Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), June 14, 1845, vol. 1, no. 24, p. ??

[page 378, column 2:]

THE DRAMATIC AUTHORS OF AMERICA. By James Rees. Philadelphia: G. B. Tither & Co., 1845.

This is a very curious and a highly profitable little work for the student of American literature. It is probable that no other man in the country has sufficient love for the Drama to enable him to gather together so many forgotten facts in relation to this subject as Mr. Rees has done in this little book. The Dramatic Authors of America! [low many could the most learned man among us enumerate? Perhaps a dozen. Very many American ‘whole's would doubtless have to think a while before naming even one. Yet Mr. Rees has mustered a regiment here of no less than one hundred and eighty-eight, thirty-four of them being anonymous. Some of these authors have produced as many plays as Shakspeare, while a good many have produced but one. And yet, among the whole of their Dramas, there are not more than three or four that keep theirplace upon the stage. A literary gentleman remarked the other day that he did not know any body who had not written a word; after looking over Mr. Rees's catalogue of Dramatists we could not readily remember any body who had not written a play. Mr. Rees evidently undertook his task con amore, and doubtless made his list as complete as he could, but he has made four omissions within our knowledge, and doubtless many beyond it. So that we may safely estimate the Dramatic Authors of the United States, or of Alleghania, at two hundred, and giving them three plays a p iece, which must be within the mark, the Alleghanish Drama must amount to at least six hundred plays. John Neal is the anthor of a five act tragedy called Otheo. Mr. Edward S. Gould is the author of a tragedy founded on the history of Richard Cour de Lyon, which.was successfully represented at the Pails theatre about fifteen years since, and Cornelius Matthews is the author of a five act comedy called the Politicians, which we believe has never been produced at any theatre. Mr. Rees has not included either of these dramatic authors in his catalogue. Probably Mr. Griswold will include these and many more of whom the country has never heard, in his forth-corning book on American prose writers.

Notwithstanding the complaints that we hear continually from the denizens of the theatre, about the decline of the legitimate drama, there seems to be a very decided love for dramatic compositions among our educated men as well as among the lower classes, from whom the theatre derives its principal support.

The wife of a popular tragedian in New York says, that they always tremble when the door bell rings; expecting the apparition of a dramatic author with a manuscript tragedy to follow as a matter of course. She says that they have had a large chest constructed in their garret for the express purpose of keeping manuscript tragedies. Where there is so much smoke it would not be unreasonable to expect some fire; but the American Drama does not appear to promise sufficient heat to produce combustion. Mrs. Mots att has recently “fired up,” to a certain extent; but whether she has produced a real flame or only an ignis fatuus remains to be seen. One dung is very certain, that no art can flourish in a country when it is not countenanced by the better classes of society, and it can-. not be denied that the theatre derives no aid, with us, from the learned, the wealthy, or the professedly religious. All classes of society read the Wandering Jew, and everything that comes from Dickens; doctors of law, divinity and medicine read such works and place them in their libraries; but these people never visit the theatre let the attraction be what it may. Let half-a-dozen D. Ds be seen in the pit of the Park Theatre, and we should not only see their congregations following them, but we should see our men and women of genius [page 379:] exerting their talents for the amusement and instruction of such fit audiences. One of the last things that we could ever do would be to recommend, or countenance idle and vicious amusements, but no amusement which requires so great a variety of artistic excellence as the drama, ever could be vicious or injurious if it were countenanced by those who assume the office of public teachers.

Whether the theatre be a disreputable place, as conducted at present, is not a point which we need debate about; the theatre exists and is likely to exist, and to exert an extensive influence of some kind in the commnnity, and the only consid eration should be, with good men, whether it would be better to leave it to grow in its enormities, or by giving it their countenance, convert it into a blessing instead of a curse to the people. There is noobjection among good people to pictures, none to music, none to wit and humor, none to rhetoric; but the drama is nothing more than these united. Instead of going on separate nights to witness each department of art by itself, in the theatre they may see them happily assembled to produce an effect. The fault of the false position which the drama holds does not lie so much with the better classes of society, as with the managers of theatres themselves; if these will make brothels and drinking houses of their theatres they have no right to complain when respectable people refuse to patronise them. The reform must begin in the theatre, and when that has been effected, we have no doubt that it will extend to those without. The appearance of so respectable a person as Mrs. Mowatt on the stage, we trust, will not be without a purifying effect upon the atmosphere of the play-house.