THE ANTIGALLICAN " O. P." ROW.
THE English drama confesses its decay by the last delirious at- tempts at self-preservation. Like the hand-loom weavers, or frame-work knitters, or members of any other moribund trade, the actors have resorted to conspiracy and riot ; which broke out at Drury Lane on Monday evening, in a scene as disgraceful for vulgarity and intemperance as any common mob excesses-in Not- tingham or Bethnal Green. The "profession," indeed, has de- cidedly the advantage in studied blackguardism. The occasion of the conspiracy was this. Both the great patent theatres have been absolutely deserted by the English drama, from the want of sufficient vitality in the said English drama to sustain its exist- ence or maintain its ground on a field so large. One of the the- atres, having first been converted to political uses, was turned into an. Italian °penthouse; the other, after various vicissitudes, receives IC Alexandre Dumas's monster company for -the per- formance of his monster conceptions ; the Alexander the Great of our day having the natural desire to conquer new worlds, and to follow Julius Cesar and William of Normandy in the conquest of Britain. In the teeth of the facts, the native actors exclaim as if the theatre had been snatched from their hold, and they had been driven from it bodily by the foreign invaders. The first manifestation of the conspiracy was an advertisement in one of the papers, about a fortnight back, beginning—" Is all national feeling dead within us? shall our own drama and its pro- fession be swamped and driven to destitution," &c.- and calling on the profession " to join shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, and tongue to tongue," &c. Then came a more formal petition to Parliament, asking for an act to restrict the number of foreign theatres in the Metropolis ; and, as thepetitioners' hands were in for begging, they also prayed " such further and other relief as your Honourable House shall deem meet." "Englishmen" are not apt to rely on acts of Parliament to resist invasion : Honour- able House did not see fit to interpose : M. Dumas's company ac- tually arrived, and opened Drury Lane on Monday ; and, whether they were the petitioners or not, persons sympathizing in the ob- ject of the petition came to the house with an organized plan of interruption : several members of "the profession" were recog- nized in different parts, evidently acting on preconcerted arrange- ments; and some were quite willing to maintain the dignity of the national drama by the help of their fists. As a few persons with trained lungs can make sufficient noise to prevent the hear- ing of many, the conspirators succeeded in deafening the audience against the voices of the French performers, and the play passed a in dumb show. So it was again on Wednesday. The effect of this disgraceful scene is in every way untoward : it may have an unpleasant influence in Paris, where many of our countrymen- still remain to be the objects of retributive agita- tions ; it cannot but degrade us in the eyes of foreign countries-- degrade us both as an exhibition of paltry and vulgar feeling, and as an exposure of our indifferent police arrangements. The punctilio which prevents the policeman from recognizing"any " breach of the peace " but such as consists in actual fisticuffs was brought to a reductio ad absurdum. The peace was not only broken, but not a single atom of peace was suffered to remain ; it was pulverized—reduced to " immortal smash " ; yet the police were punctilious, and the riot was allowed to pro- ceed. A notion obtains that it is improper to interfere with " the expression of opinion" at theatres : which is true as respects marks of criticism on the piece presented to the audience, its composition and execution ; but this kind of licence has no refer- ence to a conspiracy organized on political grounds. Perhaps no occasion could more evidently demand the intervention of the police for the protection of tranquillity. The actors who occu- pied the house to offer their wares were there in breach of no law, and had a right to protection in the peaceful exercise of their calling, at least until such time as it should have been au- thoritatively pronounced unlawful. The audience, who had en- tered the house on the faith of protection from the law, had paid their money for a specific purpose, and they had a right to be protected in obtaining that quid pro quo which the performers were ready to give. There was a distinct bargain between the mass of the audience and the dramatic company, and both parties had the most unqualified right to protection against intruders whose sole object was to frustrate that bargain. The rioters as distinctly defrauded and robbed the peaceable audience of the value for their money, as if they had snatched away the loaf just purchased at a baker's, or had picked their pockets of their money before it was paid for admission.
