all things!-bidding them to await for the south wind of the Holy Spirit to blow over their spices!

On the other hand, good men in France were then seeking to render theatrical amusements universally beneficial; and a pamphlet, by Delpla, suggested a few reforms which evoked notice in this country. In some respects, the project was a development of that proposed in England, in 1732, when the idea of turning Exeter Change into a theatre and college, was first started. M. Delpla held, that the public required stage exhibitions, but that they did not always know what was good for them. He thought, that in every country there ought to exist a theatrical board, or censorship, composed, not of government officials, but of poets, reviewers, retired actors, and men of letters, generally. There would then be, he thought (poor man!) a reconstruction of theatrical literature;-the beautiful, preserved; the exceptionable omitted; and the instructive, imported. Historic truth was never to be departed from; local costume was to be strictly observed; dénouements, in which virtue looked ridiculous, or vice seemed triumphant, were to be severely prohibited; and poets, critics, and ex-actors, were to be charged with this responsibility! M. Delpla considered that, by such means, the theatre and the pulpit would be on a level, as public instructors; or, if any difference could be between them, the greater efficiency of instruction would rest with the stage. If they were simply equal, the writer concluded that bishops themselves would show their exemplary presence in the side boxes!

The French Government only adopted that part of M. Delpla's project which spoke of a censorship; but as the censors were not competent persons,-poets, critics, actors, literary men,-but "officials," they often came to grief. Their greatest calamity, I may notice here, though it befell them at a later period, when a new law rendered the old censorship more stringent. To the authorized officials two well-known dramatic writers sent a new tragedy for examination and approval. It was returned in a few days, with 1,500 erasures. The authors were required to modify 300 lines, replace 500 words, shorten 12 scenes, and change a score of names, all of which, in the original, was considered obnoxious to public tranquillity, political order, and dramatic propriety. On VOL. 11.-16

receiving the corrected manuscript, the rebuked authors addressed the following note to the censors: "Gentlemen, we have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of our censured manuscript, with an accompanying letter. We agree with you in thinking that the passages marked for erasure may be of that perturbative character which you suppose; but as we do not dare to cut or modify the verses of Pierre Corneille, we prefer foregoing the representation of Nicomède' at the 'Théâtre Français.'

But let us go back to our own theatres, and to the manners of audiences, between the commencement of this century and the coming of Edmund Kean. Such manners are most strikingly illustrated by the O. P., or old price riots of 1809. In ten months a new Covent Garden Theatre had risen, at an expense of £150,000. Smirke had taken for his model the Acropolis of Athens, and in a narrow, flat street, had built, or hidden, his imitation of the mountain fortress of the Greeks. The house was unnecessarily large, and attendant costs so heavy, that the proprietors raised the price of admission to the boxes from 68. to 7s., and to the pit, from 38. 6d. to 4s. They had also converted space, usually allotted to the public—the third tier, in fact—into private boxes, at a rental of £300 a year for each. The pit and box public resolved to resist, and the gallery public, having a grievance in its defective construction, the view being impeded by solid divisions, and the run of the seats being so steep that the occupants could see only the legs of the actors at the back of the stage,-joined the insurrection.

The house opened on the 18th of September, 1809, with "Macbeth," and the "Quaker." The audience was dense and furious. They sat with their backs to the stage, or stood on the seats, their hats on, to hiss and hoot the Kemble family especially; not a word of the performance was heard, for when the audience were not denouncing the Kembles, they were singing and shouting at the very tops of their then fresh voices. The upper gallery was so noisy, that soldiers, of whom 500 were in the house, rushed in to capture the rioters, who let themselves down to the lower gallery, where they were hospitably received. The sight of the soldiers increased the general exasperation. "It was a noble sight," said the Times, "to see so much just indignation in the public mind;" and that paper scorned the idea that the prices were to

be raised, to pay for such vanities as were exhibited by Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble, who were on the stage "with clothes on their backs worth £500."

Such was the first of nearly seventy nights of riot, out of which the public issued with a cry of "victory," but under a substantial defeat. In alluding to this matter, it is only necessary to notice the additions to, or the variations in, the riot,-in the conduct of which the proceedings of the first night were imitated, with this exception, that the insurrectionists did not enter the theatre till half-price.

First came the introduction of placards and banners, for furnishing pins to affix one of which, in front of the boxes, a lady received an ovation; then speeches were made against the exorbitant salaries of the Kembles, and prisoners were made of the speakers; magistrates appeared on the stage to read the riot-act; and the public, preparing for a rush on the stage itself, were deterred by the sudden opening of all the traps.

