in general, who also managed in the plays
to give useful hints in all ways. For instance, Nicholas Udal, in
the ingenious letter in _Ralph Roister Doister_, which is either
loving or insulting according to the position of a few commas or
periods, must have meant to enforce the doctrine of Chaucer's couplet:

"He that pointeth ill,
A good sentence may oft spill."

Madame de Maintenon was persuaded that amusements of this sort have
a value, "imparting grace, teaching a polite pronunciation, and
cultivating the memory"; and Racine commends the management of St.
Cyr, where "the hours of recreation, so to speak, are put to profit by
making the pupils recite the finest passages of the best poets." Here
is the dramatic instinct, almost universal among young people,
and which has almost no chance to exercise itself, except in the
performance of the farces to which we are treated in "private
theatricals." Can it not be put to a better use? It would be a
cumbrous matter to represent or listen to the _Aulularia_, or the
_Miles Gloriosus_, or the [Greek: Eirhene], in which Dr. Dee and
his Scarabeus figured so successfully. The world is turned away from
that[1]; but here is the magnificent wealth of our own old dramatic
literature, in which is contained the richest poetry of our
language. It was never intended to be read, but to be heard in living
presentment. For the most part it lies almost unknown, except in the
case of Shakespeare, and him the world knows far too little. Who does
not feel what a treasure in the memory are passages of fine poetry
committed early in life?

[Footnote 1: The developments of the last forty years show this
judgment to be erroneous.]

Who can doubt the value to the bearing, the fine address, the literary
culture of a youth of either sex that might come from the careful
study and the attempt to render adequately a fine conception of some
golden writer of our golden age, earnestly made, if only partially
successful?

I say only partially successful, but can you doubt the capacity of our
young people to render in a creditable way the conceptions of a
great poet? Let us look at the precedents again. When Mademoiselle
de Caylus, in her account of St. Cyr, speaks of the representation of
_Andromaque_, she writes, "It was only too well done." And prim
Madame de Maintenon wrote to Racine: "Our young girls have played it
so well they shall play it no more"; begging him to write some moral
or histori