she  is,  and  how  great  a  poet  she  is  representing.  If
English  audiences  do  not  appreciate  Racine — and  they  do
not — so  much  the  worse  for  them.  As  Fuseli  once  said
in  a  dispute  about  the  merits  of  Petrarch,  "  Dere  is  many
reasons  why  de  Petrarca  shall  not  be  understood  in  England;
de  first  is,  de  d — d  ignorance  of  de  language ! "  and
although  the  St.  James's  audience  may  flatter  itself  it  knows
French,  it  is  miserably  mistaken,  if  it  cannot  taste  the
exquisite  beauty  of  Racine's  verse.  Let  me,  however,  say
in  defence,  that  unless  people  knew  the  verse  before  they
went  to  the  theatre,  they  are  to  be  excused  for  not  feeling
its  beauty  when  they  hear  it  mauled  and  mangled  by  those
merciless  mountebanks

"  Who  mouth  a  sentence  as  curs  mouth  a  bone."

Such  a  troupe !  ye  gods !  There  is  a  Theseus — the  god-
like Theseus — represented  by  "a  party  from  Astley's
without  his  horse,"  as  little  Jarker,  sitting  beside  me,
remarked.  There  is  an  Aricie  of  about  four  hundred ;
and  Hippolyte,  a  little  pudgy  Jew  boy,  who  ought  to  be
selling  melons.