The proprietors then assembled partisans by distributing orders, and this introduced fighting. Between the combats, post-horns confounded the confusion. Pigeons were let loose,-symbols that the public were pigeoned, and Kemble, compelled at last to come forward, only gave double fury to the storm, by asking "what they wanted,” and, on being told, by replying that such demand was not reasonable, and they would think better of it! Lawyers addressed the house from the boxes, encouraging the rioters, and, in allusion to the expensive engagements of Catalani and others, declared that "the British stage should not be contaminated by Italian depravity and French duplicity,”—at which declaration the modest and candid public flung some highly-seasoned aspersions at the immoral private-boxes, and retired, cheering.

Watchmen's rattles and " artillery whistles" next added to the storm which tore the public ear. Placards increased. Cheers were given for the British Mrs. Dickens, and groans for Madame Catalani. The very name seemed to give birth to cat-calls. The actors in no way interrupted the uproar. The Times remarked that this was kind, as the public had so often sat without interrupting them.

Kemble made stiff-necked speeches, and the house called him

"fellow" and "vagrant," said his head was "full of a-ches," dcclared they would obey King George and not King John, and protested that they would be sung to by "native nightingales, not foreign screech-owls." The boxes looked like booths, so hung were they with placards and banners,-the most loudly cheered of which former was one which announced that the salaries of the Kembles and Madame Catalani amounted, for the season, to £25,575. "Mountain and Dickens, no Cats, no Kittens!" Such is a sample of the poetry of the O. P. row,-the first series of which ended by Kemble announcing, on the sixth night, that Catalani's engagement had been cancelled, and that the house would be closed till the accounts of the proprietors had been examined by competent gentlemen. "Britons who have humbled a prince will not be conquered by a manager!"-in that form was reply made by huge placard; and, next day, the Times told the public that they would not be bound by the report of the examiners of the accounts, as the people had no voice in the choice of arbitrators.

The report appeared in a fortnight. In few words, it amounted to this: If the present prices were reduced, the proprietors would lose three-fourths per cent. on their capital; but as the reporters could not even guess at the possible profits, the award was null. Meanwhile, the Times suggested that it would be better to reduce the exorbitant salaries. There was Mrs. Siddons with £50 per night! Why, the Lord Chief Justice sat every day in Westminster Hall, from 9 to 4, for half the sum.

The house reopened on the 4th of October, with the "Beggars' Opera" and "Is he a Prince?" The war was resumed with increase of bitterness in feeling, and of fury in action. Jewish pugilists, under the conduct of Dutch Sam, were hired to awe aud attack the dissentients. The boxer, Mendoza, distributed orders, by dozens, to people who would support the pugilists. The speech-makers were dragged away in custody, and Bow Street magistrates sat, during the performances, ready to commit them to prison-companionship with the worst class of thieves; and they lent Bow Street runners to the managers, and these runners, armed with bludgeons, charged and overwhelmed the dauntless rioters in the pit. Dauntless, I say; for, on a succeeding night, they fell upon the Jews in great numbers, and celebrated their

triumph in a bloody fray, by hoisting a placard with the words, "And it came to pass that John Bull smote the Israelites sore!"

The incidents present themselves in such crowds, that it is hardly possible to marshal them. Among them I hear the audience called a "mob," from the stage; and I see Lord Yarmouth and Berkley Craven fighting in the pit, on the part of the managers; and there are "middies" and "gallant tars," or people so attired, addressing the house, in nautical and nonsensical, and rather blackguard style, from upper boxes and galleries; and Brandon is rushing in to point out rioters, and rushing out to escape them; and gentlemen, with "O. P.," in gold, on their waistcoats, laugh at him; and there is up above an encounter between two boxes, the beaten party in which slide down the pillars to the tier below; and, suddenly, there is a roar of laughter at an accident on the stage. Charles Kemble, in Richmond, has stumbled in the fight, with Mr. Cooke as Richard, and fallen on his nose, and the house is as delighted as if he had been their personal enemy!

Then, the ear is gratefully sensible of a sudden hush! and the voices of the actors, for once, are heard; but it is not to listen to them the house is silent. A gentleman in the boxes has begun playing " Colleen" on the flute; the piece goes on the while, but it is only the instrumentalist who is listened to and cheered Then there is an especially noisy night, when rows of standing pittites are impelled one row over the other, in dire cor fusion. Anon, we have a night or two of empty houses; the rioters seem weary, and the managers' friends do not care to attend to see a Jubilee procession in honor of George III., in which the cars of the individualized four quarters of the globe are drawn by scene-shifters and lamplighters, in their own clothes!

Because the public were thus kept away, the proprietors thought they had gained a victory; and on the first appearance of a Mrs. Clark, in the "Grecian Daughter," Cooke alluded, in a prologue, to the late "hostile rage." This little scrap of exultation stirred the house to fury again; and when Charles Kemble died as Dionysius, the half-price rioters shouted as if one of their most detested oppressors had perished.

Then came the races up and down the pit benches, while the