Chapter XVII: Preface (8)

The pathos in the principal character, Kitely, is ‘as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.’ There is, however, a certain good sense, discrimination, or _logic of passion_ in the part, which Mr. Kean pointed in such a way as to give considerable force to it. In the scene where he is about to confide the secret of his jealousy to his servant, Thomas, he was exceedingly happy in the working himself up to the execution of his design, and in the repeated failure of his resolution. The reconciliation-scene with his wife had great spirit, where he tells her, to shew his confidence, that ‘she may sing, may go to balls, may dance,’ and the interruption of this sudden tide of concession with the restriction—‘though I had rather you did not do all this’—was a master-stroke. It was perhaps the first time a parenthesis was ever spoken on the stage as it ought to be. Mr. Kean certainly often repeats this artifice of abrupt transition in the tones in which he expresses different passions, and still it always pleases,—we suppose, because it is natural. This gentleman is not only a good actor in himself, but he is the cause of good acting in others. The whole play was got up very effectually. Considerable praise is due to the industry and talent shewn by Mr. Harley, in Captain Bobadil. He did his best in it, and that was not ill. He delivered the Captain’s well-known proposal for the pacification of Europe, by killing twenty of them each his man a day, with good emphasis and discretion. Bobadil is undoubtedly the hero of the piece; his extravagant affectation carries the sympathy of the audience along with it, and his final defeat and exposure, though exceedingly humorous, is the only affecting circumstance in the play. Mr. Harley’s fault in this and other characters is, that he too frequently assumes mechanical expressions of countenance and bye-tones of humour, which have not any thing to do with the individual part. Mr. Hughes personified Master Matthew to the life: he appeared ‘like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.’ Munden did Brainworm with laudable alacrity. Oxberry’s Master Stephen was very happily hit off; nobody plays the traditional fool of the English stage so well; he seems not only foolish, but fond of folly. The two young gentlemen, Master Well-bred and Master Edward Knowell, were the only insipid characters.

MRS. SIDDONS

_The Examiner._

_June 16, 1816._

Players should be immortal, if their own wishes or ours could make them so; but they are not. They not only die like other people, but like other people they cease to be young, and are no longer themselves, even while living. Their health, strength, beauty, voice, fails them; nor can they, without these advantages, perform the same feats, or command the same applause that they did when possessed of them. It is the common lot: players are only _not_ exempt from it. Mrs. Siddons retired once from the stage: why should she return to it again? She cannot retire from it twice with dignity; and yet it is to be wished that she should do all things with dignity. Any loss of reputation to her, is a loss to the world. Has she not had enough of glory? The homage she has received is greater than that which is paid to Queens. The enthusiasm she excited had something idolatrous about it; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. She raised Tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of elder time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was Tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind. She was not only the idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultuous shouts of the pit in breathless expectation, and quenched the blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, through long years of solitude, her face has shone as if an eye had appeared from heaven; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs. Siddons, was an event in every one’s life; and does she think we have forgot her? Or would she remind us of herself by shewing us what _she was not_? Or is she to continue on the stage to the very last, till all her grace and all her grandeur gone, shall leave behind them only a melancholy blank? Or is she merely to be played off as ‘the baby of a girl’ for a few nights?—‘Rather than so,’ come, Genius of Gil Blas, thou that didst inspire him in an evil hour to perform his promise to the Archbishop of Grenada, ‘and champion us to the utterance’ of what we think on this occasion.

It is said that the Princess Charlotte has expressed a desire to see Mrs. Siddons in her best parts, and this, it is said, is a thing highly desirable. We do not know that the Princess has expressed any such wish, and we shall suppose that she has not, because we do not think it altogether a reasonable one. If the Princess Charlotte had expressed a wish to see Mr. Garrick, this would have been a thing highly desirable, but it would have been impossible; or if she had desired to see Mrs. Siddons _in her best days_, it would have been equally so; and yet without this, we do not think it desirable that she should see her at all. It is said to be desirable that a Princess should have a taste for the Fine Arts, and that this is best promoted by seeing the highest models of perfection. But it is of the first importance for Princes to acquire a taste for what is reasonable: and the second thing which it is desirable they should acquire, is a deference to public opinion: and we think neither of these objects likely to be promoted in the way proposed. If it was reasonable that Mrs. Siddons should retire from the stage three years ago, certainly those reasons have not diminished since, nor do we think Mrs. Siddons would consult what is due to her powers or her fame, in commencing a new career. If it is only intended that she should act a few nights in the presence of a particular person, this might be done as well in private. To all other applications she should answer—‘Leave me to my repose.’

