WE feel great pleasure in stating that strong symptoms of a reviving taste for the most rational amusement that human ingenuity has devised, have lately been shown. In spite of the enmity of some well meaning persons, and the indifference of many, that beautiful art," which poetry, music, and painting have vied to adorn," seems likely once more to receive the share of public favour its importance as a powerful agent of moral improvement demands. Its moral tendency may, indeed, be disputed (to use the language of Sir Walter Scott)" by those who entertain a holy horror of the very name of a Theatre, and who imagine impiety and blasphemy are inseparable from the drama. We have no room to argue with such persons; or we might endeavour to prove that the dramatic art is in itself as capable of being directed either to right or wrong purposes, as the art of

There are at present twelve Theatres open in the Metropolis and its immediate vicinity DRURY LANE, COVENT GARDEN, ADELPHI,

OLYMPIC,

ST. JAMES'S, QUEEN'S,

SURREY,

VICTORIA,

SADLER'S WELLS, PAVILION,

GARRICK,

and the LYCEUM, with an Italian Company.

According to Dr. Drake, there was in the sixteenth century no fewer than fourteen distinct companies of players, with very considerable privi

been formed upon the most virtuous model, the man who is engaged in the duties of religion will be better employed than he who is seated in a Theatre, and listening to it. To those abstracted and enwrapt spirits who feel, or suppose, themselves capable of remaining constantly involved in heavenly thoughts, any sublunary amusement may justly seem frivolous. But the mass of mankind are not so framed. The Supreme Being, who claimed the seventh day as his own, allotted the six days of the week to purposes merely human. When the necessity of daily labour is removed, and the call of social duty fulfilled, that of moderate and timely amusement claims its place, as a want inherent in our nature. To relieve this want, and fill up the mental vacancy, games are devised, books are written, music is composed, spectacles and plays are invented and exhibited. And if these last have a moral and virtuous tendency; if the sentiments expressed tend to rouse our love of what is noble, and our contempt of what is mean; if they unite hundreds in a sympathetic admiration of virtue, abhorrence of vice, or derision of folly, it will remain to be shown how far the spectator is more criminally engaged, than if he had passed the evening in the idle gossip of society; in the feverish pursuits of ambition; or in the unsated and insatiable struggle after gain-"the graver employments of "the present life, but equally unconnected with our existence hereafter." As we wish to divert the "attention of our readers to the necessity which exists for some amelioration of the laws for the government of the stage, we have quoted the favourable opinion of its tendency held by one of 'the greatest and best of men; such testimony cannot fail to prove, even to the most rigid puritan, how worthy the subject is of serious consideration.

which appear to have been granted for the purpose of police alone, not of exclusive privilege or monopoly. Even when we include our Theatres which are now closed, the

KING'S, ITALIAN OPERA HOUSE,
HAY-MARKET,

STRAND,
ASTLEY'S, and

NORTON-FOLGATE,

a newly licensed minor theatre, the number appears greatly disproportioned to the increase of popula tion which has taken place since the above mentioned period. It is true that this seeming disproportion will be somewhat diminished when we reflect on the great increase of size in the Theatres and of the number of performers in the Companies; but there is still something to be added on the other side in consequence of a proportionate increase in the number of auditors caused by the improvement which has taken place in the education of the middle and lower classes of society. These particulars are worthy of remark in consequence of the discontent manifested by the proprietors of the large houses at the privileges which have been tardily granted for the extension and improvement of the dramatic art, and for the accommodation of the public.

That the recently granted licences will ultimately tend to the improvement of the art will be readily confessed by all who have witnessed the superior style in which many excellent dramas have been produced at the three chief Minor Theatres, the Adelphi, the Olympic, and St. James's. G

The sticklers for exclusive rights must admit that the brief season hitherto allowed to these theatres has been encroached upon by the permission lately obtained for foreign performance at the Lyceum;

THE character of Goldsmith remains yet to be written. With the exception of the occasional notices concerning him, which we find in Boswell's book, and a few me morable sentences uttered by memorable men, we know nothing of the character of Goldsmith beyond that which we glean, or rather deduce, from his acknowledged works. But even those inferences, however complete they may be as far as they go, afford but partial glimpses of the man: for we learn from the indefatigable researches of his recent biographer, Mr. Prior, that his labours extended over a much wider and more various field than those volumes which bear his name, and that there was scarcely a subject in the whole range of human enquiry which, at one time or another, he did not touch. That his erudition was neither extensive nor profound, must be admitted at once; but that he possessed extraordinary industry, singular facility in acquiring a rapid and familiar knowledge of the most obvious features of every topic he undertook to illustrate; and that he was master of the happy art of inspiring even the dullest investigation with lively interest, are evidences of a genius which neither the envious Kenrick, nor the fretful Boswell, could refuse to acknowledge. Of all his contemporaries, Johnson appears to have appreciated his peculiar merits with the greatest accuracy. When he heard that he was employed in the preparation of a work on Natural History, he said that he would make it as entertaining as a Persian tale !

