The London theatres, excepting in the case of occasional and accidental runs upon a particular piece, or a particular actor, are uniformly miserable speculations for the proprietors; and it will be found, that even the poor support which the theatres in London get, is given them, not by the people of London so much as by that vast concourse of strangers who feel at a loss how to spend their evenings. Before the people, either of the Athens, or of any other part of the British dominions, can become theatrical, they must have a little more relaxation from hard labour than they can at present command. The national debt, and the immense public establishments, are the real causes why there are not only no Shakspeares now, but why the heroes of the old Shakspeare have given place to the wooden or real horses of a more buffooning race. The people must not only work, but work hard, during the live-long day; and when they have an hour which they can snatch from the abridged civilities of social life, for the purpose of looking at a theatrical exhibition, they very naturally prefer that which costs them no labour of thought, and which makes them laugh, to that which would impose upon them fatigue of the mind in addition to fatigue of the body. To say, therefore, that the Athens does not support the theatre, because she cannot find a _corps dramatique_ that comes up to her taste, has no surer a foundation than any other of those airy structures which she builds as the monuments of her glory. None of the fine arts, as a matter of abstract study and speculation, and apart from its contributing to the general comforts of life, can ever prosper in such a state of society as that of England at the present day; and if they languish in the British metropolis, where there is the greatest abundance both of money and of idle people, what must they do among a people who are comparatively so poor and so plodding as those of the Athens? If a London merchant, who goes to his place of business at one, and leaves it at three, does not encourage the drama, and the other fine arts; what can be expected from an Athenian special pleader, who drudges at Stair and Erskine, and thumbs Morison’s Dictionary of Decisions, from grey dawn to dark midnight, except during the hours that he is occupied in gossiping in the large hall of the parliament-house, or wrangling in the little courts, and less niches? It is true, that Mr. Clark, now Lord Eldin, could adorn his brief with drawings, even in those places,--that the Unknown, who is only a copying machine in his official capacity, can spin a chapter, or correct a proof sheet,--and that Jeffery has sometimes been caught writing an article for the Edinburgh Review, during the time that some long-winded proser was darkening the case on the other side; but still all this is done more as matter of business than of pleasure; and would, in almost all cases, be let alone, were it not for the fee that it produces.