are laid aside, or not regarded in the representation, is owing, I maintain, not to any satiety or distaste of their energies and beauties, but to the want of a fit theatre for their representation.

Two persons, possessing patents for the exclusive exhibition of plays, have exercised that privilege, not for the general advantage, but to enrich themselves. For a long time previous to the demolition of the old house at Drury-Lane, the rival theatre was continually extending its limits, and placing the audience, year after year, at a greater distance from the stage, until it reached to its present enormous magnitude, which utterly precludes the performers from displaying, or the auditors and spectators from enjoying, the charms of just elocution, or the graces and transitions of fine acting; but it had become a contest between these patentees, not which should represent plays in the best manner, but who should the more effectually make a sordid use of his authority, in packing together, for his mere aggrandisement, the greater multitude of people; and now, Drury-Lane, to decide the contest at once, becomes so huge, that the persons on the stage appear like pigmies, and only with a glass can be distinguished from one another, or be heard without the aid of strained and artificial tones, that are disgusting. That the relish for rational dramatic performances has not departed from the peo ple, we have a striking proof in the eagerness with which they are still followed, even in the hot season, at the Haymarket; where the puny and distorted efforts of a very inferior actor have been not only tolerated, but applauded; and if essays, such as those alluded to, are relished, or accepted, with what ardour would the exertions of our finest performers be followed, if placed in a situation where their skill and talents could effectually be displayed!

The increased extent, population, wealth, luxury, and dissipa tion of the capital, undoubtedly requires a proportionable scope and variety of public amusements, and if there are followers and admirers of show and spectacle, in God's name let them enjoy it at DruryLane, or Covent-Garden; but let that "gravest, wisest, and moralest of all poems," a good play, not be withheld from the people, or only exhibited where it cannot be enjoyed, because two gentlemen have patents in their pockets to prevent it. Those persons should be apprised, that the grants they hold were never conferred for their peculiar emolument, but delivered to them in trust, as confidental and competent agents, for administering, in the best manner, to an enlightened public, the amusements of the moral stage: this obligation, on their part, is so obviously implied, that any terms to define it were superfluous; but if, unmindful of their trust, and stimulated only by avarice, the walls of the theatre become so preposterously extended, that the Grace of Symmetry, the Virtue and Venus of Order, is lost and confounded in the waste; let not the rights and equitable claims of the people be sacrificed to such a dereliction of duty in their servants, and too specious a pretext be held out for the enemies of this great nation to predict, that, with the decline and perversion of the public taste, the vigour, sanity, and glory of the empire are hastening to destruction.

Let there be erected in the capital of the most distinguished na tion upon earth, four or five houses, in various parts of the town, of a size to contain, at the present prices of admission, about four hundred, or four hundred and fifty pounds; the utmost extent to which a theatre for the ligitimate drama can reach. This subject will admit of wider discussion, and much more open exposure, than at present I have leisure to bestow upon it :-hereafter, perhaps, you. will hear further from

AN OBSERVER OF THE MIRROR.

KING JOHN.

Mr. EDITOR,

As your Mirror reflects so much light on other theatrical subjects, it would be very satisfactory to many of your readers, if, in some future number, a proper reason could be given, why the historical tragedy of King John, with the indelicate expressions, peculiar to the first act, is suffered to appear on the London boards, in preference to an altered edition, which was distinguished last season by

the sanction and very marked applause of a crowded house, at Covent-Garden. It has been equally successful, and maintained a decided superiority at most of the provincial theatres in the united kingdom. From what quarter the suppression of this more chaste and ameliorated production arises, is not for me to point out: but the public, it will be granted, have a right to propose the question, and receive a fair answer.

In this, as well as in his second part of Henry the Fourth, the learned editor* has added to his great and diversified talents, the character of dramatic taste and acknowledged excellence.

