Chapter XIII: Preface (4)

Milton’s Comus is not equal to Lycidas, nor to Samson Agonistes. It wants interest and passion, which both the others have. Lycidas is a fine effusion of classical sentiment in a youthful scholar: his Samson Agonistes is almost a canonisation of all the high moral and religious prejudices of his maturer years. _We_ have no less respect for the memory of Milton as a patriot than as a poet. Whether he was a _true_ patriot, we shall not enquire: he was at least a _consistent_ one. He did not retract his defence of the people of England; he did not say that his sonnets to Vane or Cromwell were meant ironically; he was not appointed Poet-Laureat to a Court which he had reviled and insulted; he accepted neither place nor pension; nor did he write paltry sonnets upon the ‘Royal fortitude’ of the House of Stuart, by which, however, they really lost something.[34]

MR. KEAN’S LEON

_The Examiner._

_July 2, 1815._

We went to see Mr. Kean in Leon, at Drury-Lane, and, on the whole, liked him less in it than we formerly liked Mr. Kemble in the same part. This preference, however, relates chiefly to personal considerations. In the first scenes of the play, Mr. Kemble’s face and figure had a nobleness in them, which formed a contrast to the assumed character of the idiot, and thus carried off the disgusting effect of the part. Mr. Kean both acted and looked it too well. At the same time, we must do justice to the admirable comic talents displayed by Mr. Kean on this occasion. We never saw or heard looks or tones more appropriate and ludicrous. The house was in a roar. His alarm on being first introduced to his mistress, his profession of being ‘very loving,’ his shame after first saluting the lady, and his chuckling half-triumph on the repetition of the ceremony, were complete acting. Above all, we admired the careless self-complacent idiotcy with which he marched in, carrying his wife’s fan, and holding up her hand. It was the triumph of folly. Even Mr. Liston, with all his inimitable graces in that way, could not have bettered it. In the serious part of the character he appeared to us less perfect. There was not repose enough, not enough of dignity. Leon, we apprehend, ought to be the man of spirit, but still more the gentleman. He has to stand in general upon the defensive, upon his own rights, upon his own ground, and need not bluster, or look fierce. We will mention one instance in particular. Where he tells the Duke to leave the house, which we think he should do with perfect coolness and confidence, he pointed with his finger to the door, ‘There, there,’ with the same significant inveteracy of manner, as where, in Iago, he points to the dead body of Othello. The other parts of the play were well supported. Mrs. Glover deserves great praise for her Estifania. Mr. Bartley shewed both judgment and humour in the Copper Captain; and yet we were not satisfied with his performance. There is a thinness in his voice, and a plumpness in his person, neither of which is to our taste. His laughing when he finds that Cacafogo had been cheated by Estifania, was perfectly well done; but there was an effeminacy in his voice which took away from the hearty effect which Bannister used to give to this scene. Knight, in the old woman, was excellent. His reiteration of ‘What?’ in answer to the Copper Captain’s questions, had the startling effect produced by letting off a pistol close at one’s ears. It evidently proceeded from a person blest with ‘double deafness’ of body and mind. The morality of this excellent comedy is very indifferent; and having been prompted by the observations of some persons of fashion near us, we got into a train of agreeable reflections on the progressive refinement of this our age and country, which it was our intention to have communicated to our readers,—but that we dropt them in the lobbies!

THE TEMPEST

_The Examiner._

_July 23, 1815._

As we returned some evenings ago from seeing the Tempest at Covent-Garden, we almost came to the resolution of never going to another representation of a play of Shakespear’s as long as we lived; and we certainly did come to this determination, that we never would go _by choice_. To call it a representation, is indeed an abuse of language: it is travestie, caricature, any thing you please, but a representation. Even those daubs of pictures, formerly exhibited under the title of the Shakespear Gallery, had a less evident tendency to disturb and distort all the previous notions we had imbibed from reading Shakespear. In the first place, it was thought fit and necessary, in order to gratify the sound sense, the steady, sober judgment, and natural unsophisticated feelings of Englishmen a hundred years ago, to modernize the original play, and to disfigure its simple and beautiful structure, by loading it with the common-place, clap-trap sentiments, artificial contrasts of situations and character, and all the heavy tinsel and affected formality which Dryden had borrowed from the French school. And be it observed, further, that these same anomalous, unmeaning, vulgar, and ridiculous additions, are all that _take_ in the present farcical representation of the Tempest. The beautiful, the exquisitely beautiful descriptions in Shakespear, the still more refined, and more affecting sentiments, are not only not applauded as they ought to be (what fine murmur of applause should do them justice?)—they are not understood, nor are they even heard. The lips of the actors are seen to move, but the sounds they utter exciting no corresponding emotions in the breast, are no more distinguished than the repetition of so many cabalistical words. The ears of the audience are not prepared to drink in the music of the poet; or grant that they were, the bitterness of disappointment would only succeed to the stupor of indifference.

