Luxury, in Mr. Rae's opinion, is an evil, though not unmixed with indirect benefit. In few words, he sums up by concluding that-the labour expended in the formation of luxuries is so much direct loss to the community, one man's superiority being here equivalent to another's inferiority. The amount thus dissipated depends on the force of the social and benevolent affections and intellectual powers, as compared with that of the selfish feelings, and is, therefore, inversely as the strength of the accumulative principle. With this part of the subject is very properly connected a question concerning narcotics. It would seem that the cheapness of intoxicating liquors would render them incapable of affording any gratification to vanity, and the passion would in such a case have to turn itself to other objects. Pleasure would still arise from their intoxicating qualities, and facility be offered for its indulgence. Would these lead to long-enduring excess? or to speedy and general temperance? Over the greater part of the United States of America, whiskey has long been sold at about a shilling sterling per gallon, so that one day's wages of a common labourer will purchase a dozen bottles of that spirit.

"It is therefore," as Mr. Rae insists, "put out of the class of luxuries as completely as any intoxicating liquor can well be. The consumption of it has, notwithstanding, been very great, and in few countries have instances of injurious excess been more frequent. It is true that the evil, now exposed to view stripped of every disguise, is seen in all its hideousness, and is in a fair way of being corrected. After having endured for more than one generation, what Adam Smith terms the period of general drunkenness is probably passing away. If the cure be thus effected, it may fairly be reckoned radical."

To a remedy so violent, it must be nevertheless admitted that there are many as legitimate as obvious objections.

The few remaining topics treated in this remarkable volume must be briefly dismissed. Touching exchanges between different communities, more enters into their regulation than the quantity of labour expended on the commodities exchanged. For instance, increased facility in the exchange of utilities operates in the same manner as the progress of invention and improvement; it carries, in Mr. Rae's language, instruments to the more quickly returning orders; whereas increased facility in the exchange of luxuries has an immediate tendency, on the contrary, to carry instruments to the more slowly returning orders. In like manner of waste; the loss which, in any society, the capacity of instruments sustains by the operation of fraud and violence seems to be nearly inversely as the strength of the accumulative principle; but violence, as producing change, excites invention.

What we have already written, with the examples we have

given, is calculated, we think, to impress the English reader with a very favourable opinion of American modes of ratiocination in reference to the high argument of Political Economy. Mr. Rae's book deserves especial study, as dealing not only with the means and appliances of production, but, by estimating duly the moral constitution of man, providing for corresponding consumption. Experience has shown us that more corn may be grown than can be eaten, more clothes manufactured than can be worn, and yet, by some fault of distribution, or some want of capacity, large numbers of the population may remain unclothed and almost unfed. Man is not a machine; and it is but just that the producers should be the partakers of wealth. But it has not always been so. It is wisely said by Mr. Rae that good laws or government can neither be established nor maintained without good morals. In fine;-where purely selfish feelings prevail, laws have no power.

"Quid faciant leges ubi sola pecunia regnat ?"

ART. II.-1. Legislation des Théâtres. Par Vivien et Blanc. 8vo. Paris, 1829.

2. Le Drame tel qu'il est. Satire. Svo. Paris, 1833.

3. Lucrèce Borgia. Drame. Par Victor Hugo. 8vo. Paris,

1833.

4. Lestocq. Opéra. Par Scribe. 8vo. Paris, 1833.

THE decline of the Drama has of late offered a field for much speculation. A degree of interest attaches at present to the subject, which affords a sufficient apology for our entering into a view of the present state of theatricals, and going into the causes which have brought them to their actual drooping condition. France has been long distinguished among European nations for her partiality to, and patronage of, dramatic composition; yet, even on the French stage, by some strange coincidence, we find the same symptoms of decay visible that are but too apparent in the English. Indeed, the change which has taken place within a few years in this department of French literature is at once so extraordinary, has been brought about so rapidly, and is altogether so much in contradiction with the decrees of former taste, that our wonder and surprise are necessarily excited.

This change may at first appear an anomaly, but an easy solution may be found in the political changes which have taken place in the French metropolis. A theatrical revolution has fol

lowed close on the heels of the political; innovations have been introduced on the stage as well as into the social and administrative institutions of the country. In both cases the French seem to have lost those characteristic features by which they were conspicuously distinguished. The proverbial gaiety of their temper, the insouciance of their disposition, and the sparkling vivacity of their fancy, have been completely lost in the turmoil of political excitement, and habits of deep thought and moody speculation have engrossed those minds, which seemed formerly better calculated to discuss the elegancies of life. This mental agitation must account for that extreme appeal made to the most violent and horrible feelings which characterises the productions of the modern dramatic school. Indeed nothing can be more singular than the change which the French taste has undergone in this respect. From an over-refinement, or rather squeamishness, in preserving inviolate "les bienséances du Théâtre," they have rushed headlong into the most horrible extravagancies that a diseased imagination can engender. The very men who bestowed on Shakspeare the appellation of barbare and madman, and for whose delicate nerves the supposed atrocities of our great bard were beyond the power of endurance, are now delighted with the convulsive pangs of a kind of dramatic night-mare, which sways with despotic control over the French theatre.

A rapid outline of the vicissitudes of the Drama will perhaps afford some interest to the reader.

