with much
modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have
acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with
him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor
and Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one of
their inimitable prologues:

"'Fair One with Golden Locks:' no, you won't do--
PLANCHE has taken the shine out of you:
Who runs with HIM, it may be safely reckon'd,
Whate'er the odds, must come in 'a bad second.'"

Ben Jonson never penned a more delicate or classical compliment, albeit
it halteth a little. Let us then submit to the better judgment of our
brethren, and bow down promiscuously before any brazen calf which their
eager idolatry may rear. Let London promulgate the law of letters, as
well as the statutes of the land. Therefore, say I, away with Romeo, and
give us Cinderella; banish Hamlet, and welcome Sleeping Beauty; let the
Tempest make room for Fortunio; and Venice Preserved for the gentle
Graciosa and Percinet! Do you, Bogle, disencumber your study as fast as
you can of these absurd busts of the older dramatists, now fit for
nothing but targets in a shooting-gallery. Fling the effigies, one and
all, into the area; and let us see, in their stead, each on its
appropriate pedestal, with some culinary garland round the head, new
stucco casts of J. R. Planche, Albert Smith, and Gilbert a-Beckett,
Esquires.

After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty?
Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly two
centuries--quite enough, one would think, to pacify his unconscionable
_Manes_. We have been dosed with his dramas from our youth upwards. Two
generations of the race of Kean have, in our own day, perished, after a
series of air-stabs, upon Bosworth field. We have seen twenty different
Hamlets appear upon the damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully as
many Romeos in the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in the
pomegranate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune;
therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with other
sounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we were presented
with "Nina Sforza," the "Legend of Florence," and several other dramas
of the highest class. Sheridan Knowles and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
professed themselves ready to administer any amount of food to the
craving appetite of the age--but all in vain. Tragedy was not what we