What a noble set of followers have, in all ages, graced the banners of the Athenian bard! Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, and Euripides, in Greece; Terence and Plautus in Rome; Metastasio, Goldoni, and Alfieri in Italy; Corneille, Racine, Moliere, and Voltaire in France; Schiller,[N] in himself a host, in Germany--contribute the brightest stars in the immortal band. Their merits may be unequal, their talent various, their pieces sometimes uninteresting; but, taken as a whole, their works exhibit the greatest efforts of human genius. What has the Romantic school to exhibit, after its inimitable founder, as a set-off to this long line of greatness? The ephemeral and now forgotten lights of the British stage--the blasting indecencies of Beaumont and Fletcher; the vigorous ribaldry of Dryden; the shocking extravagances of the recent French and Spanish stage; the _Tour de Nesle_, and other elevating pieces, which adorn the modern Parisian theatre, and train to virtuous and generous feeling the present youth of France. Shakspeare himself, with all his transcendent excellences, is unable to keep his ground on the British stage. Like all great men, whom accident or error has embarked in a wrong course, he has been passed by a host of followers, who, unable to imitate his beauties, have copied only his defects, till they have fairly banished the legitimate tragic drama from the London stage. If the precept of Scripture be true--"By their fruits shall ye know them"--the palm must be unquestionably awarded to the old Grecian school. If the different principles on which the two great schools of the drama proceed are considered, it will not appear surprising that this result has taken place.