Note 128 — THE ART OF PAINTING;

Nothing can be more hazardous for a dramatist than the introduction of many inferior characters. In proportion to the numbers of the Dramatis Personæ, the difficulty of getting up a piece is increased in a tremendous ratio; since even the awkwardness of a domestic, or the ridiculous gait of a guard, may throw the audience into a tone of feeling very inconsistent with tragic effect. Undoubtedly, could the expence be supported, something might be gained by drilling underlings to such inferior characters, and teaching even the mutes to look, as it they took some interest in what is going forward; but, at present, the entrance and exit of a hero, cum suis, has something in it irresistibly ludicrous. Here the painter has a decisive advantage over the dramatist, since it costs him nothing to finish his inferior personages in a style as correspondent to truth as the principal.