Still it is plain that a strong reaction against this bigoted admiration of traditional and conventional forms is now perceptible. The facilities of travel and intercourse with other nations have engendered new notions and modified old ones. It is impossible to compare the French and Italian stage with the English, and not perceive the vast inferiority of the latter. In the one we see nature, simplicity, and life; in the other, the galvanism of artificial convention. It cannot be denied that the recent acting of Hamlet by Fechter was to the English mind a daring and doubtful innovation. It was something so utterly different in spirit and style from that to which we have been accustomed that it created a sensation; and while it found many ardent admirers, it found quite as many vehement opposers. The public ranged themselves in two parties; the one insisting that the traditional and artificial school, as represented by Garrick, the elder Kean, and Cooke, was the only safe guide for the tragic actor; and the other arguing that as the true function of the stage was to hold up the mirror to nature, acting should be as much like life and as little like acting as possible. The former, at the head of which were the friends of Mr. Charles Kean, made a public demonstration in his behalf, and scouted these newfangled French notions of acting. Was it to be supposed that any school of acting could be superior to that created and established in England by the genius of such actors as Garrick, the elder Kean, and Cooke? Should foreigners presume to teach us how to interpret and represent plays which had been the study of the English people for centuries? To this it was opposed that, however mortifying to us, it was a fact that the Germans had led the way to a profounder and more metaphysical study of Shakespeare, and had taught us in many ways how to understand his plays, and that therefore there was no reason why foreigners might not teach us how to act them. The very fact that their eyes were not blinded, nor their tongues tied by traditional conventions, enabled them to study Shakespeare with more freedom and directness. There was no deep rut of ancient usage out of which they were forced to wrench themselves. And, besides, it was affirmed, and with truth, that the English stage is the jeer of the world, and needs thorough reform.