Shakespear has given to Prospero, Ariel, and the other characters in this play, language such as wizards and spirits, ‘the gay creatures of the element,’ might want to express their thoughts and purposes, and this language is here put into the mouth of Messrs. Young, Abbott, and Emery, and of Misses Matthews, Bristow, and Booth. ‘’Tis much.’ Mr. Young is in general what is called a respectable actor. Now, as this is a phrase which does not seem to be very clearly understood by those who most frequently use it, we shall take this opportunity to define it. A respectable actor then, is one who seldom gratifies, and who seldom offends us; who never disappoints us, because we do not expect any thing from him, and who takes care never to rouse our dormant admiration by any unlooked-for strokes of excellence. In short, an actor of this class (not to speak it profanely) is a mere machine, who walks and speaks his part; who, having a tolerable voice, face, and figure, reposes entirely and with a prepossessing self-complacency on these natural advantages: who never risks a failure, because he never makes an effort; who keeps on the safe side of custom and decorum, without attempting improper liberties with his art; and who has not genius or spirit enough to do either well or ill. A respectable actor is on the stage, much what a pretty woman is in private life, who trusts to her outward attractions, and does not commit her taste or understanding, by hazardous attempts to shine in conversation. So we have generals, who leave every thing to be done by their men; patriots, whose reputation depends on their estates; and authors, who live on the stock of ideas they have in common with their readers.

Such is the best account we can give of the class of actors to which Mr. Young belongs, and of which he forms a principal ornament. As long as he contents himself to play indifferent characters, we shall say nothing: but whenever he plays Shakespear, we must be excused if we take unequal revenge for the martyrdom which our feelings suffer. His Prospero was good for nothing; and consequently, was indescribably bad. It was grave without solemnity, stately without dignity, pompous without being impressive, and totally destitute of the wild, mysterious, preternatural character of the original. Prospero, as depicted by Mr. Young, did not appear the potent wizard brooding in gloomy abstraction over the secrets of his art, and around whom spirits and airy shapes throng numberless ‘at his bidding;’ but seemed himself an automaton, stupidly prompted by others: his lips moved up and down as if pulled by wires, not governed by the deep and varied impulses of passion; and his painted face, and snowy hair and beard, reminded us of the masks for the representation of Pantaloon. In a word, Mr. Young did not personate Prospero, but a pedagogue teaching his scholars how to recite the part, and not teaching them well.

Of one of the actors who assisted at this sacrifice of poetical genius, Emery, we think as highly as any one can do: he is indeed, in his way, the most perfect actor on the stage. His representations of common rustic life have an absolute identity with the thing represented. But the power of his mind is evidently that of imitation, not that of creation. He has nothing romantic, grotesque, or imaginary about him. Every thing in his hands takes a local and habitual shape. Now, Caliban is a mere creation; one of the wildest and most abstracted of all Shakespear’s characters, whose deformity is only redeemed by the power and truth of the imagination displayed in it. It is the essence of grossness, but there is not the smallest vulgarity in it. Shakespear has described the brutal mind of this man-monster in contact with the pure and original forms of nature; the character grows out of the soil where it is rooted uncontrouled, uncouth, and wild, uncramped by any of the meannesses of custom. It is quite remote from any thing provincial; from the manners or dialect of any county in England. Mr. Emery had nothing of Caliban but his gaberdine, which did not become him. (We liked Mr. Grimaldi’s Orson much better, which we saw afterwards in the pantomime.) Shakespear has, by a process of imagination usual with him, drawn off from Caliban the elements of every thing etherial and refined, to compound them into the unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Miss Matthews played and sung Ariel. She is to be sure a very ‘tricksy spirit:’ and all that we can say in her praise is, that she is a better representative of the sylph-like form of the character, than the light and portable Mrs. Bland, who used formerly to play it. She certainly does not sing the songs so well. We do not however wish to hear them sung, though never so well; no music can add any thing to their magical effect.—The words of Shakespear would be sweet, even ‘after the songs of Apollo!’

MY WIFE! WHAT WIFE?

_The Examiner._

_July 30, 1815._

The Haymarket is the most sociable of all our theatres. A wonderful concentration of interest, and an agreeable equality of pretension reign here. There is an air of unusual familiarity between the audience and the actors; the pit shakes hands with the boxes, and the galleries descend, from the invisible height to which they are raised at the other theatres, half-way into the orchestra. Now we have certain remains of a sneaking predilection for this mode of accommodating differences between all parts of the house; this average dissemination of comfort, and immediate circulation of enjoyment; and we take our places (just as it happens), on the same good terms with ourselves and our neighbours, as we should in sitting down to an ordinary at an inn. Every thing, however, has its drawbacks; and the Little Theatre in the Haymarket is not without them. If, for example, a party of elderly gentlewomen should come into a box close at your elbow, and immediately begin to talk loud, with an evident disregard of those around them, your only chance is either to quit the house altogether, or (if you really wish to hear the play), to remove to the very opposite side of it; for the ill-breeding of persons of that class, sex, and time of life, is incorrigible. At the great Theatres, it is sometimes very difficult to hear, for the noise and quarrelling in the gallery; here the only interruption to the performance is from the overflowing garrulity and friendly tittle-tattle of the boxes. The gods (as they are called), at Drury-lane and Covent-garden, we suspect, ‘keep such a dreadful pudder o’er our heads,’ from their impatience at not being able to hear what is passing below; and, at the minor theatres, are the most quiet and attentive of the audience.

