PAGE 1. MR. FOOTE AS THE DEVIL UPON TWO STICKS 83 2. MR. BEARD AS HAWTHORNE 114 3. MR. DUNSTALL AS HODGE 143 4. MR. MOODY AS SIMON 238 5. MR. FOOTE AS MRS. COLE 247 6. MR. DIBDIN AS MUNGO 272 7. MR. WESTON AS DR. LAST 394 8. MR. FOOTE AS SIR THOMAS LOFTY 420 [Illustration: MR. PARSONS AND MISS POPE IN "THE DRUMMER."] CHAPTER I. OF AUTHORS, AND PARTICULARLY OF CONDEMNED AUTHORS. A glance at the foregoing list[1] will serve to show that, from the retirement of Garrick to the close of the eighteenth century, tragic literature made no progress. It retrograded. It did not even reach the height of Fenton and Hughes, in whom Walpole discerned some faint sparkling of the merit of the older masters. After Shakspeare's time, "Theatric genius," says Walpole, "lay dormant;" but he adds, that "it waked with some bold and glorious, but irregular and often ridiculous flights, in Dryden; revived in Otway; maintained a placid, pleasing kind of dignity in Rowe, and even shone in 'Jane Shore.' It trod in sublime and classic fetters in 'Cato;' but was void of nature, or the power of affecting the passions. In Southerne it seemed a genuine ray of nature and Shakspeare, but falling on an age still more Hottentot, was stifled in those gross and barbarous productions, tragi-comedies. It turned to tuneful nonsense in the 'Mourning Bride;' grew stark mad in Lee, whose cloak, a little the worse for wear, fell on Young, yet in both was still a poet's cloak. It recovered its senses in Hughes and Fenton, who were afraid it should relapse, and accordingly kept it down with a timid, but amiable, hand; and then it languished." And continued to languish; I cannot more fully show to what extent, than by remarking that the century which opened with Rowe concluded with Pye--both Poets Laureate, but of different qualities. "Tamerlane" and "Jane Shore" have not yet dropped from the list of acting plays; but who knows anything more of "Adelaide" than that it was insipid, possessed not even a "tuneful nonsense," and was only distinguished for having made Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble appear almost as insipid as the play. Godwin's "Antonio," played in 1800, was as complete a failure as Pye's "Adelaide." For the tragic poets who occupy the period between Garrick's retirement and the coming of Pye and Godwin, a few words will suffice. Mason's "Caractacus" was a noble effort, but it produced less effect than D'Egville's ballet on the same subject in the succeeding century. Cumberland's "Battle of Hastings" was as near Shakspeare as Ireland's "Vortigern" was; and Home's "Alfred" died, three days old.