The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-02 00:00:00

AFTER-DINNER PEACE.

Artornzz declaration of Peace ! M. MAONE, the
Minister of Finance, who has just concluded what,
if the destination of the money is considered,
must be designated as a War Loan, with brilliant
success, proposed at a banquet at Perigneur on the
the 26th ult. a toast to Peace. In the course of
his speech he said :—" Peace will be lasting because
" Europe needs it and the EMPEROR desires it.
" France is strong enough to abstain from war
" without danger of being accused of weakness,
" for no ono has any interest in disturbing her."
Will any one dare to hint a doubt of the peaceful
future of Europe after this ? Well, nothing can be
more reassuring than M. MAo:vz's toast to those who
are willing, or paid, to forget that M. MAoNE is
not in any settee or degree a responsible Minister,
and that he cannot pretend to know the mind of
his master, who does not know his own mind from
one day to another. How long or how often is
the free and independent press of Europe to be
compelled to insist that there can bo no security
for the peace of Europe while the conditions of
the supreme controlling power in France remain
what they are now, namely, personal government,
sustained by a million and a quarter of
bayonets, by half a million civil functionaries, by
an immoderate oentralisation, by a constitution
partly borrowed from the old monarchy of the
Don plaisir, and partly from the democratic
despotism of the Roman decadence ?

THE DRAMA AND DRAMATIC cRITICIS.V
IN ENGLAND.

DRAMATIC criticism has gone the way of dra-
matic literature in this country. It has fallen
into the bands of playwrights who have never
written an original piece, who accept the de-
gradation of the stage as a sign of the progress
of the national intellect, and discuss the actors
and their performances in the slang of the side-
scenes and the greenroom. These clever gentle-
men, who, instead of reviewing a new piece as
representatives of the audience, review it from the
" wings,- are never so proud of their functions as
when they can insult the genius of a great national
dramatist by comparing his works unfavourably
with the burlesques and melodramas of the day.
They treat SIIMIZSPEARE as the modern Romans
trust their monuments, with a befouling fami-
liarity. A recent critic displayed his superiority
to conventional admiration by confounding
the King in Humid as the great dramatist
drew the character with the ridiculous figure
which generations of vulgar and ignorant
actors have made of him—a ranting and roaring
pothouse ruffian, with a crown always on his
head and a sceptre always in his hand. Critics
who cannot discriminate between a coarse theatrical
daub and the design as it came fresh from
the creative genius should no more pretend to
"notice" a play of 1311ARRAPRARE than the
painter of a sign-board to lecture on IltenAzr.
ANGELO.

Is this palpable degradation of dramatic
criticism in England the cause or the con-
sequence of the degradation of the stage
In France, where the dramatic literature
and the dramatic art have also declined
considerably during the last twenty years,
dramatic criticism has maintained its high
literary character, because it has been seriously
and conscientiously exercised by men of letters
who respect art, and their own office. In
England, no doubt, the fault is not all on
one side. But we cannot help thinking that
a high and serious school of criticism might have
arrested the decline of our dramatic literature.
Shakesperean criticism it is true finds little en-
couragement in a representation of Hamlet, in
which only the Prince of Denmark is presented
as an educated and intelligent gentleman,
attended by a Polonius whose conception of
his part is that of a comic retired publican,
by a Claudius who looks like a seductive
transpontine coalheaver, a Queen Mother
who whines like a apirituously minded monthly
nurse, an Horatio who wears the aspect of an
enthusiastic butcher boy, and an Ophelia who has
the airs and graces of a sprightly and lackadaisical
parlour-maid. Yet, to cite the latest instance,
the performance of the new American actor
deserves more credit and more attention
than it is likely to receive. In spite of
many obvious tiefecte and deficiencies it is de-
cidedly meritorious above the average ; for the
c►reful study, the thoughtful and intelligent
reading and conception, and the grace and finish
of execution which it exhibits in almost every
scene particularly in the scenes with
Ophelia, with the Queen Mother, with the
players, and throughout the fifth act. It is im-
possible to see a play of SHAKESPIABS acted
without feeling that the dramatist is being grossly
caricatured. All his plays contain a number of
minor personages, each of whom should be repre-
sented at least in the form or figure of a gentleman,
instead of by one of those strutting and bellowing
beings who " neither having the secant of Christians
" nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, or man "
" imitate humanity so abominably." In the
present condition of the English stage per-
haps the true way to enjoy the performance of
Hamlet is to see the tragedy with the mind's eye
from ono's own arm-chair at home.