It is the immemorial practice of the Haymarket Theatre to bring out, every season, a number of new pieces, good, bad, or indifferent. To this principle we are indebted for an odd play, with an odd title, ‘My Wife! What Wife?’ and whether it belongs to the class of good, bad, or indifferent, we could not make up our minds at the time, and it has nearly escaped our memory since. Whether from its excellences or its absurdities, it is altogether very amusing. The best part of it is a very unaccountable, easy, impudent, blundering Irish footman, admirably represented by Mr. Tokely, whom we here take the liberty of introducing to the notice of our readers. ‘Good Mr. Tokely, we desire better acquaintance with you.’ We do not know whether this gentleman is himself an Irishman, but he has a wonderful sympathy with the manners and peculiarities of the character he had to represent. The ease, the ignorance, the impudence, the simplicity, the cunning, the lying, the good-nature, the absurdity, and the wit of the common character of the Irish, were depicted with equal fidelity and _naiveté_ by this very lively actor; and his _brogue_ was throughout a complete accompaniment to the sense. It floated up and down, and twisted round, and rose and fell, and started off or rattled on, just as the gusts of passion led.

The Irish and the Scotch brogue are very characteristic. In the one, the words are tumbled out altogether: in the other, every syllable is held fast between the teeth and kept in a sort of undulating suspense, lest circumstances should require a retractation before the end of the sentence. The Irish character is impetuous: the Scotch circumspect. The one is extreme unconsciousness, the other extreme consciousness. The one depends almost entirely on animal spirits, the other on will; the one on the feeling of the moment, the other on the calculation of consequences. The Irish character is therefore much more adapted for the stage: it presents more heterogeneous materials, and it is only unconscious absurdity that excites laughter. We seldom see a Scotchman introduced into an English farce: whereas an Irishman is always ready to be served up, and it is a standing dish at this kind of entertainment. Mr. Tokely sung two songs in the afterpiece with great effect. The laughing song was a thing of pure execution, made out of nothing but the feeling of humour in the actor.

Mr. Terry played the principal serious character in ‘My Wife! What Wife?’ He is a very careful and judicious actor: but his execution overlays the character. He is a walking grievance on the stage; a robust personification of the _comedie larmoyante_; a rock dropping tears of crystal; an iron figure, ‘in the likeness of a sigh.’ Mr. Jones was intended as a lively set-off to Mr. Terry. It was but a diversity of wretchedness. Mr. Jones is no favourite of ours. He is always the same Mr. Jones, who shews his teeth, and rolls his eyes,—

‘And looks like a jackdaw just caught in a snare.’

Mr. Meggett has played Octavian twice at this theatre. He is a very decent, disagreeable actor, of the second or third-rate, who takes a great deal of pains to do ill. He did not, however, deserve to be hissed, and he only deserves to be applauded, because he was hissed undeservedly. He is a Scotch edition of Conway, without his beauty, and without his talent for noisy declamation.

Our play-houses are just now crowded with French people, with or without white cockades. A very intelligent French man and woman sat behind us the other evening at the representation of the Mountaineers, (one of the best of our modern plays) who were exceedingly shocked at the constant transitions from tragic to comic in this piece. It is strange that a people who have no keeping in themselves, should be offended at our want of keeping in theatrical representations. But it is an old remark, that the manners of every nation and their dramatic taste are opposite to each other. In the present instance, there can be no question, but that the distinguishing character of the English is gravity, and of the French levity. How then is it that this is reversed on the stage? Because the English wish to relieve the continuity of their feelings by something light and even farcical, and the French cannot afford to offer the same temptation to their natural levity. They become grave only by system, and the formality of their artificial style is resorted to as a preservative against the infection of their national disposition. One quaint line in a thousand sad ones, operating on their mercurial and volatile spirits, would turn the whole to farce. The English are sufficiently tenacious of strong passion to retain it in spite of other feelings: the French are only tragic by the force of dulness, and every thing serious would fly at the appearance of a jest.

MR. HARLEY’S FIDGET

_The Examiner._

_August 6, 1815._

Mr. Harley is an addition to the comic strength of the Lyceum. We have not seen him in the part of Leatherhead, in The Blue Stocking, in which he has been much spoken of; but as an intriguing knave of a servant, he was the life of a very dull and incredible farce, which came out the other night under the title of My Aunt; and we afterwards liked him still better as Fidget, in The Boarding House, where he had more scope for his abilities. He gave the part with all the liveliness, insinuating complaisance, and volubility of speech and motion, which belong to it. He has a great deal of vivacity, archness, and that quaint extravagance, which constitutes the most agreeable kind of buffoonery. We think it likely he will become a considerable favourite with the public; and the more so, because he is not only a very amusing actor, but also possesses those recommendations of face, person, and manner, which go a great way in conciliating public favour. These are the more necessary in those burlesque characters, which have little foundation in real life, and which, as they serve chiefly to furnish opportunities for the drollery of the actor to display itself, bring him constantly before us in his personal capacity.

We are really glad to be pleased whenever we can, and we were pleased with Peter Fidget. His dress and his address are equally comic and in character. He wears a white morning jean coat, and a white wig, the curls of which hang down like lappets over his shoulders, and form a good contrast with the plump, rosy, shining face beneath it. He comes bolt upon the stage, and jumps into the good graces of the audience before they have time to defend themselves. Peter Fidget, ‘master of a boarding-house, with a green door—brass knocker—No. 1, round the corner—facing the Steyne—Brighton’—is a very impudent, rattling fellow, with a world of business and cares on his back, which however it seems broad enough to bear, the lightness of whose head gets the better of the heaviness of his heels, and whose person thrives in proportion to his custom. It is altogether a very laughable exaggeration, and lost none of its effect in the hands of Mr. Harley.

