THE MODERN DRAMA.[1]
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A tragedy in five acts!—what student of poetry,—(for, admire, O Posterity, the strange fact, these days of book-craft produce not only inspired singers, and enchanted listeners, but students of poetry,)—what student in this strange sort, I say, has not felt his eye rivetted to this title, as it were written in letters of fire? has not heard it whispered in his secret breast?—In this form alone canst thou express thy thought in the liveliness of life, this success alone should satisfy thy ambition!
Were all these ardours caught from a genuine fire, such as, in favouring eras, led the master geniuses by their successive efforts to perfect this form, till it afforded the greatest advantages in the smallest space, we should be glad to warm and cheer us at a very small blaze. But it is not so. The drama, at least the English drama of our day, shows a reflected light, not a spreading fire. It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.
This is not an observation to which there are no exceptions, some we shall proceed to specify, but those who have, with any care, watched this ambition in their own minds, or analyzed its
- ↑
The Patrician’s Daughter, a tragedy, in five acts, by J. Westland Marston:
London: C. Mitchel, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1841.
Athelwold, a tragedy in five acts, by W. Smith, Esq.; William Blackwood and Sons. London and Edinburgh, 1842.
Strafford, a tragedy, by John Sterling. London; Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1843.
