I do not advocate, Fastidiosus, a return to the ancient state of things, which I doubt not was connected with many evils; but is there not reason to think a partial revival of the old customs would be worth while?  It was not for mirth merely that the old professors and teachers countenanced the drama.  To the editors of David’s Harp I have sent this passage from Milton, noblest among the Puritans, and have besought them to lay it before their consistory:  “Whether eloquent and graceful incitements, instructing and bettering the nation at all opportunities, not only in pulpits, but after another persuasive method, in theatres, porches, or whatever place or way, may not win upon the people to receive both recreation and instruction, let them in authority consult.”  The German schoolmasters and professors superintended their boys in the representation of religious plays to instruct them in the theology which they thought all-important; in the performance of Aristophanes and Lucian, Plautus and Terence, mainly in the hope of improving them in Greek and Latin:  and when the plays were in the vernacular, it was often to train their taste, manners, and elocution.  Erasmus and the Oxford and Cambridge authorities certainly had the same ideas as the Continental scholars.  So the English schoolmasters in general, who also managed in the plays to give useful hints in all ways.  For instance, Nicholas Udal, in the ingenious letter in Ralph Roister Doister, which is either loving or insulting according to the position of a few commas or periods, must have meant to enforce the doctrine of Chaucer’s couplet: 

  “He that pointeth ill,
  A good sentence may oft spill.”

Madame de Maintenon was persuaded that amusements of this sort have a value, “imparting grace, teaching a polite pronunciation, and cultivating the memory”; and Racine commends the management of St. Cyr, where “the hours of recreation, so to speak, are put to profit by making the pupils recite the finest passages of the best poets.”  Here is the dramatic instinct, almost universal among young people, and which has almost no chance to exercise itself, except in the performance of the farces to which we are treated in “private theatricals.”  Can it not be put to a better use?  It would be a cumbrous matter to represent or listen to the Aulularia, or the Miles Gloriosus, or the [Greek:  Eirhene], in which Dr. Dee and his Scarabeus figured so successfully.  The world is turned away from that[1]; but here is the magnificent wealth of our own old dramatic literature, in which is contained the richest poetry of our language.  It was never intended to be read, but to be heard in living presentment.  For the most part it lies almost unknown, except in the case of Shakespeare, and him the world knows far too little.  Who does not feel what a treasure in the memory are passages of fine poetry committed early in life?

[Footnote 1:  The developments of the last forty years show this judgment to be erroneous.]