In the new farce of My Aunt, Mr. Wallack played the character of a fashionable rake, and he is said to have played it well. If this is a good specimen of the class, we can only say we do not wish to extend our acquaintance with it; for we never saw any thing more disagreeable. Miss Poole played the Niece to Mrs. Harlowe’s Aunt; and seemed a very proper niece for such an aunt. Mr. Pyne ‘warbled his love-lorn ditties all night long;’—for a despairing lover, we never saw any one look better, or flushed with a more purple grace—‘as one incapable of his own distress.’ He appears to have taken a hint from Sir John Suckling;—

‘Prythee, why so pale, fond lover,
Prythee why so pale?
Will, if looking well won’t win her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prythee, why so pale?’

We went to the Haymarket Theatre on Thursday, to see Mr. Meggett in the Iron Chest, with that laudable desire which we always feel to find out any error in our former opinions; but in this desire, as it generally happens, we were disappointed. We however consider Mr. Meggett’s Sir Edward Mortimer as a much more successful delineation than his Octavian. The character is taken from Falkland, in Mr. Godwin’s Caleb Williams, which is unquestionably the best modern novel. The character, as it is treated by Colman, is one of much less genius and elevation than the original. It is harsh, heavy, fierce, and painfully irritable, but at the same time forcible and affecting. Such, at least, was the impression we received from Mr. Meggett’s representation of it. What this actor wants is genial expression, and a certain general impulse which is inseparable from all passion. The tide of feeling in him frets itself away in narrow nooks and estuaries. His habitual manner is too hard and dry—he makes too dead a set at every thing. He grinds his words out between his teeth as if he had a lockjaw, and his action is clenched till it resembles the commencement of a fit of the epilepsy. He strains his muscles till he seems to have lost the use of them. If Mr. Kemble was hard, Mr. Meggett is rigid, to a petrifying degree. We however think that he gave considerable force and feeling to the part, by the justness of his conception, and by the energy of his execution. But neither energy nor good sense is sufficient to make the great actor:—it requires genius, which nothing can give. Study may teach us to distinguish the forms and classes of things; but it is genius alone which puts us in possession of the powers of art or nature. This play, when it first came out, excited a great deal of idle controversy and vulgar abuse. It appears to us to be a play of great interest; but that interest depends upon the sentiment, and not on the story or situations, and consequently is very little understood by a mixed audience.

Miss Greville made an interesting representative of Helen, the mistress of Sir Edward Mortimer. Mr. Barnard had considerable merit in Wilford, the Caleb Williams of the piece; though he seemed somewhat too insignificant an instrument to produce such terrible effects. Mr. Tokely played the ruffian (Orson) admirably well. Mrs. Belfield, his Dulcinea in the gang of robbers, perfectly frightened us in the cave-scene. We felt as much disconcerted by the uncalled-for phrensy of this theatrical amazon, as the Squire of Dames in Spenser did, when he was carried off by the giantess, Ogygia; or, as Mr. Capel Lofft must have done the other day, when Mrs. Mary Ann Bulmer pounced upon him in the Chronicle.

Mr. Foote was the brother of Sir Edward Mortimer. This gentleman is of the Wroughton school; that is, he belongs to the old English class of honest country gentlemen, who abound more in good nature than good sense, and who have a most plentiful lack of gall and wit. Mr. Foote does not discredit this branch of the profession. These persons are always very comfortable in themselves, and busy about other people. This is exceedingly provoking. They speak with good emphasis and discretion, and are in general of a reasonable corpulence. Whenever we see an actor of this class, with a hat and feather, a gold belt, and more than ordinary merit, we are strangely reminded of our old friend Mr. Gyngell, the celebrated itinerant manager, and the only showman in England, who, after the festivity of the week, makes a point of staying the Sunday over, and goes with all his family to church.

LIVING IN LONDON

_The Examiner._

_August 13, 1815._

A new Comedy, called Living in London, by the author (as it appears) of Love and Gout, has been brought forward at the Haymarket Theatre. It is in three acts. The first act promised exceedingly well. The scenes were well-contrived, and the dialogue was neat and pointed. But in the second and third, the comic invention of the writer seemed to be completely exhausted; his plot became entangled and ridiculous, and he strove to relieve the wearied attention of the audience, by some of the most desperate attempts at _double entendre_ we ever remember. Thus a servant is made to say, that ‘no one can _bring up_ his master’s dinner but himself.’ We are told by very good authority, that ‘want of decency is want of sense.’ The plot is double, and equally ill-supported in both its branches. A lady of fashion (who was made as little disgusting as the part would permit by Miss Greville) makes overtures of love to a nobleman, (Lord Clamourcourt, Mr. Foote), by publishing an account of a supposed intrigue between herself and him in the newspapers. The device is new, at least. The same nobleman is himself made jealous of his wife by the assumption of her brother’s name (Neville) by a coxcomb of his acquaintance, by the circumstance of a letter directed to the real Neville having been received by the pretended one, and by the blunders which follow from it. The whole developement of the plot is carried on by letters, and there is hardly a scene towards the conclusion, in which a footman does not come in, as the bearer of some alarming piece of intelligence. Lord Clamourcourt, just as he is sitting down to dinner with his wife, receives a letter from his mistress; he hurries away, and his Lady having no appetite left, orders the dinner back. Lord Clamourcourt is no sooner arrived at the place of assignation than he receives an anonymous letter, informing him that Neville is at his house, and he flies back on the wings of jealousy, as he had come on those of love. All this is very artificial and improbable. _Quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi._

