The people of the Athens never have been able, and probably never will be able, to support a respectable theatrical establishment. The genius of the Scottish people generally is not theatrical. There are still many sects of religionists among them by whom the stage is denounced as a “tabernacle of Satan.” This is by no means confined to the provinces, or to the more austere or fanatical classes of dissenters; for, at the time when “I, and the King,” visited the Athens, her celebrated, and most deservedly-celebrated preacher, of the presbyterian establishment, was denouncing the sinfulness of stage-plays, both from the pulpit and the press; and though some of the courtly persons whom fashion had induced to became churchwardens or elders of his congregation, threatened to rebuke or leave him, because, in the true spirit of John Knox, he had preached a homily on kingly duties, in which there was not much of flattery, while the King was in the Athens, yet they let him denounce the theatre as he pleased. The more aspiring cast of the Athenians lay claim to very superlative taste in theatrical matters, as indeed they do in every thing; and hence, they pretend that they do not patronise the theatre, because they cannot find a company of players, who come at all up to their standard of histrionic perfection; and they appeal for proof to the fact, that when any of the grand stars or comets of the London boards come to them for a night or two, they throng the theatre with their persons, and threaten to break it down with their plaudits. All this, however, proves nothing, but that they are unable to support a theatre, and that the crowding to see a strange actor for a night or two arises not from taste but from curiosity. The fact is, that, though England has produced the very best dramatic poet that ever lived, and some of the best dramatic performers, yet that the drama, as a matter of sentiment and feeling, and, as it were, of constitutional necessity, does not tally with the spirit even of the English people; and, as the Scotch have all the business habits of the English, together with a much greater degree of starchedness of character, and incapability of purse, the theatre cannot possibly flourish among them.