reticent and much less amusing. We cannot therefore agree with Mr.
Fitzgerald in thinking that the colorless character of the few
theatrical biographies that have appeared in recent times is to be
ascribed to the decay of the art of acting and the lack of an ideal
involving a long and arduous struggle in the attainment of eminence. In
France, as he justly observes, the history of the profession has never
possessed the same adventurous interest, the lives of French actors
showing in general a mere record of steady and regular progression, such
as is found in other professions. The stage in France, as in all
Catholic countries, lay under a heavier ban than in England; but on this
very account the actors constituted a separate class, having little
contact with society, receiving few recruits from without, regulated by
fixed usages, and confined to a particular groove. In England, on the
contrary, the stage was an outlet for irregular talent, impatient of
steady labor or severe restrictions, and captivated by the freedom and
diversity of a career which, beginning in vagrancy, might lead at a
single bound to a brilliant and enviable position. Hence the biographies
of English players, taken collectively, offer a vast store of amusing
anecdotes, illustrative not only of the history of the stage, but of
personal character and social manners. Yet books of this kind; though
read with avidity on their first appearance, have naturally fallen into
neglect. Like most other biographies, they are overloaded with details
that have no abiding interest, and few readers of the present day are
tempted to explore the mass for themselves. It was, however, no very
arduous task to sift out the more valuable relics and dispose them in
proper order, and we can only wonder that Mr. Fitzgerald was not
anticipated in the performance of it by some earlier collector. Gait's
_Lives of the Players_ and Dr. Doran's _History of the English
Stage_ have left this particular field almost wholly unworked, and it
is one for which Mr. Fitzgerald was well fitted, both by his previous
labors and knowledge of the soil, and by his practiced dexterity in the
use of the necessary implements. He has accordingly produced a volume
which may either be read consecutively or dipped into at random with the
certainty of entertainment and without risk of tedium. Among the sources
from which his material is drawn he assigns the first place to the
_Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson_ and