We were a good deal disappointed in this play, as from the commencement we had augured very favourably of it. There was not much attempt to draw out the particular abilities of the actors; and the little that there was, did not succeed. Matthews, who is in general exceedingly amusing, did not appear at all to advantage. The author did not seem to understand what use to make of him. He was an automaton put into his hands, of which he did not know how to turn the pegs. He is shoved on, and then shoved off the stage to no purpose, as if his exit or his entrance made the jest. One person twirls him round by the flap of his coat, and another jerks him back again by the tail of his periwig. He is first a stupid servant, and is next metamorphosed, without taking his degrees, into an ignorant doctor. He changes his dress, but the same person remains. He has nothing to do but to run about like a dog to fetch and carry, or to fidget over the stage like the dolls that dance (to please the children) to the barrel-organs in the street. For our own parts, we had rather see Punch and the puppet-shew.

THE KING’S PROXY

_The Examiner._

_Aug. 27, 1815._

A new Opera was brought out at the Lyceum, last week, called The King’s Proxy; or Judge for yourself. If we were to judge for ourselves, we should conceive that Mr. Arnold must have dreamt this opera. It might be called the Manager’s Opera. It is just what might be supposed to occur to him, nodding and half asleep in his arm-chair after dinner, having fatigued himself all the morning with ransacking the refuse of the theatre for the last ten years. In this dozing state, it seems that from the wretched fragments strewed on the floor, the essence of four hundred rejected pieces flew up and took possession of his brain, with all that is thread-bare in plot, lifeless in wit, and sickly in sentiment. Plato, in one of his immortal dialogues, supposes a man to be shut up in a cave with his back to the light, so that he sees nothing but the shadows of men passing and repassing on the wall of his prison. The Manager of the Lyceum Theatre appears to be much in the same situation. He does not get a single glimpse of life or nature, but as he has seen it represented on his own boards, or conned it over in his manuscripts. The apparitions of gilded sceptres, painted groves and castles, wandering damsels, cruel fathers and tender lovers, float in incessant confusion before him. His characters are the shadows of a shade; but he keeps a very exact inventory of his scenery and dresses, and can always command the orchestra.

Mr. Arnold may be safely placed at the head of a very prevailing class of poets. He writes with the fewest ideas possible; his meaning is more nicely balanced between sense and nonsense, than that of any of his competitors; he succeeds from the perfect insignificance of his pretensions, and fails to offend through downright imbecility. The story of the present piece, (built on the well-known tradition of the Saxon King who was deceived by one of his courtiers in the choice of his wife), afforded ample scope for striking situation and effect; but Mr. Arnold has perfectly neutralised all interest in it. In this he was successfully seconded by those able associates, Mr. and Mrs. T. Cooke, Mr. Pyne, Mr. Wallack, by the sturdy pathos of Fawcett, and Miss Poole’s elegant dishabille. One proof of talent the author has shewn, we allow—and that is, he has contrived to make Miss Kelly disagreeable in the part of Editha. The only good thing in the play was a dance by Miss Luppino and Miss C. Bristow.

THE MAID AND THE MAGPIE

_The Examiner._

_Sept. 3, 1815._

A piece has been brought out at the Lyceum, called the Maid and the Magpie, translated from the French, and said to be founded on a true story of a girl having been condemned for a theft, which was discovered after her death to have been committed by a magpie. The catastrophe is here altered. The play itself is a very delightful little piece. It unites a great deal of lightness and gaiety with an equal degree of interest. The dialogue is kept up with spirit, and the story never flags. The incidents, though numerous and complicated with a number of minute circumstances, are very clearly and artfully connected together. The spirit of the French stage is manifest through the whole performance, as well as its superiority to the general run of our present dramatic productions. The superiority of our old comedy to the French (if we make the single exception of Moliere) is to be traced to the greater variety and originality of our national characters. The French, however, have the advantage of us in playing with the common-place surface of comedy, in the harlequinade of surprises and escapes, in the easy gaiety of the dialogue, and in the delineation of character, neither insipid nor overcharged.

The whole piece was excellently cast. Miss Kelly was the life of it. Oxberry made a very good Jew. Mrs. Harlowe was an excellent representative of the busy, bustling, scolding housewife; and Mr. Gattie played the Justice of the Peace with good emphasis and discretion. The humour of this last actor, if not exceedingly powerful, is always natural and easy. Knight did not make so much of his part as he usually does.

THE HYPOCRITE

_The Examiner._

(_Drury-Lane_) _Sept. 17, 1815._

The Tartuffe, the original of the Hypocrite, is a play that we do not very well understand. Still less do we understand the Hypocrite, which is taken from it. In the former, the glaring improbability of the plot, the absurdity of a man’s imposing on the credulity of another in spite of the evidence of his senses, and without any proof of the sincerity of a religious charlatan but his own professions, is carried off by long formal speeches and dull pompous casuistry. We find our patience tired out, and our understanding perplexed, as if we were sitting by in a court of law. If there is nothing of nature, at least there is enough of art, in the French play. But in the Hypocrite (we mean the principal character itself), there is neither the one nor the other. Tartuffe is a plausible, fair-spoken, long-winded knave, who if he does not convince, confounds his auditors.

