fustian,
except as a pantomimic or spectacular curiosity.

We have no objection to Julius Caesar or Richard III. stalking about in
impossible clothes, and stepping four feet at a stride, if they want to,
but let them not claim to be more "legitimate" than "Ours" or "Rip Van
Winkle." There will probably be some orator for years and years to come,
at every Fourth of July, who will go on asking, Where is Thebes? but
he does not care anything about it, and he does not really expect an
answer. I have sometimes wished I knew the exact site of Thebes, so that
I could rise in the audience, and stop that question, at any rate. It is
legitimate, but it is tiresome.

If we went to the bottom of this subject, I think we should find that
the putting upon actors clothes to which they are unaccustomed makes
them act and talk artificially, and often in a manner intolerable.

An actor who has not the habits or instincts of a gentleman cannot be
made to appear like one on the stage by dress; he only caricatures and
discredits what he tries to represent; and the unaccustomed clothes and
situation make him much more unnatural and insufferable than he would
otherwise be. Dressed appropriately for parts for which he is fitted,
he will act well enough, probably. What I mean is, that the clothes
inappropriate to the man make the incongruity of him and his part more
apparent. Vulgarity is never so conspicuous as in fine apparel, on or
off the stage, and never so self-conscious. Shall we have, then, no
refined characters on the stage? Yes; but let them be taken by men
and women of taste and refinement and let us have done with this
masquerading in false raiment, ancient and modern, which makes nearly
every stage a travesty of nature and the whole theatre a painful
pretension. We do not expect the modern theatre to be a place of
instruction (that business is now turned over to the telegraphic
operator, who is making a new language), but it may give amusement
instead of torture, and do a little in satirizing folly and kindling
love of home and country by the way.

This is a sort of summary of what we all said, and no one in particular
is responsible for it; and in this it is like public opinion. The
Parson, however, whose only experience of the theatre was the endurance
of an oratorio once, was very cordial in his denunciation of the stage
altogether.

MANDEVILLE. Yet, acting itself is delightful; nothing so entertains
us as mimicry, the per