What comes after in the nineteenth century may best be left to the future historian, who will be able to interpret its plays in the light of a succeeding development. The plays of Tennyson, reverting again to Shakespeare, and the poems of Swinburne may, after all, be the forerunners of a new revival of poetical tragedy. Or the great development in technic that has proceeded, first under the guidance of the French dramatists, and then of Ibsen, and the serious essays of dramatists of the passing generation may be the pioneers of a national drama of first-rate importance in the generation to come. Certainly Ibsen, with his revolution in both the content and the form of the tragic drama, has been the great force in later nineteenth century tragedy. His work as it affects England and America, however neglected, postponed, or modified, must be the text of a succeeding chapter on English tragedy, which cannot yet be written.
Genest's _Account of the English Stage_ stops at 1830. A continuation of this work down to the present time is much to be desired. There is no thorough history or bibliography of the drama of this period. In addition to the histories of the theatre already mentioned, W. C. Oulton's _History of the Theatres of London_, 1795-1817, may be consulted. Memoirs of the Kembles are useful for this period, and also Macready's _Reminiscences_, ed. Sir F. Pollock (1875), Moore's _Life of Sheridan_ (1825), Molloy's _Life of Edmund Kean_ (1888), William Archer's admirable life of Macready (_Eminent Actors Series_), are all valuable. _Random Recollections_ by Colman the younger, and memoirs of Kelly, O'Keefe, and Reynolds supply information in regard to the theatre and illegitimate drama. John Cumberland's collections, _British Theatre_ (41 vols., 1829) and the _Minor Theatre_ (15 vols.), are printed from acting copies, and the second comprises many illegitimate plays.
Dramatic criticism of the period includes Coleridge (see criticism of Maturin's _Bertram_ in _Biographia Literaria_), Hazlitt, _A View of the English Stage_ (1818); Leigh Hunt, _Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres_ (1807) (selections from same, ed. W. Archer and R. W. Lowe, 1894); Lamb (see _Lamb's Dramatic Essays_, ed. Brander Matthews, 1893). See, also, R. H. Horne's _New Spirit of the Age_ (1844), containing criticism of Knowles, Macready, Bulwer-Lytton, and Browning.