In the Hypocrite of Bickerstaff, the insidious, fawning, sophistical, accomplished French Abbé is modernised into a low-lived, canting, impudent Methodist preacher; and this was the character which Mr. Dowton represented, we must say, too well. Dr. Cantwell is a sturdy beggar, and nothing more: he is not an impostor, but a bully. There is not in any thing that he says or does, in his looks, words or actions, the least reason that Sir John Lambert should admit him into his house and friendship, suffer him to make love to his wife and daughter, disinherit his son in his favour, and refuse to listen to any insinuation or proof offered against the virtue and piety of his treacherous inmate. In the manners and institutions of the old French _regime_, there was something to account for the blind ascendancy acquired by the good priest over his benefactor, who might have submitted to be cuckolded, robbed, cheated, and insulted, as a tacit proof of his religion and loyalty. The inquisitorial power exercised by the Church was then so great, that a man who refused, to be priest-ridden, might very soon be suspected of designs against the state. This is at least the best account we can give of the tameness of Orgon. But in this country, nothing of the kind could happen. A fellow like Dr. Cantwell could only have got admittance into the kitchen of Sir John Lambert—or to the ear of old Lady Lambert. The animal magnetism of such spiritual guides, is with us directed against the weaker nerves of our female devotees.

We discovered nothing in Mr. Dowton’s manner of giving the part to redeem its original improbability, or gloss over its obvious deformity. His locks are combed down smooth over his shoulders; but he does not sufficiently ‘sleek o’er his rugged looks.’ His tones, except where he assumes the whining twang of the conventicle, are harsh and abrupt. He sometimes exposes his true character prematurely and unnecessarily, as where he is sent to Charlotte with a message from her father. He is a very vulgar, coarse, _substantial_ hypocrite. His hypocrisy appears to us of that kind which arises from ignorance and grossness, without any thing of refinement or ability, which yet the character requires. The cringing, subtle, accomplished master-villain, the man of talent and of the world, was wanting. It is, in a word, just that sort of hypocrisy which might supply a lazy adventurer in the place of work, which he might live and get fat upon, but which would not enable him to conduct plots and conspiracies in high life. We do not say that the fault is in Mr. Dowton. The author has attempted to amalgamate two contradictory characters, by engrafting our vulgar Methodist on the courtly French impostor; and the error could not perhaps be remedied in the performance. The only scene which struck us as in Mr. Dowton’s best manner, as truly masterly, was that in which he listens with such profound indifference and unmoved gravity to the harangue of Mawworm. Mr. Dowton’s general excellence is in hearty ebullitions of generous and natural feeling, or in a certain swelling pride and vain glorious exaggerated ostentation, as in Major Sturgeon, and not in constrained and artificial characters.

Mawworm, which is a purely local and national caricature, was admirably personated by Oxberry. Mrs. Sparks’s old Lady Lambert, is, we think, one of the finest exhibitions of character on the stage. The attention which she pays to Dr. Cantwell, her expression of face and her fixed uplifted hands, were a picture which Hogarth might have copied. The effects of the _spirit_ in reviving the withered ardour of youth, and giving a second birth to forgotten raptures, were never better exemplified. Mrs. Orger played young Lady Lambert as well as the equivocal nature of the part would admit; and Miss Kelly was as lively and interesting as usual in Charlotte. Of Mr. Wallack we cannot speak so favourably as some of our contemporaries. This gentleman ‘has honours thrust upon him’ which he does not deserve, and which, we should think, he does not wish. He has been declared, by the first authority, to stand at the head of his profession in the line of genteel comedy. It is usual, indeed, to congratulate us on the accession of Mr. Wallack at the expence of Mr. Decamp, but it is escaping from Scylla to Charybdis. We are glad to have parted with Mr. Decamp, and should not be inconsolable for the loss of Mr. Wallack.

The best thing we remember in Mr. Coleridge’s tragedy of Remorse, and which gave the greatest satisfaction to the audience, was that part in which Decamp was precipitated into a deep pit, from which, by the elaborate description which the poet had given of it, it was plainly impossible he should ever rise again. If Mr. Wallack is puffed off and stuck at the top of his profession at this unmerciful rate, it would almost induce us to wish Mr. Coleridge to write another tragedy, to dispose of him in the same way as his predecessor.

MR. EDWARDS’S RICHARD III

_The Examiner._

_Oct. 1, 1815._

A Mr. Edwards, who has occasionally played at private theatricals, appeared at Covent-Garden Theatre in the character of Richard the Third. It was one of those painful failures, for which we are so often indebted to the managers. How these profound judges, who exercise ‘sole sway and sovereignty’ over this department of the public amusements, who have it in their power to admit or reject without appeal, whose whole lives have been occupied in this one subject, and whose interest (to say nothing of their reputation) must prompt them to use their very best judgment in deciding on the pretensions of the candidates for public favour, should yet be so completely ignorant of their profession, as to seem not to know the difference between the _best_ and the _worst_, and frequently to bring forward in the most arduous characters, persons whom the meanest critic in the pit immediately perceives to be totally disqualified for the part they have undertaken—is a problem which there would be some difficulty in solving. It might suggest to us also, a passing suspicion that the same discreet arbiters of taste suppress real excellence in the same manner as they obtrude incapacity on the notice of the public, if genius were not a thing so much rarer than the want of it.

