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EPILOGUE.

SUCH is the varied story of the great English actor, of his life on the stage, whose "reformer" and glory he is, and off the stage, where he is a no less admirable model. As we look back to his times, one reflection, I am sure, will occur to the reader who has attended me thus far to the end: what days they were for the stage-how glorious, how important, what figures players then were-how they filled the public mind— what prodigious entertainment, and significance, there were in a play. Above all, how strange the contrast with our own time; how small the show, how little the interest, how poor the entertainment. As this contrast has been present to the writer all through, and as the examination of many past theatrical matters has furnished him with a favourable opportunity of judging on this point, he may be pardoned here, for drawing some profit out of Garrick's life, and pointing a moral as it were from the memoir.

There is certainly an impression abroad, that there exists a "sound healthy taste" for the drama, and that these are the palmy days of the stage. The number of theatres, the state of the profession,-like every other, overcrowded, the perfection to which scenery and machinery have been brought, the salaries, the

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crowded houses, are thought substantial evidence of this prosperity. With pieces "running" one hundred, and two hundred nights, with such triumphs of "realism" as coal-mine shafts, water caves, set streets, and city offices; and, above all, conflagrations, house-burnings, that to the eye can hardly be distinguished from the originals, with water, fire, ice, grass, imitated perfectly,-with the easier resource, where it can be done, of bringing the real objects themselves on the stage, things surely ought to look palmy. Yet it may be declared, that if we were to take the sense of the profession generally,-of authors, managers and actors, it would be admitted that decay is setting in. The mechanists, scene-painters, actors, and writers,-named according to their proper precedence, -are at the end of their tether. They have exhausted their fertile fancy. The burlesque "arrangers," and actors have tried every conceivable physical extravagance within the compass of " break-downs," low dresses, goddesses looped up at the knee, parodies of songs, &c. The mythology is run out. The opera stories are done. So, too, with scenic effects. In real life, there are only half-a-dozen tremendous and dramatic physical catastrophes which can confound and surprise. When we have seen a fire, an earthquake, a breaking of the ice, and drowning, an accident, very few things remain either difficult to imitate, or likely to astonish. What will come next, must be something of this "school," new, but of lower interest, in which case our excitement will be languid. The man who has drunk brandy always, will find tea insipid. So with the break-downs, the dressing, the mythology, and the vulgar parodies of songs. They can only be re

produced. By-and-by even the admirers of this class of entertainment will find that the stage has grown dull.

For others, who expect another sort of entertainment, it may be fairly asked, is not the stage dull now? How many are there who set out for the night's amusement, with a complacent alacrity of anticipation, as Johnson might say, and by eleven o'clock are suffering a strange agony, compounded of tediousness, fatigue, a sort of eternal weariness, and a sense that the whole will never end! We hear laughter and sounds of enjoyment, in the house; but it must be remembered that here are persons who have been working hard all the day, and all the year, and to whom, perhaps, the annual visit to the play-house, the sight of the company, the lights, and the gay scenery, is a treat itself. The cheap test of what is called, a run, nowa days, is no evidence of a flourishing profession. A certain class of people must go to the theatre, to fill in their evenings; and, above all, it must be remembered that the London theatres are now theatres for the kingdom, and that the audiences are changing every night. The manager is catering for England, Ireland, and Scotland, and a sprinkling from the Continent. This is another result of a fatal centralisation, and, it may be added, of the "sensation" system now in fashion. These costly spectacles cannot pay, unless exhibited for so many hundred nights. Sight is a far more costly sense than hearing; the eye is more extravagant than the ear, as any manager knows; but no manager has discovered as yet,-none at least have had the courage to act on the discovery,-that the mind is the cheapest of all to entertain.

As to this decay, what is the situation of the profes

sion? Actors will tell us that "it is going to the bad;" that the stage is going down, but that some actors are flourishing. Salaries are high, and well paid-to "stars." The profession, they will tell you, is in confusion. It is a scramble. Neither training nor genius tells. The fellow of yesterday,-raw, untutored,-has the same chance now, as the old hand of ten or fifteen years' service. Like the labourers in the vineyard, those who come last are paid as liberally as those who have worked all the day long. And it may be asked, why not, according to present principles. Good looks, a handsome face, and a pert voice, do not improve by service, rather, are in better condition, on the first day. A tyro of a week's standing can wear a short dress about as well, if not more becomingly, than a lady who has served in the ranks. A few weeks' training will teach the steps of a break-down. In short, the physical gifts which sensation requires-are found by nature.

We can make no reasonable protest against Pantomimes. They are a genuine show; belong to their proper season; and come in well, as an alterative. They do not pretend to be more than they are. The great Garrick had his pantomime every Christmas. We have the associations of that cheerful season,-of the delighted row of children's faces, whose exquisite relish of the show should be a hint to the grown-up, as to the class of audience whom such things were meant to entertain. Just as the conductor of the Grand Opera lays down his bâton when the ballet begins, and disappears, and another gentleman of inferior degree takes his place, so may the Drama gracefully gather up her dress, and sweep away with dignity, during

that merry time, abdicating for a few weeks in favour of her Cinderella sister. But the truth is, the proper entertainment of the drama has passed away. The delightful amusement that used to be known as "the Stage" is not with us now. It is gone and with it the associations, the tone of mind and training, which led audiences to enjoy it so exquisitely. Instead, the eye is feasted, and the ear. The vulgar enjoyments of the senses are gratified. Scenery and accompaniments, which in the old days were merely a set-off, an adornment, have usurped the chief place. We are in an utterly false groove. As was said at the beginning, we are no longer amused, simply because we have given up the true "stage," and have gone after a pure fiction and sham, a series of costly shows. Sight-seeing in cities, as we all have found, is the most wearisome thing in the world, and will become so, on the stage.

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What is the true foundation of theatrical enjoyment? It is found in the picture of human life, the play of mind on mind, of passion on passion, of wit on wit, set off by shrewd observation, and elegant treatment. is the spectacle of mental action. The old Greeks understood this perfectly, and had the finest principle in the world for their tragedy, based on their Pagan belief, that the soul was the creature of destiny, and at the same time possessed the exercise of its free will. Here were elements for a splendid dramatic struggle: the good man struggling to do what was right, exercising his will, sacrificing his inclination, and yet at the same time being forced on to destruction, by the secret, unseen power of destiny, acting on events and circumstances. Such a struggle would absorb an audience, whose faith was bound up in such a contrast. The whole city

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