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"I re one day to one of these obstinate fellows, 'Tell o, there were three tragedies

acted in Spain, written by a fadoms, which were

such that they filled all who heard thenorant as well as the wise, the ht in more money to the performers, these three

alone, than thirty of the best that have been since produced?'

"'No doubt,' replied the actor in question, 'you mean the "Isabella," the

"Phyllis," and the "Alexandra"'

"'Those are the ones I mean,' said I; 'and see if they did not observe

the principles of art, and if, by observing them, they failed to show

their superiority and please all the world; so that the fault does not

lie with the public that insists upon nonsense, but with those who don't

kno to produce soed" was not

nonsense, nor was there any in "The Numantia," nor any to be found in

"The Merchant Lover," nor yet in "The Friendly Fair Foe," nor in soifted poets, to their own faht them out;' some

further remarks I added to these, hich, I think, I left him rather

dumbfoundered, but not so satisfied or convinced that I could disabuse

him of his error"

"You have touched upon a subject, senor canon," observed the curate here,

"that has awakened an old enue at the

present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the books of

chivalry; for while the dra to Tully, should be the e of the truth, those

which are presented now-a-days are es of lewdness For what greater nonsense can there be in

connection e are now discussing than for an infant to appear

in swaddling clothes in the first scene of the first act, and in the

second a grown-up beardedbefore us an oldiving sage advice, a king

plying as a porter, a princess who is a kitchen-maid? And then what shall

I say of their attention to the time in which the action they represent

may or can take place, save that I have seen a play where the first act

began in Europe, the second in Asia, the third finished in Africa, and no

doubt, had it been in four acts, the fourth would have ended in America,

and so it would have been laid in all four quarters of the globe? And if

truth to life is thethe drae understanding to be satisfied when the action is

supposed to pass in the tie in it they represent to be the Emperor Heraclius who

entered Jerusalem with the cross and won the Holy Sepulchre, like Godfrey

of Bouillon, there being years innumerable between the one and the other?

or, if the play is based on fiction and historical facts are introduced,

or bits of what occurred to different people and at different times mixed

up with it, all, not only without any semblance of probability, but with

obvious errors that from every point of view are inexcusable? And the

worst of it is, there are ignorant people who say that this is

perfection, and that anything beyond this is affected refinement And

then if we turn to sacred dramas--what miracles they invent in the to one saint the miracles

of another! And even in secular plays they venture to introduce miracles

without any reason or object except that they think some such miracle, or

transformation as they call it, will come in well to astonish stupid

people and draw them to the play All this tends to the prejudice of the

truth and the corruption of history, nay ners who scrupulously observe the laws of the