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The works of the older school were indeed in part sought out, but the school itself was extinct. I apply the term of a "school" to the dramatical poets of the first aera, in the same sense as it is taken in art, for with all their personal differences we may still perceive on the whole a common character in their productions.
It is singular enough, that of all the dramatical works of Lessing, the last, Nathan der Weise, which he wrote when his zeal for the improvement of the German theatre had nearly cooled, and, as he says, merely with a view to laugh at theologists, should be the most conformable to the genuine rules of art.
Perhaps a man of less bulk could not have entered so keenly into that simple pleasure. There was a large tent on the grounds for dramatical entertainments, with six performances a day, into which I was lured by a profusion of high- colored posters, and some such announcement, as that the beautiful serio- comic danseuse and world-renowned cloggist, Mile. Brown, would appear.
He was known and admired, as a man of successful gallantry, both with the fair sex and his own, before he appeared, emphatically speaking, upon the public stage. Since that time, his performances, of the Duenna, and the School for Scandal, have been distinguished with the public favour beyond any dramatical productions in the language.
Besides, it will hardly be believed that Shakspeare knew so little of his art, as not to be aware that a tragedy in which Aeneas had to make a lengthy epic relation of a transaction that happened so long before as the destruction of Troy, could neither be dramatical nor theatrical. Of Macbeth I have already spoken once in passing, and who could exhaust the praises of this sublime work?
The dramatical old rascal, Cibber, began now to look at it as a bit of genteel comedy; and slipped out his note-book under the table. Pomander cursed her ready wit, which had disappointed him of his catastrophe. Vane wrote on a slip of paper: "Pity and respect the innocent!" and passed it to Mrs. Woffington. He could not have done a more superfluous or injudicious thing.
In his own Grace Abounding there are meditations of terror quite worthy to stand beside the most terrible things of that kind that ever were written, as also in many others of our author's dramatical and homiletical books. I read to you the other Sabbath morning a meditation of terror that was found among Bishop Andrewes' private papers after his death.
It was a sketch of a dramatical, metaphysical, entertainment, of which half a dozen proposed titles had been scratched out, and there was finally left 'Tarquin the Optimist, or the Temple of Destiny. It was from an old story begun by Laurentius Valla, and continued by Leibnitz; she read, "Act I. Scene 1. Sextus Tarquin goes to consult the Oracle, who foretells the crime he is to commit.
Why, no man denies, but that these also have some good things whereof that may be one: but the whole drift and foundation of that kind of dramatical poetry, what is it else, but as we have said? VI. How clearly doth it appear unto thee, that no other course of thy life could fit a true philosopher's practice better, than this very course, that thou art now already in?
For if we interpret his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet-show; that they attested their principles by their patches; that an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a language which they did not understand; that chairs and flower-pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage; that a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks within the verge of the Court; with many improbabilities of the like nature.