If Mr. Edwards had shewn an extreme ignorance of the author, but had possessed the peculiar theatrical requisites of person, voice, and manner, we should not have been surprised at the managers having been deceived by imposing appearances. But Mr. Edwards failed, less from a misapprehension of his part, than from an entire defect of power to execute it. If every word had been uttered with perfect propriety (which however was very far from being the case) his gestures and manner would have made it ridiculous. Of personal defects of this kind, a man cannot be a judge of himself; and his friends will not tell him. The managers of a play-house are the only persons who can screen any individual, possessed with an unfortunate theatrical _mania_, from exposing himself to public mortification and disgrace for the want of those professional qualifications of which they are supposed to be infallible judges.

At the same Theatre, a lady of the name of Hughes has been brought out in Mandane, in the favourite Opera of Artaxerxes—we should hope, not in the place of Miss Stephens. We do not say this for the sake of any invidious comparison, but for our own sakes, and for the sake of the public. Miss Hughes is, we believe, a very accomplished singer, with a fine and flexible voice, with considerable knowledge and execution. But where is the sweetness, the simplicity, the melting soul of music? There was a voluptuous delicacy, a _naiveté_ in Miss Stephens’s singing, which we have never heard before nor since, and of which we should be loth to be deprived. Her songs in Mandane lingered on the ear like an involuntary echo to the music—as if the sentiment were blended with and trembled on her voice. This was particularly the case in the two delightful airs, ‘If o’er the cruel tyrant love,’ and ‘Let not rage thy bosom firing.’ In the former of these, the notes faultered and fell from her lips like drops of dew from surcharged flowers. If it is impossible to be a judge of music without understanding it as a science, it is still more impossible to be so without understanding the sentiment it is intended to convey. Miss Hughes declaimed and acted these two songs, instead of singing them. She lisps, and smiles, and bows, and overdoes her part constantly. We do not think Mandane is at all the heroine she represents her—or, if she is, we do not wish to see her. This lady would do much better at the Opera.

Mr. Duruset sung ‘Fair Semira’ with taste and feeling. We wish, in hearing the song ‘In infancy our hope and fears,’ we could have forgotten Miss Rennell’s simple, but sustained and impressive execution of it.—Mr. Taylor played Arbaces, instead of Mr. Incledon.

LOVERS’ VOWS

_The Examiner._

_October 8, 1815._

Lovers’ Vows has been brought forward at Drury-Lane Theatre, and a young lady of the name of Mardyn has appeared in the character of Amelia Wildenheim. Much has been said in her praise, and with a great deal of justice. Her face is handsome, and her figure is good, bordering (but not too much), on _embonpoint_. There is, also, a full luscious sweetness in her voice, which was in harmony with the sentiments she had to express. The whole of this play, which is of German origin, carries the romantic in sentiment and story to the extreme verge of decency as well as probability. The character of Amelia Wildenheim is its principal charm. The open, undisguised simplicity of this character is, however, so enthusiastically extravagant, as to excite some little surprise and incredulity on an English stage. The portrait is too naked, but still it is the nakedness of innocence. She lets us see into the bottom of her heart, but there is nothing there which she need wish to disguise. Mrs. Mardyn did the part very delightfully—with great spirit, truth, and feeling. She, perhaps, gave it a greater maturity of consciousness than it is supposed to possess. Her action is, in general, graceful and easy, but her movements were, at times, too youthful and unrestrained, and too much like _waltzing_.

Mrs. Glover and Mr. Pope did ample justice to the principal _moral_ characters in the drama; and we were perfectly satisfied with Mr. Wallack in Anhalt, the tutor and lover of Amelia. Some of the situations in this popular play (let the critics say what they will of their extravagance), are very affecting, and we will venture our opinion, that more tears were shed on this one occasion, than there would be at the representation of Hamlet, Othello, Lear, and Macbeth, for a whole season. This is not the fault of Shakespeare, but neither is it the fault of Kotzebue.

Mr. Dowton came out for the first time in the character of Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice. Our own expectations were not raised very high on this occasion, and they were not disappointed. All the first part of the character, the habitual malignity of Shylock, his keen sarcasms and general invectives, were fully understood, and given with equal force and discrimination. His manner of turning the bond into a ‘merry jest,’ and his ironical indifference about it, were an improvement which Mr. Dowton had borrowed from the comic art. But when the character is brought into action, that is, when the passions are let loose, and excited to the highest pitch of malignity, joy, or agony, he failed, not merely from the breaking down of his voice, but from the want of that movement and tide of passion, which overcomes every external disadvantage, and bears down every thing in its course. We think Mr. Dowton was wrong in several of his conceptions in the trial scene and other places, by attempting too many of those significant distinctions, which are only natural and proper when the mind remains in its ordinary state, and in entire possession of its faculties. Passion requires the broadest and fullest manner possible. In fine, Mr. Dowton gave only the prosaic side of the character of Shylock, without the poetical colouring which belongs to it and is the essence of tragic acting. Mr. Lovegrove was admirable in Launcelot Gobbo. The scene between him and Wewitzer, as Old Gobbo, was one of the richest we have seen for a long time. Pope was respectable as Antonio. Mr. Penley’s Gratiano was more remarkable for an appearance of folly than of gaiety.

