oraries, among whose names those of Hart, Mohun, Kynaston, Nokes,
Mrs Barry, Mrs Betterton, Mrs Bracegirdle and Mrs Eleanor Gwyn have,
together with many others, survived in various connexions among the
memories of the Restoration age. No higher praise has ever been given to
an actor than that which Addison bestowed upon Betterton, in describing
his performance of _Othello_ as a proof that Shakespeare could not have
written the most striking passages of the character otherwise than he
has done.

The Irish stage.

It may here be noticed that the fortunes of the Irish theatre in general
followed those of the English, of which of course it was merely a
branch. Of native dramatic compositions in earlier times not a trace
remains in Ireland; and the drama was introduced into that country as an
English exotic--apparently already in the reign of Henry VIII., and more
largely in that of Elizabeth. The first theatre in Dublin was built in
1635; but in 1641 it was closed, and even after the Restoration the
Irish stage continued in a precarious condition till near the end of the
century. About that time an extraordinarily strong taste for the theatre
took possession of Irish society, and during the greater part of the
18th century the Dublin stage rivalled the English in the brilliancy of
its stars. Betterton's rival, R. Wilks, Garrick's predecessor in the
homage paid to Shakespeare, Macklin, and his competitor for favour, the
"silver-tongued" Barry, were alike products of the Irish stage, as were
Mrs Woffington and other well-known actresses. Nor should it be
forgotten that three of the foremost English writers of comedy in its
later days, Congreve, Farquhar and Sheridan, were Irish, the first by
education, and the latter two by birth also.

The later Stuart drama.

Already in the period preceding the outbreak of the Civil War the
English drama had perceptibly sunk from the height to which it had been
raised by the great Elizabethans. When it had once more recovered
possession of that arena with which no living drama can dispense, it
would have been futile to demand that the dramatists should return
altogether into the ancient paths, unaffected by the influences, native
or foreign, in operation around them. But there was no reason why the
new drama should not, like the Elizabethan, have been true in spirit to
the higher purposes of the dramatic art, to the nobler tendencies of the
national life, and to the demands of