When we regret the lack of a first-rate light comedian,
who might re- call from the shelves some of the good old plays that used to delight our forefathers, we do not always reflect what might be the consequence of a perfect fulfilment of our wishes. If Mr. Murdoch, now of the Hay- market, is not exactly a first-rate light comedian, he performs the func- tions of one as far as the work of reviving is concerned ; and the revelations made by no means tend to impress upon the existing public an exalted notion of the wisdom of its ancestors. The literary merit of The In- constant, and the powerful situation with which it concludes, made it a not unwelcome apparition ; and Wild Oats, though the living world agrees to call it rubbish, had a sort of tradition in its favour ; but when we come to such an awful ceremonial as the resuscitation of The Dra- matist of Reynolds, it is time to cry, " Ohe, jam saris !" The piece was fortunate in its day, in spite of its equal avoidance of nature and art ; it was respectably interred, after having lived quite long enough ; and there was no occasion whatever for a post-mortem examination. There is, indeed, a certain animal " fun" in Vapid, who, in his en- thusiasm as a dramatist, plunges himself into all sorts of scrapes, on purpose to study situations ; and he is represented with a practical know- ledge of effect by Mr. Murdoch. But the amusement he promotes is of the kind derived from the most outrageous caricature ; while the person- ages by whom he is surrounded are wearisome phantasms, absurdly con- ceived and feebly sketched. Some little notion or habit of his time was caught up by the author, and this he embodied as a human being, and expected it would receive the sympathies of an audience. Thus, one person is a personified yawn ; another is the word " Italy" clothed in a smart coat and waistcoat ; a third is the phrase (not the thing) "peer of the realm" furnished with a morose countenance. The tendency to personify abstract qualities, which finds its extreme exponent in such works as The Muses' Looking-Glass of Randolph or the Facheux of Mo- here, is in itself wrong ; but when the qualities are not typical at all, the result is mere juvenile nonsense.
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