That edition of King John comes moreover recommended to a British audience, particularly at this time, by the introduction of much seasonable and apposite matter. The celebrated speech of Faulconbridge is a composition of most animated eloquence and undaunted loyalty. Every feature of spirit and beauty in the original bard has been cautiously regarded; a servile idolatry of palpable deformities has been justly denied; to these alone, has the pruning knife been skilfully applied,

However suited to the usage of his day were the words of Shakspeare, and hence not liable to objection; yet those very words convey far different and very gross ideas to the minds of a modern auditory, the chaster part of whom would feel insulted in private life at the same expressions, which are suffered to abash them in public. It was for this reason, in the Augustan age, when the Latin became more pure and refined, that the comedies of Plautus lost much of their former esteem, and were then censured for abounding so much with disgusting obscenities!

A similar improvement in manners, without a compliment, belongs to the present day; let not that honour, in any instance, be tarnished on the English stage.

The welfare of morals, a decent respect to our fair countrywomen, the reputation of the theatres, and the entertainments of the public, do strongly call for a practical attention to the remarks of, Sir,

Your humble servant and well-wisher,

* Dr. Valpy.

Q-VOL. XVII.

AN ENGLISHMAN.

But that to your sufficiency as your worth is able, "And let them work."

One more attempt, perhaps as abortive as those of the ingenious commentators, to restore this confused passage to any thing like şense and harmony--

"No more remains,

“But to your sufficiency your worth be added,

"And let them work-."

I need not (says the duke) suggest the rules of good government to one who is better acquainted with them than myself.-No more then remains to qualify you fully and effectually to take my place, but, that your worth and fair character be added, in the public estimation, to your acknowledged abilities.

ACT II-SCENE II.

"What I will not, that I cannot do."

This declaration of proud austerity, implies, I have made my will subservient to my duty, and my wisdom infallibly prescribing what my duty is, I can only will to do what is equitable and right.

"Amen; for I

"Am that way going to temptation

"Where prayers cross."

Where my honour and my cupidity are at variance, where my solicitations or prayers to obtain possession of Isabella's beauties, must be crossed or thwarted by this prayer of her's for the safety of my honour.

66 Blood, thou art but blood;

"Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

""Tis not the devil's crest."

Doctor Warburton's interpretation of this passage, appears to be entirely foreign from the sense implied in Angelo's reflection, which I take to be this.- -Titles and distinctions, though often falsely applied, are not thereby appropriated, and, howsoever they "wrench awe from fools," and obtain respect even from "the wiser souls,"

they cannot alter the true qualities of things. Blood is still "but blood." Depravity, howsoever covered with the garb of virtue, is still depravity: it is the difference expressed between association and connexion. The sentiment a little varied, and the conclusion resting on the fair side, is introduced in Macbeth.

"Tho' all things foul shou'd wear the brows of
"Yet grace wou'd still seem so."

ACT III.

grace,

"The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
“That ache age, penury, imprisonment,
"Can lay on nature, were a paradise

"To what we fear of death."

This sentiment, perhaps too natural, and the force of which Doctor Johnson's virtue was not hardy enough to resist, occurs in the Paradise Lost, though Milton's robuster mind ascribes it to the fallen and depraved Archangel.

"Who would lose

"Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
"Those thoughts that wander through eternity
"To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
"In the wide womb of uncreated night,
*Devoid of sense or motion."

"The corrupt deputy scaled."

Dr. Johnson's explanation of "to scale" here--to reach him notwithstanding the elevation of his place, will, I believe, be decmed not satisfactory. If the author had employed the metaphor of the scalade, he would, I think, have applied to the deputy a different epithet-it would have been the towering deputy, the high-plac'd deputy, or some designation suited to the figure.

By the connexion of ideas natural in discourse, there is, perhaps, a reference to corporal corruption. The success of the stratagem, says the duke, will be a medicine by which the inward and concealed baseness of the deputy will be brought forth and diffused about him in disgraceful scales and scrophula. An image similar to this occurs in King Richard III.

"Diffused infection of a man."