If the players thus produce an article of entertainment inferior both in talent and in taste to the other things which compete for the business of amusing the public, it is not to be wondered at that their houses are deserted. For the crown which at present purchases a night’s entertainment at the theatre to one member of a family—an entertainment partly childish, perhaps, and almost certain to be somewhat immoral—that whole family can be supplied for a whole month with the best literary productions of the day from a circulating library, or it can purchase a single volume, which not only gives it rational entertainment and instruction for several nights, but remains a constant and ready instrument for repeating this entertainment and instruction whenever it is required. If we coolly reflect on the respective reputations which the drama and literature bear in the world, we will find that only a certain number of people wish well to the former, while the latter is an object of almost universal attachment and national pride. The fact is, that the drama has shut itself out by its own misconduct from the sympathies of half the public, if not a much larger portion. It is still dabbling in the low vices and mean order of feelings which prevailed in the reign of George the Second, or else in the nursery tales which lulled our cradles; while literature, shooting far ahead, is replete with the superior virtues and extensive benevolences of the present age. And not only does _literature_ compete with the stage. Music, and other accomplishments of private life, are also now resorted to, for the purpose of furnishing an innocent amusement to the family circle—an amusement less attractive, perhaps, than the theatre, which, with all its errors, has still a powerful inherent charm, but preferred, nevertheless, as making up in simplicity, harmlessness, and cheapness, what it wants in the power of excitement.