HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE. UNIV. OF BY WILLIAM DUNLAP, AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS OF GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE, &c. Where is that palace whereinto sometimes Foul things intrude not? The corruption of the Theatre is no disproof of its innate and primitive utility. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. PREFACE. 66 COLLEY CIBBER, in his " Apology," the best book ever written on the subject of the Theatre, thus speaks of the increase of Playhouses in London, and the effect on the actors and the public:-" Their extraordinary number, of course, reduced them to live upon the gratification of such hearers as they knew would be best pleased with public offence; and public offence, of what kind soever, will always be a good reason for making laws to restrain it.” We have seen acted over and over again, in America, that which Cibber describes and laments as occurring in his time: 166 They were reduced to have recourse to foreign novelties; L'Abbe, Balon, and Mademoiselle Subligny, three of the most famous dancers of the French Opera at that period, were at several times brought over, at extraordinary rates, to revive that sickly appetite which plain sense and nature had satiated. But, alas! there was no recovering to a sound constitution by those merely costly cordials; the novelty of a dance was but of a short duration, and perhaps hurtful in its consequence; for it made a play without a dance less endured than it had been before, when such dancing was not to be had ;" and the same may be said of every deviation from plain sense and nature." 66 Colley Cibber's" Apology" is one of those books in which a man finds all that he wants to know or say on the subject he is considering. Should we not think, that instead of Cibber, some writer of the present day, who had seen what he thought better days-some old fellow of seventy, in the year 1832, wrote |