quite as rapidly as those they condescended to imitate at the other Theatres.
A letter signed "Theatricus," inserted in the London Chronicle, vol. XV. contains a rapid but masterly sketch of the state of Theatrical amusements between 1700 and 1763. Under this impression I shall transfer it to this work:
"A DISSERTATION ON THE THEATRE.
"Since I was a boy, I have been an admirer of the Drama, and have, for near sixty years past, observed the revolutions of the stage (in England and Ireland) more than those of the State.
"The first play I remember to have seen was The Maid's Tragedy in the year 1710; the famous Mr. Betterton acted Melanthius; he died the week following, after having been above fifty years the ornament of the stage. With great satisfaction I recollect the memorable theatrical year 1712, when Cato was first acted: never were the expectations of the Town more fully satisfied, nor more emulation shewn by the performers. I was at that time in the first form at Westminster-school; our master offered a premium of a gilt Horace for the best Latin translation of Cato's soliloquy in the fifth act. I had sufficient vanity to be one of the candidates; but, to my great mortification, was told, 'that it was a good first attempt,' and saw the premium
delivered to my class-fellow, who, a few years ago, enjoyed one of the best deaneries in the church.
"My uncle used frequently to take me of a Sunday evening to Button's Coffee-house; it was there I first saw Addison and Congreve; he was intimate with Sir Richard Steele, and belonged to a club with the unfortunate Mr. Budgell.
"I remember the stage in its greatest glory, during the management of Wilks, Booth, and Cibber; its decline under the elegant but unfortunate Fleetwood; and its revival, with uncommon lustre, under Garrick. I must do justice to this last mentioned performer in saying, that it is to him alone we owe the bringing of Tragedy nearer to Nature than in the days of the Triumvirate. This one of them confessed to me not a year before his death; for formerly a turgid vociferation, or effeminate whine, were mistaken for the best display of the heroic and tender passions; but these caricatures are neglected for the real likenesses, which that great master of his art, Garrick, has truly delineated. I have often wished that the Stage could be brought under the regulations hinted at by Mr. Addison; then it would be, to use his own words, 'a source of the highest and most rational amusement.'
"I look upon the principal structures of the Drama, to be Tragedy and Comedy ; the most interesting circumstances of Tragedy may be
reduced to two different heads, viz. the elevated (such as Julius Cæsar, Coriolanus, &c.) and the tender and affecting (as Romeo, and the Orphan); but that tragedy must ever have the preference which unites the pathetic with the sublime.