We do not seek to repress the utterance of opinion. Those who have a grave and earnest opinion against the admission of foreign artists have an undoubted right to express it ; but there are legitimate modes of utterance. Had the case been sufficiently clear on the ground of " morality," for instance, the interposi- tion of the constituted authorities would not have been refused. Even had the case been insufficiently distinct for that purpose, it would have been fair to invoke public opinion, by censure on the foreign dramatists, on the managers, on the lessee or owners of the building, on the persons who " assisted" at the performance as auditors. Satire might have been employed as well as didac- tic censure ; and indeed Punch improved the occasion,—though why that illustrious Neapolitan should take part in a war against the admission of foreigners, we cannot understand. Even the earnest vindicators of native talent, however, are bound to answer two questions, before they take any very strong steps. Is protection necessary to the development of any art ? There is no doubt that many persona have failed in the drama as well as in other arts ; but the successful are not all foreigners, nor are all Englishmen unsuccessful. The real secret of success is ability. Those who succeed, whether native or foreign, are persons competent to their business. We doubt very much whether a single instance can be satisfactorily proved, of a fo- reigner's succeeding in the pursuit of any profession who was not competent to his business. If some very few exceptional cases might be advanced, they would be found to be transitory, and to have been produced by that high degree of personal tact and adroitness which is in itself a talent, and which is not confined to humbugs of foreign extraction. It would be invidious to name native talent which has attained an eminent amount of suc- cess in that branch of art. On the other hand, we believe it would be difficult to show'the case of any Englishman thoroughly competent to his business who did not succeed, excepting_ under one eet of circumstances—the untrained state of the public at large for the intelligent reception and_ appreciation of his per- formance. English blood has not prevented the success of Land- seer or Mulready—of Wordsworth or Tennyson—of Wilson, Adelaide Kemble, or Reeves—of Bulwer or Sheridan Knowles— of Macready, Farren, or Wright.
The reasons for " the decline of the drama" are not to be found in the invasion of Frenchmen, but in an anterior cause—the fail- ing supply of competent actors—the degenerate state of " the profession." The theatres were deserted, and actors were " driven todestitution," before the Frenchmen invaded us. The causes of the decline are precisely the same as those of the decline of any other art. They are identical with the causes for the decline of painting before its revival in Italy. Nature, the living principle of all art, had been forgotten by the artists, who manufactured to a pattern which had thus lost every attractive quality. So it is with acting among us : the manners, gesture, voice, conduct, sentiments, and language of the stage, bear only the faintest and moat traditional resemblance to those of human nature as it ex- ists in life. The manner has been handed down from generation to generation ; and, having departed so far from living nature, it has ceased to excite in us the audience those emotions of nature which it is our object to indulge when we enter a theatre. The degeneracy has been increased by the trading habit of the day, In pandering to low tastes—in producing wares to serve rather as pretext for advertisement than to fulfil the functions originally intended ; a treachery to art which is always fatally destructive. The drama has declined because it has become worthless.
The second question which the vindicator of native talent should ask himself is, whether exclusive protection would be use- ful, or even possible. Art is no subject of free trade or protection, being in fact not the subject of trade at all. A particular work may become the object of barter; but art at large remains above the operations of trade. You might try the question empirically, by an attempt to exclude foreign productions of art. If the prin- ciple be right, it should be strictly applied ; and you should ex- clude every foreign book, whether of history, poetry, fiction, soienee, or any other class, foreign pictures, foreign music, foreign ,drama, even from the library : you should isolate the eonniry from all importations, intellectual and a3stheticaL But whet then would become of our native producers ? Debar our na- tional poetry from all which has nourished it in Italy and Greece, exclude the aid of Europe from our science, and our labourers Would be starved. Nay, enact a customs-law to keep out French originals, and our "native drama" would have no present exist-
ence. The productions of art differ from other subjects of trade in this respect, that they do not come under the head of ne- cessaries. We must have food, and tools, and raiment; we can do with an inferior article if we cannot have a better ; and it has been a question, fairly discussed, whether we ought not to give the employment to "native industry." But in the case of art the sole motive to consumption is the excellence of the article. There is no imperative necessity for the existence of a drama : we are not obliged to have actors : people do not go to the play on prin- ciple, any more than they have pictures or poems on a point of duty. Such works of art appeal to the taste, that is to the sport_ taneous and cultivated wishes. They perform their moral office in the training of humanity by the cultivation of the wishes and taste. Art, therefore, is a thing that is had for its own sake, and not in fulfilment of any foregone necessities, or as a mere pretext for the employment of " destitute " persons. If the actors have really been driven into destitution, it may be very proper to deal with them—not, however, as artists, but as paupers.
There is a more important distinction still. Art is creative; and when imported from abroad, it creates work even for native industry. There is scarcely an example of any highly developed art which has not in the first instance been imported from some foreign country. Art probably entered Greece across the Helles- pont; it was twice imported to Italy from Greece ; in our own day music may be said to have been imported from Italy and Germany into England. But in every case, the few foreign workmen by whose aid the art was imported created a far larger demand than they could supply, and thus made an amount of work for " native" artists out of all proportion to the original importation. In this view, rightly used, the French invasion might be employed for the revival of dramatic truth amongst us. Let us find out why it is that French artists succeed. Probably we shall discover that their success lies in two reasons,—in their still representing nature on the stage ; and in placing before au- diences pieces which are amusing. A reintroduction of these two peculiarities into the English drama might go far to revive it. In the mean time, the " destitute" rioters merit no attention but that of the police, or of the workhouse officers.
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