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

_The Examiner._

(_Covent Garden_) _October 15, 1815._

Why can we not always be young, and seeing the School for Scandal? This play used to be one of our great theatrical treats in our early play-going days. What would we not give to see it once more, as it was then acted, and with the same feelings with which we saw it then? Not one of our old favourites is left, except little Simmons, who only served to put us in mind more strongly of what we have lost! Genteel comedy cannot be acted at present. Little Moses, the money-lender, was within a hair’s-breadth of being the only person in the piece who had the appearance or manners of a gentleman. There was a _retenu_ in the conduct of his cane and hat, a precision of dress and costume, an idiomatic peculiarity of tone, an exact propriety both in his gestures and sentiments, which reminded us of the good old times when every one belonged to a marked class in society, and maintained himself in his characteristic absurdities by a _cheveux-de-fris_ of prejudices, forms, and ceremonies. Why do our patriots and politicians rave for ever about the restoration of the good old times? Till they can persuade the beaux in Bond-street to resume their swords and bag-wigs, they will never succeed.

When we go to see a Comedy of the past age acted on the modern stage, we too almost begin to ‘cast some longing, lingering looks behind,’ at the departed sword-knots and toupees of the age of Louis XIV. We never saw a play more completely vulgarised in the acting than this. What shall we say of Fawcett, who played Sir Peter Teazle with such formidable breadth of shoulders and strength of lungs? Or to Mrs. Dobbs, who made such a pretty, insipid little rustic of Lady Teazle, shewing her teeth like the painted dolls in a peruke-maker’s window? Or to Mrs. Gibbs, who converted the delicacy of Mrs. Candour into the coarseness of a bar-maid? Or to Mr. Blanchard, whose face looked so red, and his eyes so fierce in Old Crabtree, and who seemed to have mistaken one of his stable-boys for his nephew, Sir Benjamin? Or (not to speak it profanely) to Mr. Young’s Joseph Surface? Never was there a less prepossessing hypocrite. Mr. Young, indeed, puts on a long, disagreeable, whining face, but he does not hide the accomplished, plausible villain beneath it. Jack Palmer was the man. No one ever came so near the idea of what the women call ‘a fine man.’ With what an air he trod the stage!—With what pomp he handed Lady Teazle to a chair! With what elaborate duplicity he knelt to Maria! Mr. Young ought never to condescend to play comedy, nor aspire to play tragedy. Sentimental pantomime is his forte. Charles Kemble made the best Charles Surface we have seen. He acted this difficult character (difficult because it requires a union of so many requisites, a good face and figure, easy manners, evident good nature, animation and sensibility) in such a way as to make it truly interesting and delightful. The only fault we can find with him is, that he was not well dressed.—Mrs. Faucit was respectable in Lady Sneerwell. Mr. Terry, as Sir Oliver Surface, wore a great coat with yellow buttons. Mr. Farley, in Trip, had a large bouquet: and why should we refuse to do justice to Mr. Claremont, who was dressed in black? The School for Scandal is one of the best Comedies in our language (a language abounding in good Comedies), and it deserves either to be well acted, or not acted at all. The wit is inferior to Congreve’s, and the allusions much coarser. Its great excellence is in the invention of comic situations,[35] and the lucky contrast of different characters. The satirical conversation at Lady Sneerwell’s, is an indifferent imitation of The Way of the World, and Sir Benjamin Backbite a foolish superfluity from the older comedy. He did not need the aid of Mr. Tokely to make him ridiculous. We have already spoken well of this actor’s talents for low humour, but if he wishes to remain on the establishment, we are afraid he must keep in the kitchen.

MRS. ALSOP’S ROSALIND

_The Examiner._

_October 22, 1815._

A Lady of the name of Alsop, a daughter of Mrs. Jordan (by a former husband), has appeared at Covent-Garden Theatre, in the character of Rosalind. Not only the circumstance of her relationship to that excellent actress, but the accounts in the papers, raised our curiosity and expectations very high. We were unwillingly disappointed. The truth is, Mrs. Alsop is a very nice little woman, who acts her part very sensibly and cleverly, and with a certain degree of arch humour, but ‘no more like her mother than we to Hercules.’ When we say this, we mean no disparagement to this lady’s talents, who is a real acquisition to the stage in correct and chaste acting, but simply to prevent comparisons, which can only end in disappointment. Mrs. Alsop would make a better Celia than Rosalind. Mrs. Jordan’s excellences were all natural to her. It was not as an actress but as herself, that she charmed every one. Nature had formed her in her most prodigal humour: and when nature is in the humour to make a woman all that is delightful, she does it most effectually. Mrs. Jordan was the same in all her characters, and inimitable in all of them, because there was no one else like her. Her face, her tones, her manner were irresistible. Her smile had the effect of sunshine, and her laugh did one good to hear it. Her voice was eloquence itself: it seemed as if her heart was always at her mouth. She was all gaiety, openness, and good-nature. She rioted in her fine animal spirits, and gave more pleasure than any other actress, because she had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself. Her Nell—but we will not tantalize ourselves or our readers. Mrs. Alsop has nothing luxurious about her, and Mrs. Jordan was nothing else. Her voice is clear and articulate, but not rich or flowing. In person she is small, and her face is not prepossessing. Her delivery of the speeches was correct and excellent as far as it went, but without much richness or power. Lively good sense is what she really possesses. She also sung the Cuckoo Song very pleasingly.

Charles Kemble made an interesting Orlando. Mr. Young spoke the ‘Seven Ages’ with propriety, and some effect. Mr. Fawcett’s Touchstone was decent; and Mrs. Gibbs in Audrey, the very thing itself.