men--with shaved heads--that have no understanding,
and receive no greater reward than the conjurers who catch balls on their
foreheads, and balance long poles in the market-place! But the case is far
different, as I will prove to you from the preface to one of those works,
written by a lady called Inchbald, who herself wrote many comedies, and
received much money for the same.

"It is well known that the English theatres never flourished as they do at
present, (1807.) When it is enquired, why painting, poetry, and sculpture,
decline in England? want of encouragment is the sure reply; but this reply
cannot be given to the question, why dramatic literature fails? for never
was there such high remuneration conferred upon every person, and every
work belonging to the drama. A new play which, from a reputed wit of
former times, would not with success bring him a hundred pounds, a manager
will now purchase from a reputed blockhead at the price of near a
thousand, and sustain all risk of whether it be condemned or not. Great
must be the attraction of modern plays to repay such speculation. It is a
consolation to the dramatist of the present age, that while his plays are
more attractive than ever those of former writers were, those authors had
their contemporary critics as well as he, though less acute and less
severe indeed than the present race."

I have not time to reduce into celestial money the English sum of a
thousand pounds; but it is great, yea, more than the value in three years
of the longest peacock's feather in Pekin, and the value of a play is not
diminished since then. Not many moons ago, there was a reward offered by
one of the managers, of five hundred gold coins called guineas, to the
person who should send to him the best comedy illustrative of present
manners. O Cho-Ling-Kyang, the power of five hundred guineas in awakening
the poetic powers of mankind! The great majority of the English nation for
a whole year wrote nothing but plays; all the world was a stage, and all
the men and women merely writers; and when the time came, all had broken
down in the attempt, except ninety-six. But through these fourscore and
sixteen dramas, all painting the habits and characteristics of the present
time, the judges appointed by the manager had to read. And they read--and
read; and when they came to a decision, lo! it was in favour of a
lady--one of the cleverest authors, in other styles, that England has ever
seen--brigh