R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Tennyson, Swinburne, Meredith 191allows Sheridan one slighting sentence in the essay, willhave none of Wycherley, labels Goldsmith (justly) asfarce-writer, and mentions practically no other Englishdramatist at all. He turns, as to the sun, to Moliere; andhere is a certain weakness in his position which mighthave been reflected in his work. Drama is, inevitably, themost national of the arts; for, its writing apart, it mustcommand native interpretation. And if, as Meredithcomplains, the English have not risen to appreciation ofthe Comedy of Idea, it may be because ideas as such donot much interest them. A reproach to them, doubtless;but a vain reproach for the would-be dramatist to make,who must not only write for them, but enshrine them asthey are in his writing. To poetry and humour, theEnglish will respond: ideas they find inhuman. But thecreator ousts the critic, and, as this one fragment of aplay shows, Meredith would have found his feet in thetheatre, could have made a place of his own there andgiven us in drama as in fiction a few splendidly refractedpictures of his time. And we might have had to-day halfa dozen of his plays, the product of his maturity, of thathumorous sane mind, as abiding refreshment to our own.Tennyson, Swinburne, Meredith, would-be dramatists;and a theatre that could not profit them, nor profit bythem. Something was very wrong, surely; and for thatmatter, still is, perhaps.