ced.

The pieces we saw were well got up and carefully acted; so that the patrons
of the drama need not dread that, in this instance, the Astleyan-Olympic
actors believe that "charity covers a multitude of sins." They don't care
who sees their faults--the more the better.

* * * * *

"BEHIND THE SCENES."

When a certain class of persons, whose antipathy to gratis sea-voyages is
by no means remarkable, are overtaken by the police and misfortune; when
the last legal quibble has been raised upon their case and failed; when,
indeed, to use their own elegant phraseology, they are "regularly stumped
and done up;" then--and, to do them justice, not till then--they resort to
confession, and to turning king's evidence against their accomplices.

This seems to be exactly the case with the drama, which is evidently in the
last stage of decline; the consumption of new subjects having exhausted the
supply. The French has been "taken from" till it has nothing more to give;
the Newgate Calendar no longer affords materials; for an entire dramatic
edition of it might be collected (a valuable hint this for the Syncretic
Society, that desperate association for producing un-actable dramas)--the
very air is exhausted in a theatrical sense; for "life in the clouds" has
been long voted "law;" whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed
the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out
of date. In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave
off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama _must_ be on its
last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how
they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise
and make fun--how, in fact, they disport themselves "Behind the Scenes."

A visit to the English Opera will gratify those of the uninitiated, who are
anxious to get acquainted with the manners and customs of the ladies and
gentlemen of the _corps dramatique_ "at the wing." Otherwise than as a sign
of dramatic destitution, the piece called "Behind the Scenes" is highly
amusing. Mr. Wild's acting displays that happy medium between jocularity
and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque. Mrs. Selby plays the
"leading lady" without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian
to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable _empressement_, though
supposed to be labouring at the time _under_ t