We have said that the tragic muse will do this, "if supported by the requisite ability in the _authors_ and performers." We have said this advisedly; for we belong to the former class, and we have no complaint to make of want of ability on the stage. On the contrary, talent and genius, of the most elevated kind, are to be found upon it. The fault lies with our own profession, or rather with that portion of it who cultivate dramatic composition. The origin of the evil is to be found, the remote cause of the present degraded condition of the stage, is to be found in--strike but hear--IN SHAKSPEARE! The most devoted worshipper of the genius of the Bard of Avon, the most enthusiastic admirer of the profound knowledge of the human heart, and unequalled force of expression which he possessed, cannot exceed ourselves in the deep admiration which we entertain for his transcendent excellences. On the contrary, it is those very excellences which have done the mischief; it is they which have misled subsequent dramatic writers in this country, and occasioned the constant failures by which his imitators have been distinguished. It is not surprising that it is so. Shakspeare was supremely great; but he was so, not in consequence of his dramatic principles, but in spite of them. He fired his arrow further than mortal man has yet done; but he fired it not altogether in the right direction, and no one since has been able to draw the bow of Ulysses. There is no one who has not heard of the famous dramatic unities, and the long-continued controversy which has been maintained between the admirers of the Greek drama, founded on their strict observance, and the followers of Shakspeare, who set them at defiance. In this, as in other disputes, probably neither party will ever convince the other; and the only effect of the contention is to fix each more immovably in its own opinion. But, waiving at present the abstract question, which of the two systems is in itself preferable, or essential to dramatic success, there is a practical consideration of deep interest to society, with which we are all concerned and the result of which throws no small light on the theoretical principle. It is this. Placing the creators of the two systems--AEschylus and Shakspeare--on a par; conceding to the author of _Hamlet_ an equal place with that of the composer of the _Prometheus Vinctus_; which of the two systems has had most success in the world; has longest preserved its sway over the human mind; has best withstood the causes of corruption inherent in all earthly change?