Golden leaves from the British and American dramatic poets

Front matter

w ,

M*y

S^tSf

Preface

IN the Dramatic Poetry of a country are embodied the highest efforts of its genius. Our series of u Golden Leaves" from the British and American Poets would be, therefore, incomplete without a collection of specimens from the Dramatic Poets of those countries. In the present volume, we give selections of recognized* beauties from the British and American Dramatists, arranged in chronological order, commencing from the earliest known Dramas in the English language, and continuing the series down to the present time. The collection, we trust, will be found interesting to the student of Dramatic Literature, as exhibiting in a condensed form the mutations in taste, style, and method of treatment, which the Drama has undergone during the last three centuries. We believe it will also be acceptable to lovers of the Legitimate Drama, who still cling to recollections of the past vi PREFA CE.

glories of the Stage, and will receive with welcome these souvenirs of the cherished favourites of their youth. We have even a hope that modern playgoers (to whom, in this age of the Sensational and Spectacular Drama, the "Legitimate" is fast approaching only to the traditionary) may dip into our pages with some degree of interest — akin, perhaps, to that with which they examine the fossil remains of extinct generations, if only to ascertain the pretensions which the admirers of the Drama in past ages declared to be its functions and its purposes, viz. : —

" To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart ; To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold : For this the Tragic Muse first trod the Stage 1 '. . . .

v York, "I June 22, 1865.

5 Cottage Place, New York, ~)