for producing un-actable dramas)—­the very air is exhausted in a theatrical sense; for “life in the clouds” has been long voted “law;” whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date.  In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king’s evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—­how, in fact, they disport themselves “Behind the Scenes.”

A visit to the English Opera will gratify those of the uninitiated, who are anxious to get acquainted with the manners and customs of the ladies and gentlemen of the corps dramatique “at the wing.”  Otherwise than as a sign of dramatic destitution, the piece called “Behind the Scenes” is highly amusing.  Mr. Wild’s acting displays that happy medium between jocularity and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque.  Mrs. Selby plays the “leading lady” without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable empressement, though supposed to be labouring at the time under the stroke of the headsman’s axe.  Lastly, it would be an act of injustice to Mr. Selby to pass his Spooney Negus over in silence.  PUNCH has too brotherly an affection for his fellow-actors, to hide their faults; in the hope that, by shewing them veluti in speculum, they may be amended.  In all kindness, therefore, he entreats Mr. Selby, if he be not bent upon hastening his own ruin, if he have any regard for the feelings of unoffending audiences, who always witness the degradation of human nature with pain—­he implores him to provide a substitute for Negus.  Every actor knows the difference between portraying imbecility and being silly himself—­between puerility, as characteristic of a part in posse, and as being a trait of the performer in esse.  To this rule Mr. Selby, in this part, is a melancholy exception; for he seems utterly ignorant of such a distinction, broad as it is—­he is silly himself, instead of causing silliness in Spooney.  This is the more to be regretted, as whoever witnessed, with us, the first piece, saw in Mr. Selby a respectable representative of an old dandy in “Barnaby Rudge.”  Moreover, the same gentleman is, we understand, the adapter of the drama from Boz’s tale.  That too proves him to be a clever contriver of situations, and an ingenious adept with the pen and scissors.