The independent and severe criticisms of the acting which appeared in the _Evening Post_, and to a lesser extent in Irving’s _Morning Chronicle_, were not at first relished by theatrical folk. The names of the actors and actresses, Cooper, Fennell, Hallam, Turnbull, Mrs. Johnson, and so on are now all but forgotten. In Boston in 1802 dramatic criticism was written largely by performers themselves, who sat up till an early hour to insure proper newspaper notices, and in Charleston the same practice had been known. In all cities most actors held that no one was really competent to serve as a critic unless he was familiar with the performances at the two great London theaters. So irritated did the dramatic guild become that in January, 1802, there was produced at the theater a satire upon the _Evening Post_ reviews, written by Fennell and called “The Wheel of Truth.” It was designed to show one Littlewit, a newspaper critic, in a ludicrous and foolish light. He was represented as finding fault with Stuart’s portrait of Washington because by the footrule the head was a half-inch too long, and with a certain book because for the same price he could buy one twice as heavy. Coleman answered this attack in five columns published in two issues, which was five columns more than it deserved. He, Wells, and Anthony Bleecker continued reviewing, and a contemporary writer records that he “aimed to settle all criticism by his individual verdict.”
Upon most of the plays there was little to say, for they were long familiar to readers and theater-goers. Shakespeare was given year in and year out, a full dozen of his dramas. Others of the Elizabethans, including Ben Jonson, Marlowe (“The Jew of Malta”), Massinger, Middleton, and Beaumont and Fletcher, were occasionally seen. Otway’s “Venice Preserved” was something of a favorite. The comedies of Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Fielding had regular representations. George Colman’s plays, especially “John Bull,” were highly popular, John Home’s “Douglas” was always sure of a house, and for the first two decades of the century Kotzebue was much played and admired; while many of Scott’s novels and poems were dramatized. The _Evening Post_ said of the first performance of “Marmion,” in 1812, that it “presents a chef-d’œuvre of melodramatic excellence.” In William Dunlap at first, and later in M. M. Noah, New York had its own rather crude dramatists. When the latter’s patriotic play, “She Would be a Soldier; or, The Plains of Chippewa,” was presented in 1819, Coleman spoke of it coldly, suggesting that the plot had been inspired by the French tale of “Lindor et Clara, ou la Fille Soldat,” and admitting only that “it is not deficient in interest.” But he applauded Noah’s “Siege of Tripoli” next year as deserving what it met, “a greater degree of success than we ever recollect to have attended an original piece on our stage.” Its vivacity, its martial ardor, its declamation, he thought calculated to arouse a high and manly patriotism. Nearly the whole of the criticisms, however, had to be given up not to plays, but to performers and interpretations of parts.