The Express.
London, England, 1868-01-16 00:00:00

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HATAARKIT.
Trts EVLIINO, THE BROKEN-HEARTED CLUB—A WIFE
WELL WON. awn Sabana, Radiates% Hone, Kends',
Boge% Maid. Weatheraby, ; and VW Robertion.—Atter
which AN UTTER PILLVIIRSION 01 THE BRIGAND.

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Misses F.lororthy. Y Ilsrasta, Heckel Sanger, and Mrs. Addle.

Tens Es=um. OLD SALT. MITHAND.r. Emery and Miss Kelly More.
—Alice which THE CALIPH OP BAODAD. Messrs. Thorne
and James: Mesdames Ma Bwanhorough, Johnstone, Harland,
Molt, dte.—And DUE D4MEStICB.

HOSSIORN.
TIM ETTNTII4I, THE FLYING SCUD. Mania Atkins, Prise,
Garden, Arthur, Wedland, end Wihnott Mswismal Umvaae,
Goodall, Lennox, and Saunders—Coneinde with VALENTINE
AND (WON. Wile. Montero, Little Rowan, Ac.

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Tins Erne, DON QUIXOTE ; OR, SANCHO TANZA AND
HIS WITE TEBEZA. Mrs. Lane, *Misses F.d.rht Cooth ; Tsn-
tomnolsts Messrs.
Rifouis, Newham, and Vietorelll; Mdlle.
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MON WATIA AT LONDON BRIDOL
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LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 16.

' Is looking over the list of the performances at
the Paris theatres daily published in the news-
papers, and comparing it with those of the London
houses, we are certainly not tempted to indulge in
comparisons. But no ono who has had opportu-
nities of making comparisons can fail to be struck
with the constant superiority of French play-
writers and dramatic critics, French actors, and
French audiences, to their English contemporaries,
even during the present period of moral and in-
tellectual decadence among our neighbours.
" Decadence," indeed, is a word which, in con-
templating the actual state and prospects of the
British drama, wo would rather not pronounce ;
because it is a decadence unexplained by any tem-
porary or transient circumstances, and only a
gentler expression for a long, an absolute,
a hopeless decline. It may have been
accelerated, perhaps, by the same causes which have
operated in France. But it did not, like the
French decadence, begin with the Second Empire,
and it will not end when the contagion of Impe-
rialism is cleared away. _ _ .

In France a repressive and demoralizing system
of government has infected the dramatic and every
other form of the national literature ; it has en-
couraged every sensual and debasing pleasure, and
set the seal of suspicion upon great minds and
noble hearts. It has proscribed high thought and
generous aspiration as dangerous to the public
tranquillity. It has sentenced the stage to degra-
dation in the name of the public safety. It has
deliberately vitiated the public taste, debauched
the public manners, and driven genius and high
thinking into exile or obscurity. But these causes
of decadence aro transient ; we cannot doubt that
purer French dramatic literature is destined to
shine out again after the eclipse. Who
can foresee a revival of the glories of
the English stage ? Where are the dramatists,
the players, or the audiences, or the critics? Even
in the worst of times there is a certain literary
finish and grace of form in the most trivial French
pieces, a certain refinement and intelligence in
the acting, a certain intellectual perception and
sympathy in the public, a certain elevation of
judgment in the critics, which may be sought in
vain on this side of the Channel. We move in •
vicious circle. Criticism has, for the most part,
degenerated into more " reporting," garnished
with the slang of the green-room and the " wings,"
because there are no plays produced which deserve
serious criticism. There are no plays that de-
serve the name of literature, and few actors that
deserve the name of artists, because there is no
serious or discriminating criticism. One common
excuse for the disappearance of literature and
art from the English stage might be
assigned with equal reason for the de-
cadence of the French stage. We moan the
daily influx into the capital of crowds of worthy
but most unintelloctual people from the provinces,
whose sympathies can only be reached through
their sensations, and whose tastes demand the
strongest, the coarsest, and the hottest condiments.
Those people, who constitute the paying audiences,
make good plays and good actors impossible. But
the theatres of Paris, like those of London, are
filled with provincial audiences ; and the railways
have not caused, though they may have precipi-
tated, the fall of the British theatre to the rank of
a music hall, without the liberty of eating, drink-
ing, and smoking for the audience, and with the
liberty of bad acting in bad pieces for the per-
formers. What is so remarkable in all that con-
cerns the English theatre is the prevailing stupidity
on both sides of the curtain, the uuintelligence of
the players and the unintelligence of the public.
In the French theatre it is not intelligence that is
wanting, and where intelligence is not wanting
decadence is not decay. In some respects, how-
ever, them is not much to choose between the
French and the English theatre. In all that
concerns the comfort of the audience
we are not at all sure that the Br;tish
theatre has much to learn in Paris. In all
theatres in all countries it seems to be understood
that the public are to bo made as uncomfortable
as possible, and this rule obtains in England.
But in lighting, in ventilation, in the seating of
the audience, there is nothing for us to envy in
the theatres of Paris. Indeed the new theatres
built by M. HAUSSNIANN are models of ill-con-
struction and discomfort.