The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-10-01

Her verses were all over the country while she
was alive. -
read them in the Sunday Mercury an in the
Alta California.
You laughed at them then.
Nov you send an enthusiastic yawp over the
housetops and celebrate her as wonderful, wou-
derful, and yet again wonderful, wonderful, and
after that out of all whooping.
While she was alive You could not find words to
celebrate your disgust for the Menken. There was
no good in her. You brayed her. you donkey, in
your little mortar whenever you got chance.
And now you cannot bray loud enough in her
praise. c ~t
Caster ia a good example of O modern
school comedy. which does not depend on scenery.
II gives us characters of to-day. I have met
Captain Hawtree frequently in English society,
and old Eccles Is as natural as lev life itself.
American comedies good as Caste I" are
capable of being written. Instead of pride OF
birth, (since that is all fudge In Q democracy, of
course,) we can put in Fifth Avenue pride of
money, and John Aliens conversion for pathetic
incident. and Seymour declining the presidency
for 8 comic one; and for the blue fire, no doubt
Mr.. Brick Pomeroy could furnish some birthstone
from that red.hot place with which he seems 80
intimately acquainted.
Now. Jeremiah, as to that other point on which
you have said 90 much in the voice Of lamentatiou
shaking your solemn head the while, and looking
ae wise as an owl.
Inean-to whit, to WHO'D scenery.
Why should you call our frstclass dramatic
That is your word" clap trap.n
Is it because you had as skillful traps as those
which ELECTED enthusiastic claps in past days?
If any scenery Is clap trap, why not all Why
not play Macbeth in an inn, and Hamlet in ball
room?
Is bad scenery any more legitimate than goodi
No; and there's just one reason why scenery
10 oldeD times was strictly subservient to acting
on the stage. They had not then the art of splen-
did scenic efect-no more than they had the art
Of teegrapby, or railroading, submarine ca
bling. These modern improvements, wonder
ful and beautiful.
It seems very funny thing to me that. because
scenic art now highteDs the pleasing Illusions
which the stage now seeks to throw about the au.
ditor, this should be deemed proof of decadence
in the drama.
How doesit "lowern dramatic literature, Jerry |?
really cannot understand it.
Dramatic literature, when it reaches the stage,
requires the artists Interpretation.
Why not the scenic artists, as well as the his
tronc artist!
Unriddle me this, won't you?
But don't say it is dramatic art in the actor
which is declining-because that's rubbish, you
know.
do not believe you ever saw, in those halcyon
days about which you always whining, any
better actor than Mr. Jefferson or Mr.. Lester Wal.
lack or William Warren. ----.--. .t
Mol These are the halcyon days-these days
when we have good acting and good scenery too.
All we require is good writing, and that we
shall have when our authors are upheld in desire
to Ieat home subjects in a natural and nineteenth
century manner, instead Of modelling their pro.
auctions on the rocco of the stage-the "legiti-
mate comedies which are no more legitimate to
our day than the queens and knee.breeches.
OLIVE LOGAN.