Shakespeare was too strong food for the digestive capacities of an age whose poets preferred falsehood to truth. Pepys speaks of _Henry VIII._ as a simple thing made up “of a great many patches.” _The Tempest_, he thinks, “has no great art, but yet good above ordinary plays.” _Othello_ was to him “a mean thing,” compared to the last new comedy. He is good enough, however, to allow that he liked or disliked _Macbeth_, according to the humour of the hour, but there was a “_divertissement_” in it, which struck him as being a droll thing in tragedy. The fiery energy of Pitt was needed to galvanise the paralysed enthusiasm, the fanatical earnestness of John Wesley was needed to arouse the deadened moral sense of England. Religion and patriotism come first as important factors in the education of a people, but they are closely followed by poetry and the drama. If Pitt and Wesley did much to elevate the political and religious tone, as much was done to elevate the literary and dramatic by Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, and Sarah Siddons. Our readers may be inclined to think we exaggerate the importance of the stage, by thus classing poets and players together; but if we wish to appreciate the influence wielded by players a hundred years ago, we have but to examine the careers of these last two great artists; and if we wish to appreciate the moral reform effected, we have but to turn to a list of the plays in vogue at the time of the Restoration and the plays in vogue twenty years after Garrick had been acting, and ten years after Sarah Siddons’s first appearance. The reaction came, as do all reactions, with too great intensity; vice was not only punished in its own person, but the sins of the father were visited on the children, with a harshness almost Semitic. Through the fine-spun sentiment of _The Fatal Marriage_, and the melodramatic heroism of _The Grecian Daughter_, two of Mrs. Siddons’ greatest parts, we trace the high moral tone that cleared away eventually the foul and noisome atmosphere hanging over the theatrical world. Gloomy morality and dramatic pathos paved the way for the return of the _Winter’s Tale_ and _Hamlet_. Justly are the memories of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons revered by Englishmen, not only because they devoted their genius to the reinstatement of England’s greatest dramatist, but that, also, by their strict adherence to an almost rigid decorum in public behaviour and private life, they raised a profession that had hitherto been despised and looked upon as one unbefitting a modest woman, or an honourable man, into a position of respectability and consideration.