Mrs. Siddons always spoke as slow as she ought: she now speaks slower than she did. ‘The line too labours, and the words move slow.’ The machinery of the voice seems too ponderous for the power that wields it. There is too long a pause between each sentence, and between each word in each sentence. There is too much preparation. The stage waits for her. In the sleeping scene, she produced a different impression from what we expected. It was more laboured, and less natural. In coming on formerly, her eyes were open, but the sense was shut. She was like a person bewildered, and unconscious of what she did. She moved her lips involuntarily; all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. At present she acts the part more with a view to effect. She repeats the action when she says, ‘I tell you he cannot rise from his grave,’ with both hands sawing the air, in the style of parliamentary oratory, the worst of all others. There was none of this weight or energy in the way she did the scene the first time we saw her, twenty years ago. She glided on and off the stage almost like an apparition. In the close of the banquet scene, Mrs. Siddons condescended to an imitation which we were sorry for. She said, ‘Go, go,’ in the hurried familiar tone of common life, in the manner of Mr. Kean, and without any of that sustained and graceful spirit of conciliation towards her guests, which used to characterise her mode of doing it. Lastly, if Mrs. Siddons has to leave the stage again, Mr. Horace Twiss will write another farewell address for her: if she continues on it, we shall have to criticise her performances. We know which of these two evils we shall think the greatest.

Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Kemble’s performance of Macbeth. He was ‘himself again,’ and more than himself. His action was decided, his voice audible. His tones had occasionally indeed a learned quaintness, like the colouring of Poussin; but the effect of the whole was fine. His action in delivering the speech, ‘To-morrow and to-morrow,’ was particularly striking and expressive, as if he had stumbled by an accident on fate, and was baffled by the impenetrable obscurity of the future.—In that prodigious prosing paper, the Times, which seems to be written as well as printed by a steam-engine, Mr. Kemble is compared to the ruin of a magnificent temple, in which the divinity still resides. This is not the case. The temple is unimpaired; but the divinity is sometimes from home.

NEW ENGLISH OPERA-HOUSE

_The Examiner._

_June 23, 1816._

The New English Opera-House (late the Lyceum Theatre) in the Strand, opened on Saturday week. The carpenters are but just got out of it; and in our opinion they have made but an indifferent piece of work of it. It consists of lobbies and vacant spaces. The three tiers of boxes are raised so high above one another, that the house would look empty even if it were full, and at present it is not full, but empty. The second gallery, for fear of its crowding on the first, is thrown back to such an unconscionable height, that it seems like a balcony projecting from some other building, where the spectators do not pay for peeping. All this no doubt promotes the circulation of air, and keeps the Theatre cool and comfortable. Mr. Arnold’s philosophy may be right, but our prejudices are strongly against it. Our notions of a summer theatre are, that it should look _smoking hot_, and feel more like a warm bath than a well. We like to see a summer theatre as crowded as a winter one, so that a breath of air is a luxury. We like to see the well-dressed company in the boxes languidly silent, and to hear the Gods noisy and quarrelling for want of room and breath—the cries of ‘Throw him over!’ becoming more loud and frequent as the weather gets farther on into the dog-days. We like all this, because we are used to it, and are as obstinately attached to old abuses in matters of amusement, as kings, judges, and legislators are in state affairs.

The New Theatre opened with Up all Night, or the Smugglers’ Cave; a piece admirably well adapted as a succedaneum for keeping the house cool and airy. The third night there was nobody there. To say the truth, we never saw a duller performance. The Actors whom the Manager has got together, are both new and strange. They are most of them recruits from the country, and of that description which is known by the vulgar appellation of the _awkward squad_. Mr. Russell (from Edinburgh, not our old friend Jerry Sneak) is the only one amongst them who understands his exercise. Mr. Short and Mr. Isaacs are singers, and we fear not good ones. Mr. Short has white teeth, and Mr. Isaacs black eyes. We do not like the name of Mr. Huckel. There is also a Mrs. Henley, who plays the fat Landlady in the Beehive, of the size of life.—Mr. Lancaster, who played Filch in the Beggars’ Opera, and Mrs. W. Penson, who played the part of Lucy Lockitt tolerably, and looked it intolerably well. There is also Mr. Bartley, who is Stage-manager, and who threatens to be very prominent this season. There is also, from the old corps, Wrench, the easiest of actors; and there is Fanny Kelly, who after all, is not herself a whole company. We miss little Knight, and several other of our summer friends.

