tqf C4tatr4o. There are certain personages in history of whom

it is impossible to form even a tolerable judgment unless we know with the greatest accu-

racy the circumstances under which they flourished. The shining lights

of virtue and wisdom and the dark spots of wickedness and stupidity are appreciable to a certain extent without much reference to the sphere in

which they are placed, so that additional knowledge of externals while it may serve to modify will scarcely reverse a judgment. But between these two extremes there is a long series of figures, whose merit and demerit are decided by the relation in which they stand to the state of society they lived in. Any one in the world can pronounce a decision of some sort or other on the character of Alfred the Great as handed down to us by tradition, but it is another matter to appreciate a Richelieu.

The new five-act drama of Gold, lately brought out at Drury Lane, offers a case in point. Without a knowledge of the precise condition in

which "Old Drury" finds itself at the present season—without a vivid recollection of antecedents, and a keen eye for prospects—the critic has no more a standard by which to judge of the purpose and execution of this work than he would have to judge some Bement play, yet untranslated

by Professor H. H. Wilson. The French Anglomaniac, who COMCR over to this country blessed with the most perfect proficiency in our language and literature, will sit and see Gold in a state of the profoundest ignorance as to its merits, unless the chronicles of Drury Lane in particular have occupied some portion of his theatrical studies.

Since the secession of Mr. Macready, Drury Lane has tried English opera, with some slight claim to success ; but the claim has called forth no practical response. It has also tried the "legitimate" drama, with no claim to anything but contempt. Nor is there much hope that it can retrieve itself in either of these two departments. English singers think

too much of themselves to work for a common purpose, and the public cares too little for English singers to favour them with its support. The case of the non-operatic drama is still more hopeless. Fashion, which makes an aristocratic poultry-fancier pay five-and-twenty pounds for a couple of Cochin-China fowls, might give a lift to British vocal talent ;

and certainly, when Drury Lane steps into the field as an English opera- house, it finds no rival to contend with. But the " legitimate " drama has its little chapels already, and we can hardly expect that the various

artists who have safe engagements at the Princess's, the Haymarket, and Sadler's Wells, will throw up their contracts on purpose to become part-

ners in such a doubtful speculation as a Shaksperian Drury Lane. Fashion does smile on Oxford Street, and might take a trip to Islington; but in the existing state of things she would no more be able to patch up a really " legitimate " Drury Lane, than the fiend employed by Michael Scott was able to twist a rope out of the sand on the sea-shore.

Mr. Smith, the present lessee of Drury Lane, has, in our humble opinion, tried the only path which has a chance of leading to a successful result. He abandons opera and the "legitimate" drama; he gives a class of enter. '

tainment that belongs rather to the Surrey and the Victoria, and ia4p- ported by a working company ; and—an essential part of the system—he

lowers his prices to such a degree that he can fight the plebeian establish- ments on their own ground. Drury Lane still has a prestige in the eyes of the mob ; and if it will afford the same amount of amusement as the

Victoria without an overwhelming difference of price, it has a fair preference.

Taking all these facts into consideration, we are disposed to give great credit t ) Mr. Reade, the author of Gold, as a gentleman who perfectly

understands the circumstances under which he goes to work. The class on which Drury Lane now relies for support can be proved by inductive reasoning to be greatly attached to domestic dramas, in which the inte- rest inspired by the hero stands in an inverse ratio to the magnitude of

his pecuniary resources ; and accordingly, the principal character in the new piece is a farmer in difficulties, who flies his country to make his

fortune abroad, and then comes back, laden with cash, to crush the wicked capitalist who takes advantage of his absence to tempt the fidelity of his mistress. The same class of auditors is now particularly occupied with the recent discoveries in Australia, and looks towards the gold-fields with the same dreamy aspirations as those with which the contemporaries of Columbus were filled when they heard of the New World in the Western

hemisphere ; therefore the region in which our hero makes his crown a

pound is not a mere abstract East or West Indies, but is the Australian Eldo- rado; and the "Diggins," with their spice of those peculiar ferocities which prevent the gold-feast from cloying the appetite, are the subject of the moat important scene in the play. Then, apropos of these " Diggins," which are represented with an attempt at scientific accuracy, a number of speeches, redolent of chemical and mineralogical knowledge, are in-

troduced ; and thus another taste of the time is clearly hit—the taste for instructive exhibitions. Altogether, the work evidently proceeds from a writer who thoroughly knows what he is about, and has courage enough to act up to his convictions ; though, from his known acquirements, we can never suppose that the play realizes any ideal he can have formed in his own closet. Gold is a superior melodrama of the humblest school; but that is just what is now wanted for Drury Lane.