The literary reputation of Goldsmith rests upon works that will survive as long as the literature of the English language. But, until Mr. Prior explored the secret history of the author, and tracked him from bookseller to bookseller, and from publication to publication, with an amount of diligence that cannot be too highly praised, it was not known that Goldsmith was a constant contributor to to periodicals, that he was a reviewer of new books in magazines and newspapers, that he wrote divers prefaces for histories, scientific books, translations, and a multitude of ephemeral volumes; that he prepared for the press a great number of pamphlets and compilations which have VOL. X.—NO. II.—FEBRUARY 1837.

fallen into oblivion, and that he was, in short, one of those laborious hacks who, subsisting upon the patronage of the booksellers, are ready at any moment to embark in any literary undertaking for which they are paidwhether nature or education has qualified them to execute their tasks with credit. Amongst the variety of compositions which he thus produced, there was, of course, much which he would have been unwilling to avow, much which was merely commonplace and superficial, and a great deal in which his felicitous hand could scarcely be recognized, having been thrown off merely to satisfy the present demands of the hour,' and to secure him an interval of case for pursuits more after his own taste. But this mass of production discovers a versatility, a power, and a copiousness for which the world had not previously given him credit. He was regarded, not as a voluminous, but as an elegant writer-not as one who had written much, but as one who had written with remarkable grace, beauty, and precision: and it was a subject of general regret that he had left so little behind him. It is now, however, known that, in common with such men as Smollett and Griffith Jones, differing from each other in degree, but living upon similar expedients, he was rarely idle, and that he was one of the most fertile contributors to the fleeting literature of the day. He must, therefore, be regarded as an incessant labourer, and not as an author awakening occasionally from fits of reverie and idleness to charm the world with inventions that had visited him in his dreams.

A

The knowledge of this fact was essential to the formation of a just estimate of his character. The legends that have come down to us of his absent moods, his blunders, and his dullness (amongst other irreverent titles which he acquired was that of Goodman Dull), were calculated to convey and confirm the notion that his genius was occa sionally dormant, that his powers were not always capable of being called into action, that he was slow to originate, and that the process of realization depended altogether upon temperament. The very contrary was true. His mind was remarkably elastiche never was at a loss for a subject—he was

H

prompt in the execution of whatever he undertook-he saw no difficulties before him he was perpetually searching after novelties, and devising projects—and whether he was required to furnish a grave disquisition, a humorous essay, a biography, or an allegory, he was always prepared with a fund of information, and a flow of spirits that appears never to have deserted him. His ordinary bearing in society certainly did not indicate this fertility and readiness of mind. In conversation he was somewhat confused and abstracted:-may not the solution of all his awkwardness in that way be found in the diversity of subjects that occupied his attention? His habits of composition suggest a clue to this very peculiarity, that may at once account for it satisfactorily. When he was writing the History of England, he used to read Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet in the mornings, then walk out into the fields, and in a few hours afterwards, having digested the substance of what he had been reading, he would sit down and reduce into his own simple and perspicuous narrative the entire subject of his meditations. He did not seize upon it at once-it required a short pause of time—he was to be acted upon by the influence of solitude and ruminationand he could not resolve the matter into shape until it had sunk and deposited itself in his mind. There are many anecdotes of Goldsmith extant, that strengthen this view of the mental process by which he arrived at production. When he was boarding with a family in the country, he was accustomed to have his meals frequently sent to his room, where he remained for several days together writing; sometimes he would wander into the kitchen, and stand with his back to the fire ruminating, when suddenly the labouring thought would develope itself, and he would start off to commit it to paper without saying a word the whole time. Such are, in a greater or lesser degree, the habits of all literary men, but in Goldsmith the action of the mind appears to have completely absorbed the faculty of talking: while he was perfecting the train of reasoning, the image, the plot, the form of the fiction, he rejected the ordinary stimulants of collision, which would have deranged his purpose. But his social qualities drew him into company, unfit as he was to participate in the gladiatorial display of trenchant wit and philosophical satire; and he was constantly in the dilemma of a man

whose love of his species plunged him into countless embarrassments that compromised his sense. Johnson was a marvellous talker -a sententious talker: it was a part and parcel of his character: the subjects upon which he excelled, were such as would be likely to be improved by intercourse with other minds, and the manner in which he investigated them was of a mixed mode between a debater and an oracle. Goldsmith, on the contrary, derived every thing from nature-he could not have written Rasselas had he tried; he would have banished all the artificial eloquence, and spread a human interest over the story that would have brought down the fiction and its moral closer to our sympathies and our experience :—he wrote out of the fullness of his own heart and thoughts-while other men were arguing, Goldsmith was inventing and reflecting, but his good-nature was always getting the better of him, and with an excusable vanity, or, perhaps, from a generous wish to make other people feel at ease, he attempted to enter into the immediate topic, while his attention was concentrated upon something else, and, of course, he frequently made himself ridiculous. The truth was, that not being a mere artist, but one who felt and observed - disregarding shallow brilliancy, despising the meretricious, and valuing only that which was founded in nature, which he loved with the unconscious devotion of a child—he never could apply his powers with success to the fugitive embellishments, and incessant but trifling demands of general intercourse. His only exponent was his pen. In company he was confounded-alone, he was self-possessed. Success in the world would have tainted the freshness, originality, and purity of his genius. Had he ventured to take a prominent share in conversation, unskilled as he was in dialectics-(which he evidently held in aversion, since, throughout his whole works, we find him delineating, developing, and urging moral truths, but never contesting about them)-it must have been at the ultimate expense of that exquisite simplicity which constitutes the prevailing charm of his writings. Yet there were not wanting envious and empty persons to take advantage of his peculiarities, and to seek petty victories over his credulity and guilelessness. A noble lord—with an ambition, perhaps, resembling that of "the youth who fired the Ephesian dome," -called Goldsmith an inspired idiot."

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