_The Winter Theatres._—We must, we suppose, for the present, take our leave of the winter performances. We lately saw at Covent-Garden Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke, in the School of Reform, of which we had heard a good deal, and which fully justified all that we had heard of its excellence. It is one of the most natural and powerful pieces of acting on the stage; it is the sublime of low tragedy. We should like to see any body do it better. The scene where, being brought before Lord Avondale as a robber, he discovers him to have been formerly an accomplice in villainy; that in which he gives an account of the death of his father, and goes off the stage calling for ‘Brandy, brandy!’ and that in which he finds this same father, whom he had supposed dead, alive again, are, in our judgment, master-pieces both of pathos and grandeur. We do not think all excellence is confined to walking upon stilts. We conceive that Mr. Emery shewed about as much genius in this part, which he performed for his benefit, as Mr. Liston did afterwards in singing the song of Ti, tum, ti; we cannot say more of it. Genius appears to us to be a very _unclassical_ quality. There is but a little of it in the world, but what there is, is always unlike itself and every thing else. Your imitators of the tragic, epic, and grand style, may be multiplied to any extent, as we raise regiments of grenadiers.

Mrs. Mardyn, after an absence of some weeks, has appeared again at Drury-Lane, in the new part of the Irish Widow, the charming Widow Brady; and a most delightful representative she made of her—full of life and spirit, well-made, handsome, and good-natured. If it is a fault to be handsome, Mrs. Mardyn certainly deserves to be hissed off the stage.

THE JEALOUS WIFE

_The Examiner._

_June 30, 1816._

The performances at Drury-Lane Theatre closed for the season on Friday evening last, with the Jealous Wife, Sylvester Daggerwood, and the Mayor of Garratt. After the play Mr. Rae came forward, and in a neat address, not ill delivered, returned thanks to the public, in the name of the Managers and Performers, for the success with which their endeavours to afford rational amusement and to sustain the legitimate drama, had been attended.

The play-bills had announced Mrs. Davison for the part of Mrs. Oakley, in the Jealous Wife. We have seen nothing of this Lady of late, except when she personated the Comic Muse (for one night only), on the second centenary of Shakespear’s death. The glimpses we catch of her are, in one sense,

‘Like angels’ visits, short, and far between.’

She was absent on the present occasion, and Mrs. Glover took the part of the well-drawn heroine of Colman’s amusing and very instructive comedy. Mrs. Glover was not quite at home in the part. She represented the passions of the woman, but not the manners of the fine lady. She succeeds best in grave or violent parts, and has very little of the playful or delicate in her acting. If we were to hazard a general epithet for her style of performing, we should say that it amounts to the _formidable_; her expression of passion is too hysterical, and habitually reminds one of hartshorn and water. On great occasions she displays the fury of a lioness who has lost her young, and in playing a queen or princess, deluges the theatre with her voice. Her Quaker in Wild Oats, on the contrary, is an inimitable piece of quiet acting. The demureness of the character, which takes away all temptation to be boisterous, leaves the justness of her conception in full force: and the simplicity of her Quaker dress is most agreeably relieved by the _embonpoint_ of her person.

The comedy of the Jealous Wife was not upon the whole so well cast here as at Covent-Garden. Munden’s Sir Harry Beagle was not to our taste. It was vulgarity in double-heaped measure. The part itself is a gross caricature, and Munden’s playing caricature is something like _carrying coals to Newcastle_. Russell’s Lord Trinket was also a failure: he can only play a modern jockey Nobleman: Lord Trinket is a fop of the old school.

Mr. Harley played Sylvester Daggerwood, in the entertainment which followed, well enough to make us regret our old favourite Bannister, and attempted some imitations, (one of Matthews in particular) which were pleasant and lively, but not very like.

