y actor or actress of name in the metropolis: a distinction which in
the reign of my old friend Garrick was confined to very few. The
dresses, the scenes, the decorations of every kind, I am told, are in a
new style of splendor and magnificence: whether to the advantage of our
dramatic taste, upon the whole, I very much doubt. It is a show and a
spectacle, not a play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the
genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured
by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age:--

Migravit ab aure voluptas
Omnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana:
Quatuor aut plures aulaea premuntur in horas,
Dum fugiunt equitum turmae, peditumque catervae;--

I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and abominate
the sequel:--

Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis.

I hope that no French fraternization, which the relations of peace and
amity with systematized regicide would assuredly sooner or later draw
after them, even if it should overturn our happy Constitution itself,
could so change the hearts of Englishmen as to make them delight in
representations and processions which have no other merit than that of
degrading and insulting the name of royalty. But good taste, manners,
morals, religion, all fly, wherever the principles of Jacobinism enter;
and we have no safety against them but in arms.

The proprietors, whether in this they follow or lead what is called the
town, to furnish out these gaudy and pompous entertainments, must
collect so much more from the public. It was but just before the
breaking out of hostilities, that they levied for themselves the very
tax which, at the close of the American war, they represented to Lord
North as certain ruin to their affairs to demand for the state. The
example has since been imitated by the managers of our Italian Opera.
Once during the war, if not twice, (I would not willingly misstate
anything, but I am not very accurate on these subjects,) they have
raised the price of their subscription. Yet I have never heard that any
lasting dissatisfaction has been manifested, or that their houses have
been unusually and constantly thin. On the contrary, all the three
theatres have been repeatedly altered, and refitted, and enlarged, to
make them capacious of the crowds that nightly flock to them; and one of
those huge and lofty piles, which lifts its broad shoulders in gigantic
p