The reader may smile at this description, and feel some surprise, how
compositions, involving such gross absurdities, were tolerated by an
audience having pretence to taste and civilisation But something may be
said for the heroic drama.
Although the manners were preposterous, and the changes of fortune rapid
and improbable, yet the former often attained a sublime, though forced
elevation of sentiment; and the latter, by rapidity of transition and of
contrast, served in no slight degree to interest as well as to surprise
the audience. If the spectators were occasionally stunned with bombast,
or hurried and confused by the accumulation of action and intrigue, they
escaped the languor of a creeping dialogue, and the taedium of a barren
plot, of which the termination is descried full three acts before it can
be attained. Besides, if these dramas were sometimes extravagant,
beautiful passages often occurred to atone for these sallies of fury. In
others, ingenuity makes some amends for the absence of natural feeling,
and the reader's fancy is pleased at the expense of his taste. In
representation, the beauty of the verse, assisted by the enunciation of
such actors as Betterton and Mohun, gilded over the defects of the
sense, and afforded a separate gratification. The splendour of scenery
also, in which these plays claimed a peculiar excellence, afforded a
different but certain road to popular favour; and thus this drama, with
all its faults, was very far from wanting the usual requisites for
success.
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