DRAMA.
At the beginning of the Victorian period, the English stage was still contentedly support ing the traditions of two preceding centunes. The objects and methods of both actors and plays were practically the same as they had been at the Restoration. In both, the rhetorical style prevailed. The two Patent theatres created by Charles II still had the sole privilege of play ing the legitimate drama, and Macready was striving to perpetuate the histrionic tradition which went back through Edmund Kean and John Kemble, to Garrick and to Betterton. The plays themselves still kept, with slight modifi cations, notably in the direction of morality, to the Restoration models, of comedy which de rived from Moliere with a slight infusion of Jonson; and of tragedy which was either Elizabethan simple or Elizabethan Restora tionized. Since Goldsmith and Sheridan, lit erature had showed a widening separation from the stage which almost to their time had been its chief mouthpiece. This had been mainly brought about by the great ex tension of journalism and, later, the signal success of the novel in the hands of Scott These two forms of literary endeavor -were offering larger and securer returns than play making, and thus naturally drew away from the theatre men of mark and left only the adapters and the hacks. Such was the position at the outset of Victoria's reign. Dramatic history during her reign is, until the very latter end of it, one rather of movements than of men. The changes which were to take place during her occupation were brought' about by social, eco nomic and physical, as well as literary forces; for more than any other artistic activity, the stage is responsive to the conditions under which it exists. These changes embraced the decay of the old traditions, the even wider sepa ration of the stage from literature, the birth of a new drama followed by a partial return of literature to the stage, and finally the growth of a serious conception of the drama as a criticism of life, a conception already achieved by other European nations.
London, during the first 40 years of the cen tury. had more than doubled its population, and, as a result, the Patent theatres were on all sides encroached upon by minor theatres wh:ch, in spite of their legal disabilities, proved for m:dahle rivals. When the Act of 1843 abolished the privilege of the Patent theatres, an era of more active competition began. This compe tition naturally relied upon display as its best means of advertisement; and the invention of gas and lime-light about the same period—in ventions of great significance to the stage—con firmed the universal tendency toward the spectacular treatment of plays. Inevitably there set in the decline of the rhetorical drama, the appeal of which, on a poorly-lighted stage, was primarily to the ear and not to the eye. Meanwhile another cause was contributing not only to destroy the rhetorical tradition but to widen the gap between literary men and the theatre. What small demand there was for original work would doubtless have in time recalled writers from the novel and the news paper. but unfortunately the demand, just be ginning to be felt in the early Victorian period, was checkmated by an outside influence. The Romantic revival in France had suddenly broken away from the frigid classicism, so unattractive to English audiences, and Hugo had ushered in a kind of play which the English found more to their taste. These new plays proved easily imitable and adaptable in London, but the habit of importation did not become whole sale until the advent of Scribe. Scribe perfected the mechanics of story-telling in dramatic form, and in so doing largely deleted everything else from a play— witty dialogue, atmosphere. local ity, and characterization. Thus his plays, being simply .stories, could be given anywhere with equal effect, and as London managers could get them for nothing, his output and that of his school became an inexhaustible storehouse for adaptation.