however, between the necessaries and the luxuries of deception; the
form, and sometimes the colour, demand a scrupulous accuracy; the
texture is always unimportant. We may comprehend, therefore, how the
old English theatre, notwithstanding the small outlay on decorations,
by a strict attention to essentials, possessed considerable
attractions; we may readily believe, that there were many companies
who were maintained by their trade; "that all those companies got
money and lived in reputation, especially those of the Blackfriars,
who were men of grave and sober behaviour."

_THE OLD DRAMA._

Our literature is remarkably rich in old dramas; but they are of
little use to the present age. Fastidiousness and hypocrisy have grown
for many years, slowly but surely, and have at last arrived at such
a pitch, that there is hardly a line in the works of our old comic
writers, which is not reprobated as immoral, or at least vulgar.
The excessive squeamishness of taste of the present day is very
unfavourable to the genius of comedy, which demands a certain liberty
and a freedom from restraints. This morbid delicacy is a great
evil, for it renders the time of limitation in all comic writings
exceedingly short. The ephemeral duration of the fashion, which is
all the production of a man of wit can now enjoy, discourages authors.
There is no motive to bestow much care on such compositions, and they
fall below the ambition of men of real talents--for the best part of
the reward of literary labour consists in the lasting admiration of
posterity; and as some new fastidiousness will consign to oblivion, in
a short time, every comic production, it is plain that such a reward
cannot be reasonably anticipated. We are more completely, than any
other nation, the victims of fashion. Everything here must either be