The reign of the old French tragedy is at an end; Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, must vacate the throne in favour of the prevailing innovations. The first is now regarded merely as an eloquent declaimer in verse, often energetic and sublime, almost as frequently rugged and incorrect; the second has dwindled into an elegant elegiac poet; and the productions of the last, though possessing more real dramatic talent, are now looked upon with comparative indifference; while the works of the barbare, whom their countrymen ridiculed, live, and will live, in all their pristine verdure, because they are founded on the eternal basis of truth, and passion, and human nature, and can only perish when human nature itself ceases to exist. Different is the fate of the French tragedy, in which art was so glaringly predominant, and the whole fabric of which was built on a false foundation. Nothing could be more absurd than the superstitious adhesion of the French to the rules of the three unities-unities which, by the by, they were tacitly infringing in almost every one of their productions; for it signified little whether the theatrical decoration, to conform with the unity of place, was presented to guide the imagination of the spectator, when he knew that the events re

presented could not all happen in the said locality. Can any thing be more contrary to common sense than to show us Cinna selecting the very apartments of Augustus to hatch a conspiracy against the life of that emperor? Can any one feel convinced of the truth of the picture represented in the "Cid," because events are exhibited in the same hall, and in the space of four and twenty hours, when we know that they occurred in various places and at a considerable interval of time between each other? According to our English notions, to which our Gallic neighbours have now, it appears, become such arrant converts, the illusion would be far more complete, and the judgment, as well as the imagination, rest better satisfied, if allowed the wider range of nature, instead of shackling their functions by violent efforts of art. Aristotle was pleased to frame a code of dramatic laws at a remote period of time for the convenience of the Grecian people -these answered their purpose no doubt in that age and among that people; but it is very hard upon modern nations to be compelled to amuse themselves according to the rules laid down by that philosopher. With equal propriety might we be required to wear sandals instead of Wellington boots, or to substitute the Olympic games for the race-course of Doncaster or Newmarket.

But these were not all the sins for which the old French tragedy had to answer, and which have brought it to its present unfortunate end. Other germs of mortality were mixed with it from the moment of its birth, adhered to it through the various stages of existence, and never forsook it till the very moment of decrepitude. What can be more false than the Dramatis Persona?—Where are we to look for the originals of Greeks and Romans so decidedly French in carriage, feeling and sentiment? Where did the whole tribe of heros and those nuisances called confidents ever exist but in the imagination of the author?—these abominable confidents were all of the same genus; and indeed by comparing the hundreds of tragedies in which they figure, we shall find a complete resemblance in every thing, not merely in sentiment, but in the very words they are made to utter. Their business on the stage was merely to listen to the long-winded speeches of the hero or heroine, and now and then afford them a little time to breathe, by interrupting their "monotonous psalmody" with such exclamations as Juste Ciel!" "Grand Dieu!" "Qu'entends-je," and so forth. Then, again, what are we to say of the poverty in the construction of plot and incident? -the capricious taste which prefers the mere narrative of au event to witnessing the event itself in action-the languor and monotony in the whole conduct of the fable-and, in fine, the abominable jingling of the French rhyme, which tended to

render the monotony ten times more soporific? With such germs of mortality about it, the prolonged existence of the old French tragedy was threatened, and a fit opportunity was only wanting to bring about its dissolution.

This catastrophe, however, did not take place so soon as might have been expected. During the tempestuous times of the French republic, the old tragedy continued to flourish undisturbed. The intellectual revolution had not kept pace with the social convulsions which agitated the country; besides, the republican air of the Greek and Roman heroes was in accordance with the times, and then the admirable acting of Talma and other great tragedians contributed to prolong the reign of this sort of drama. During the republic, and afterwards, under the protection of Napoleon, the writers who supplied the stage conformed to the established rules. Chenier, Raynouard, Arnault, Jouy and others, acquired success by following the steps of the old masters, but who cares now to trouble the repose of the "Brutus and the Gracchi" of the first; of "Germanicus," "Belisarius," "Hector," and other productions of those days? Even the " Agamemnon" of Lemercier, which was considered the most meritorious of modern tragedies, cannot be rescued from the fate that must attend all those of its class. Since the year 1820, only one tragedy belonging to this school has been crowned with marked and signal successthe "Sylla" of M. Jouy; this play excited at the time an extraordinary sensation. On every night of its performance the doors of the Théâtre Français were thronged with an eager crowd in a state of nervous excitement to get admittance. Enthusiasm rose to its height, and the government entertained thoughts of interdicting a performance accompanied with so much suspicious interest and agitation. But we are to look for the solution of this temporary popularity to causes totally independent of the merits of the play. Political feeling was connected with its production, and the people went to the theatre, some out of spite to the existing government, and others to behold the imitation which Talma gave of the ex-emperor Napoleon. His way of dressing the part, his attitudes, and the intonation of his voice, did certainly much more for the success of the piece than the striking qualities of the piece itself, which was nothing but a prolonged declamation in five acts, redolent of all the faults of the school to which it belonged. But where is "Sylla" now? Alas! gone to its eternal rest, with the mighty crowd of its less gifted or less fortunate brethren! Probably" Sylla" will be the last tragedy of the declamatory school which will retain its place in the répertoire of the French theatre of the present day!

A company of English actors made their appearance in Paris at