Washington sentinel., 1854-04-08
Wasbingtnn gentinel.
GENIUs-rHE DRAMA.

society has turned 10 the drama ioi anuseinon''
Our friends there claim to~be profcients in
dramatic criticism, and express the desire to
have their opinions in this matter made known
and tested. We indulge them in this wish, by
inserting in our columns of this day a very
elaborate and philosophical criticism upon
persons and things and, as we shall probably
have an opportunity before another season
viii be over Of witnessing the personation OF
one of the parties most favorably spoken of it
may not be amiss for our readers to learn what
is the opinion of the Californians, that they
may determine for themselves if California be
the excellent critic she thinks she is.
From the Placer (cal) Times
At the first dawning of the world, the feeble
action of the human mind was confined to the
operations Of the hour. 1t groped its way,
feeling every pebble, nor dared for a time to
look either forward or behind. Each succeed
ing hour, however, left deposit of facts; and
memory, acting on this material, produced ex-
perience Experience furnishing examples,
awoke the powers of reflection, and, in the ex-
panding operations of the intellect, reason took
the place of instinct and fashioned rules. Man
became capable Of getting his food, not only
today, but OF providing against hunger to-
morrow; and, in the ease of this reliance, his
tastes increased, and the realm of his enjoy
ments widened.
In the luxurious leisure of security, when
under his fg-tree or beside his fires, he whiled
away his idle hours with pleasant past events,
and thus was added to his mental scope the
allurements of legend and of history.
But still all was feeble; his entire reach of
thought stretched backward and he followed
memory, instead of carving out events for
memory to follow. Presently he took step ;
light broke at his feet. He left the past,
crossed the Threshold of present, and, yielding
10 the temptations of Imagination, entered the
future. to form new worlds and new beings from
his brain. The servile stage was over. He
cast tie slough of his dependence on achat had
been, seized the attributes of the Divinity, who
had lent him thus far only his shape and form,
and on the leaves of romance himself created
new worlds, new creatures, and new past.
1t was great era when the first fictitious
tale was told. Man then felt that he was rising
from his earthly probation The subtle essence
which bred new populations in his glowing fan
cy convinced him that he was stirred with q
more than mortal spirit; that he had a higher
end than merely to eat and die; and that il was
for supreme destiny he had been shaped at
the first in the outward glory Of God. Now,
when the past did not suit him, he could make
sunshine and green fields at wills and if he
could communicate these visions to other eyes,
he would be, tor the time, as potent as God,
and as great a benefactor to his race as if
these floating myths could be CONCEALED to the
touch. Still, his powers of creation were in
complete till he could clothe these figures with
his form, fill them with the breath of his nos
trils, arm them with his great functions, and,
with more art than the fabulous Prometheus,
make them walk, and talk, and feel with actual
life.
This was the province Of the drama.
Both arts, if arts they are, went hand in
hand, and, when duly seconding each other,
were of equal weights So were they Judged
by tribunals both divine and human. Prone
theus, who aspired to exercise the prime attri-
butte of the Creator, by making new being
from the earth, was condemned to the rock and
vulture, by Jove, for stealing from the heavenly
altar the sacred fire to vitalze his artificial
man; and Euripides, the dramatist, was
mulcted half his fortune by the Athenians, for
causing man, already made, to be SO filled with
the fire of the passions as to unnerve and dis
tract society with his fictitious woes.
Homer, Virgil, Dante, Racine, Milton, Shak.
speare, in burning words; Thespis, Roscius,
Talma, Kean, Siddons, O'Neil, in impersonat-
ways to enlarge the world and fill it with new
figures. The land and sea, and all that in
them is," that were created during the first six
days, when the drenched earth was raised from
the abyss, are no more tangible, in portions not
before our eyes, than Prosperos island, Ho-
mer's pageants, or Dante's frightful shores
The real Ajax, with his downright Drawn, pre-
sents to our mind no form more actual than
that of Caliban or Bastard; and the bright
realms that roll before as from the poets brain
are as sensible enlargements of the globe as
those real seas and solid fields which we are
told OF, but which spread beyond our sight
Genius, then, is divine! Its creative power
is the attribute of heaven, and, when the world
worships it through mortal mediums, it is a
deep adoration and confession of the Divine
bounty only when raised above the level of its
earthly nature, and the fame Of the great, gath.
cred from such good impulses, is the best evi.
dence of the natural religion of the soul.
In the way of dramatic genus-we should
rather say histrionic genius-the present era
has not been bountful. Through dearth OF
II, the drama in our country, and in that other
country which shares our language, has waned
and tagged and the genius of other climes has
taken advantage of its inertness or debility, and
conquered the field for dumb show and the
opera.
The last thirty years have seen Kean and
kembe vanish from the stage, but, if history
reports them right, their places are still vacant ;
while, in the way of women, none have ap-
preached that excellence which has been given
az the intellectual measure of Siddons and
y Neal: For the last twenty or thirty years
the position Of the drama has steadily declined
IN England and with US. We have had. it is
true, dElit OF actors who have ranked for ge-
muses.; bat they were geniuses Of an old
school, and none Of them bad genius enough
to present sty adapted to the time. nor all
OF them united power sufficient to redeem an
empire from decline-nene mind enough TO
know that the true cause of that decline was
an adherence to a stiltea style, which had be.
come unsuited to the new notions and habits
Of the age.
France is more fortunate. In France there
lives and breathes and moves a genius, who
sways the hearts of men as with wanda ge
MUS fitted not only to rescue falling art, but t.
hui nd o,,to, Ltla