ABSTRACT
A Tale of Mystery has been generally considered Thomas Holcroft's claim to fame as a dramatist, the work that has enabled him to be characterized, without some controversy, as the founder of British melodrama. The theory of physiognomy as developed at great length by Lavater explained human personality by recourse to an analysis of facial and bodily features. As a secularist, Hobbes was intent on nothing less than, as Mark Lilla has phrased it, "the dismantling of Christendom's theological-political complex". In 1732 the aesthetic theorist and dramatist Aaron Hill attempted to convince the Prince of Wales that it was necessary to establish a British tragic academy along the lines of the Academie Royale in France. Henry Tresham 1749-1814, are presented with something like a panoramic tableau vivant of the most dramatic action of the entire melodrama. George Cruikshank was born in London, the son of the Scottish painter and caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank.
