"It is well known that the English theatres never flourished as they do at present, (1807.) When it is enquired, why painting, poetry, and sculpture, decline in England? want of encouragment is the sure reply; but this reply cannot be given to the question, why dramatic literature fails? for never was there such high remuneration conferred upon every person, and every work belonging to the drama. A new play which, from a reputed wit of former times, would not with success bring him a hundred pounds, a manager will now purchase from a reputed blockhead at the price of near a thousand, and sustain all risk of whether it be condemned or not. Great must be the attraction of modern plays to repay such speculation. It is a consolation to the dramatist of the present age, that while his plays are more attractive than ever those of former writers were, those authors had their contemporary critics as well as he, though less acute and less severe indeed than the present race." I have not time to reduce into celestial money the English sum of a thousand pounds; but it is great, yea, more than the value in three years of the longest peacock's feather in Pekin, and the value of a play is not diminished since then. Not many moons ago, there was a reward offered by one of the managers, of five hundred gold coins called guineas, to the person who should send to him the best comedy illustrative of present manners. O Cho-Ling-Kyang, the power of five hundred guineas in awakening the poetic powers of mankind! The great majority of the English nation for a whole year wrote nothing but plays; all the world was a stage, and all the men and women merely writers; and when the time came, all had broken down in the attempt, except ninety-six. But through these fourscore and sixteen dramas, all painting the habits and characteristics of the present time, the judges appointed by the manager had to read. And they read--and read; and when they came to a decision, lo! it was in favour of a lady--one of the cleverest authors, in other styles, that England has ever seen--bright, polished, witty; and although not in a dramatic form, more dramatic and lively than any professed play-writer since one called Sherry, from his fondness for drinking wine. 'Midst the applause of all the rest of the world, and the hatred and jealousy of her ninety-five competitors, she was presented with the money; and the manager, on looking through a hole in the curtain on the first night of the performance, saw the whole house crowded from the floor to the roof, and thought he had never so wisely laid out five hundred guineas in his life. "Oho!" said wise men to each other in the boxes, "we shall see ourselves as we are--no farcical exaggeration, no vulgar grievances; the woman is an observing woman, and has mixed in great society; moreover, it is the best play out of nearly a hundred; let us wait, it will be as good as the _School for Scandal_." And they stamped loud with their feet.