One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical survey of the drama in the pages of _Punch_. Most of his staff had dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished, and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its influence on _Punch's_ persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous tone which they occasionally inspired, _Punch_ may fairly claim to have rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on "Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic _clichés_, and solecisms in pronunciation.[29] He was also a reformer in his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players' vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first ten years of _Punch_ with little intermission and was largely justified. _Punch_ was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in 1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance--the dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays as set forth in the following extract--has been largely remedied, though the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is by some critics considered worse than the disease:-- _Galignani's Messenger_ says of the French theatre:-- "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris, 191 new pieces." * * * * * _Punch_ says of the English theatre:-- "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London about _ten_ new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed, devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen from the manufactory of Bentley and others!" [Footnote 29: See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind," "dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."]