ctors,
congregating in halls encrusted with the cobwebs of centuries. To my
eyes it was invested with the mystery and dignity of Orientalism. I
thought of the powers by which rajahs were raised and overthrown, of the
mandates which spread war and restored peace over regions wide as
Europe, and a thousand times more brilliant. I had rambling visions of
armies of elephants, superb cavalry, and chieftains covered with gold
and diamonds. As I traversed the dusky halls, I thought of the will
which pronounced the fate of kingdoms, the fallen glories of Aurengzebe,
the broken sceptre of the Mahratta, and the crushed tiara of Mysore.
Round me was the moving power of an empire, the noblest that the East
has ever seen, and which, in the act of assuming additional greatness,
by a contradiction to all the laws of extended conquest, was hourly
assuming additional stability.

And yet, and yet, are not those the true views, after all? Are the
effects to be forgotten in the instruments, or is it not the result
which forms the character of the whole? Are we to think of the dagger
which strikes the master of a throne, as only the steel in the hand of
an assassin, or as the summoner to civil war and the subversion of
thrones? Is the pen which pours political frenzy through the hearts of
living millions, or sheds the splendours of poetry over millions still
to come, to be valued only as the feather of a bird? Or is the press
itself to be remembered only as a dexterous combination of springs and
screws; or to be bowed down to as the steward of all the hidden
treasures of mind--as the breaker of intellectual chains, the avenger of
injured rights, the moral Hercules that goes forth turning the
wilderness to fertility, and smiting the monsters of the world?

But among the wonders of the time, there was one which struck me with
prodigious force, which has remained on my recollection to this hour,
and which still survives with undiminished vividness. It was the acting
of Siddons.

The stage is now almost undone. The absurd liberalism of the day has
given every corner of London a theatre, and has degraded the character
of the stage in all. By scattering the ability which still exists, it
has stripped the great theatres of the very means of representing
dramatic excellence; while, by adopting popular contrivances to obtain
temporary success, they have driven away dramatic genius in contempt or
in despair. Our stage is now condemned to be fed li