My father, questioned before a committee of the House of
Commons upon the subject, showed forth the evils likely, in his opinion,
to result to the dramatic art and the public taste by throwing open to
unlimited speculation the right to establish theaters and give
theatrical representations. The great companies of good sterling actors
would be broken up and dispersed, and there would no longer exist
establishments sufficiently important to maintain any large body of
them; the best plays would no longer find adequate representatives in
any but a few of the principal parts, the characters of theatrical
pieces produced would be lowered, the school of fine and careful acting
would be lost, no play of Shakespeare's could be decorously put on the
stage, and the profession and the public would alike fare the worse for
the change. But he was one of the patented proprietors, one of the
monopolists, a party most deeply interested in the issue, and therefore,
perhaps, an incompetent judge in the matter. The cause went against us,
and every item of his prophecy concerning the stage has undoubtedly come
to pass. The fine companies of the great theaters were dissolved, and
each member of the body that together formed so bright a constellation
went off to be the solitary star or planet of some minor sphere.
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