The general complaint now made in Great Britain against the tedium of theatrical representations was unknown in other ages and countries. The passion of the Greeks for their national theatre is well known, and the matchless perfection of their great dramatists proves to what a degree it is capable of rousing the human mind. The French, prior to the Revolution, were passionately fond of the drama, which was then entirely founded on the Greek model. The decline complained of in the Parisian theatre has been contemporary with the introduction of the Romantic school. In Italy, it is, with the opera, the chief, almost the sole public amusement. There is not a city with forty thousand inhabitants in the classic peninsula that has not a theatre and opera, superior to any thing to be met with in the British islands out of London. The theatre is in high favour in Germany and Russia. Complaints, indeed, are frequently made, that the drama is declining on the Continent, and the present state of the lesser Parisian theatres certainly affords no indication that, in departing from the old land-marks and bringing romance on the stage, they have either preserved its purity or extended its influence. But the decline of the theatre is far greater and more remarkable in England than in any of the continental states. It has, indeed, gone so far as to induce a serious apprehension among many well-informed persons, that it will cease to exist, and the country of Shakspeare and Garrick, of Kemble and Siddons, be left altogether without a theatre at which the legitimate drama is represented. Such a result in a country overflowing, in its great cities and metropolis at least, with riches, and with a population passionately desirous of every species of enjoyment, is very remarkable, and deserving of the most serious consideration. It may well make us pause in our career, and consider whether the course we have been pursuing has, or has not, been likely to lead to perfection and success in this noble and important branch of composition.