miration and respect.

I have spoken somewhat as to the motive and purpose of his
intellectual labour. It was in and for the theatre that his
multitudinous genius was developed, and his works produced; there
Fortune, or rather Providence, had cast his lot. Doubtless it was his
nature, in whatever he undertook, to do his best. As an honest and
true man, he would, if possible, make the temple of the Drama a noble,
a beautiful, and glorious place; and it was while working quietly and
unobtrusively in furtherance of this end,--building better than he
knew,--that he approved himself the greatest, wisest, sweetest of men.

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND.

* * * * *

The English Drama, as we have it in Shakespeare, was the slow growth
of several centuries. Nor is it clearly traceable to any foreign
source: it was an original and independent growth, the native and free
product of the soil. This position is very material in reference to
the subject of structure and form; as inferring that the Drama in
question is not amenable to any ancient or foreign jurisdiction; that
it has a life and spirit of its own, is to be viewed as a thing by
itself, and judged according to the peculiar laws under which it grew
and took its shape; in brief, that it had just as good a right to
differ from any other Drama as any other had from it.

The ancient Drama, that which grew to perfection, and, so far as is
known, had its origin, in Greece, is universally styled the Classic
Drama. By what term to distinguish the modern Drama of Europe, writers
are not fully agreed. Within a somewhat recent period, it has received
from high authorities the title of the Romantic Drama. A more
appropriate title, as it seems to me, suggested by its Gothic
original, and used by earlier authorities, is that of the Gothic
Drama. Such, accordingly, is the term by which it will he
distinguished in these pages. The fitness of the name, I think, will
readily be seen from the fact that the thing was an indigenous and
self-determined outgrowth from the Gothic mind under Christian
culture. And the term naturally carries the idea, that the Drama in
question stands on much the same ground relatively to the Classic
Drama as is commonly recognized in the case of Gothic and Classic
architecture; which may help us to realize how each Drama forms a
distinct species, and lives free of the other so that any argument or
criticism f