New-York tribune., 1868-09-09

DR1MATIC JERENIAHS.

DRAMATIC JEREAIAHS
Nothing is more extraordinary IN the history
of the drama than the amount OF declining
and falling, of dying and being buried, that
the stage has survived. There is no TIME that
we recall and scarcely a time of which we have
read, when somebody was not moaning around
the death-bed or weeping over the grave OF
the stage. Dramatic Jeremahs, like the poor
are always with u.s. For nearly two centuries
these doleful gentlemen have been lifting mp
tbe voice of lamentation, and wearing that
crown of sorrow which TennysOn assures us
consists i'm the remembrance of happier things
Always. upon their fearful vision, golden days
of dramatic art have glimmered, IN waning
spendor, far off in the backward vista OF the
past "0nce there was stage" they nave
cried "once there were actors Now ali Is
% gas and CATERS Fill high the flowing bowl,
" and drink 10 the memory OF the go0d OH
times" The reader of stage literature comes
continually upon this ancient lament In Car
rIch'e time ti.e Ioremiahs looked back to Bet
terton In the days of Cooke ana or Koan they
dcplored the vanished glories of Garrick and
Henderson. Booths triumphs only made them
mournfully admire the buried Kean; and
Macreadys success only prompted long and
lamentable wall for the sepulcbered greatness
of John Philip Kemble. In our day they are
dcsolately mindful of the old Park, and weep
exceeding sore over Finn, and Barrett, and
" the old actors my boy whom we should have
seem This enthusiasm of reminiscent grief Is
natural enough, we dare say. Everybody remem-
bers time when the sky was buer than 1t is
now; when the afternoon sunshine slumbered
in richer sheen of gold on the green and breezy
meadows; when the music of ripping brooks
and rustling leaves sounded swecter than 1t has
ever sounded since; when one glrllsh figure
graced and hall0wed the riverside ramble, or
plucked wild roses among the messy, blue stones
of the old graveyard; or gathered blackber-
rics bv the gray stone wall-whlle the wind
sighed in the grasses, and the small birds twlt-
tered overhead Quite natural that We should
look back! But it is none the less fact that
the sun of to-day is just as bright rs the sun
of yesterday. All depends upon the eyes
through which the world is behed. In certain
moods, and in reasons spite. we do ourselves
incline TO celebrate the merits of other days,
at the expense OF the merits of the present.
Were there not halcyon nights of William
Warrcn1 Was there not q Burton and a
Bake7 1t would be very easy to glow over
these memories, and to deprccate, by contrast
the stage and the players of the passing hour
But it would also be very wrong. Men whose
rccollcctons of the thcater do not extend back
over the period of one generation have, new
ertheless, stage-memOrcs that are as curious and
as precious as flies in amber. Yet, thirty years
ago, the blended voices of many Jere-
miahs announced, with a positively startling
emphasis. that the drama was dead, and buried,
and beyond all hope of resurrection. In 1879,
Disraeli--nOt tnen Prime Minister OF Great
Britain, but then dramatic Jeremiah-de-
cared himself "almost tempted to admit the
theory of those ingenious critics who main
81 tain that the English drama has per-
formed its Office, and that In the pres
cent state of civilization it has no functions
"to fulfill" Ingenious critics, indeed, but
frightfuly lacking in originality; for this had
so often been said by elder Jeremiahs that it
sounded like the rattle Of dry bones in waste
and desert places, and came upon mems ears
like hollow voice from tho tomb itself. An
other writer, of about the same perod-a the
atrcal biOgrapher-declared that "ererD one
"proclaims that the drama is rapidly declining
"in England" And in 1Si5 an American au-
thor, James Rees, could talk about " the dying
"embers of the histrionic muse" which he said
were hckcring on the affairs dedicated to its
"cause"-whence we should infer that the muse
of the drama had been roasted under Mr.. Recess
personal observation, but that he added this
reassuring remark "The echo sounds faint, the
light has departed, and the genius of the
"stage, owl-like, sits grimly upon tho dramas
"wreck, indicative of its gloom and eternal
might" Here was a jeremiah, i'll good earnest.
Yet 1.-THE dramas wreckn has lasted till our
time, and is a remarkably healthy and vigorous
wreck, into the bargain. The truth is that the
dramatic jeremiah is but short sighted being
lie sees what is Immediately around his feet,
and he sees nothing else. This is not the clear
vision of wise intelligence. No subject is
seen, that is only seen on one side.
The drama, like every other institution of man,
has passed through many periods of change,
in the path of progress. Some of them have
been good and some of them have been bad
Immediately after the Restoration, in 1860, for
instance. the condition Of the English stage was