in the last and newest fashion, or it must cease to be. The despotism
of fashion in dress, in furniture, and in the pattern of the edges of
plate, is perhaps inconvenient--it is, however, not very important;
but it is a cruel grievance that it should interfere with and
annihilate an entire department of our literature.

_HOURS OF REPRESENTATION._

Dramatic representations were formerly given, not only in Greece and
Rome, but in England also, in the daytime, and in the open air. "The
Globe, Fortune, and Bull, were large houses, and partly open to the
weather, and there they always acted by daylight;" and plays were
first acted in Spain in the open courts of great houses, which were
sometimes covered, in whole or in part, with an awning to keep off the
sun. The word _sale_, which is used as a stage direction, meaning not
_exit_, but he enters, i.e. he comes out of the house into the open
air, is an evidence of the old practice. We are inclined to think
that the morning is more favourable to dramatic excellence than the
evening. The daylight accords with the truth and sobriety of nature,
and it is the season of cool judgment: the gilded, the painted, the
tawdry, the meretricious--spangles and tinsel, and tarnished and
glittering trumpery--demand the glare of candle-light and the shades
of night. It is certain, that the best pieces were written for the
day; and it is probable, that the best actors were those who performed
whilst the sun was above the horizon. The childish trash which now
occupies so large a portion of the public attention could not, it is
evident, keep possession of the stage, if it were to be presented, not
at ten o'clock at night, but twelve hours earlier. Much would need to
be changed in the dresses, scenery, and decorations, and in many other
respects, in the pieces, the solid merits of which would be able to