The acting of Dowton and Russell, in Major Sturgeon and Jerry Sneak, is well known to our readers: at least we would advise all those who have not seen it, to go and see this perfect exhibition of comic talent. The strut, the bluster, the hollow swaggering, and turkey-cock swell of the Major, and Jerry’s meekness, meanness, folly, good-nature, and hen-pecked air, are assuredly done to the life. The latter character is even better than the former, which is saying a bold word. Dowton’s art is only an imitation of art, of an affected or assumed character; but in Russell’s Jerry you see the very soul of nature, in a fellow that is ‘pigeon livered and lacks gall,’ laid open and anatomized. You can see that his heart is no bigger than a pin, and his head as soft as a pippin. His whole aspect is chilled and frightened as if he had been dipped in a pond, and yet he looks as if he would like to be snug and comfortable, if he durst. He smiles as if he would be friends with you upon any terms; and the tears come in his eyes because you will not let him. The tones of his voice are prophetic as the cuckoo’s undersong. His words are made of water-gruel. The scene in which he tries to make a confidant of the Major is great; and his song of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as melancholy as the Island itself. The reconciliation-scene with his wife, and his exclamation over her, ‘to think that I should make my Molly _veep_,’ are pathetic, if the last stage of human infirmity is so. This farce appears to us to be both moral and entertaining; yet it does not take. It is considered as an unjust satire on the city and the country at large, and there is a very frequent repetition of the word ‘nonsense,’ in the house during the performance. Mr. Dowton was even hissed, either from the upper boxes or gallery, in his speech recounting the marching of his corps ‘from Brentford to Ealing, and from Ealing to Acton;’ and several persons in the pit, who thought the whole _low_, were for going out. This shews well for the progress of civilisation. We suppose the manners described in the Mayor of Garratt have in the last forty years become obsolete, and the characters ideal: we have no longer either hen-pecked or brutal husbands, or domineering wives; the Miss Molly Jollops no longer wed Jerry Sneaks, or admire the brave Major Sturgeons on the other side of Temple Bar; all our soldiers have become heroes, and our magistrates respectable, and the farce of life is o’er!

THE MAN OF THE WORLD

_The Examiner._

_July 7, 1816._

We are glad to find the Haymarket Theatre re-opened with some good actors from the Winter Theatres, besides recruits. On Monday was played the Man of the World, Sir Pertinax MacSycophant by Mr. Terry. This part was lately performed by Mr. Bibby at Covent-Garden without success; and we apprehend that his failure was owing to the extreme purity and breadth of his Scotch accent. Mr. Terry avoided splitting on this rock, by sinking the Scotch brogue almost entirely, and thus this national caricature was softened into a more general and less offensive portrait of a common Man of the World. On the whole, Mr. Terry gave not only less of the costume and local colouring of the character, but less of the general force and spirit than the former gentleman. He however displayed his usual judgment and attention to his part, with less appearance of effort than he sometimes shews. If Mr. Terry would take rather less pains, he would be a better actor. He is exceedingly correct in the conception of his characters, but in the execution he often takes twice the time in bringing out his words that he ought, and lays double the emphasis on them that is necessary. In the present case, Mr. Terry, probably from feeling no great liking to his part, laid less stress on particular passages, and was more happy on that account. The scene in which he gives the account of his progress in life to his son Egerton, was one of the most effectual. Mrs. Glover’s Lady Rodolpha Lumbercourt had considerable spirit and archness, as well as force. Of the new performers in it we cannot speak very favourably. The young gentleman who played Sydney, a Mr. Baker, seems really a clergyman by profession, and to have left, rather imprudently, the prospect of a fellowship at Oxford or Cambridge. His voice and cadences are good; but they are fitter for the pulpit than the stage.

Mr. Watkinson, on Thursday played Sir Robert Bramble, in the Poor Gentleman, with a considerable share of that blunt native humour, and rustic gentility, which distinguish so large a class of characters on the English stage. We mean that sort of characters who usually appear in a brown bob-wig, and chocolate-coloured coat, with brass buttons. Of this class Mr. Watkinson, as far as we could judge on a first acquaintance, appears to be a very respectable, if not brilliant representative. A Miss Taylor made an elegant and interesting Emily, the daughter of the Poor Gentleman; and Mr. Foote played that personification of modern humanity, the Poor Gentleman himself. There is a tone of recitation in this actor’s delivery, perhaps not ill suited to the whining sentimentality of the parts he has to play, but which is very tiresome to the ear. We might say to him as Caesar did to some one, ‘Do you read or sing? If you sing, you sing very ill.’ We must not omit to mention the part of Miss Lætitia Macnab, which was performed to the life by a Mrs. Kennedy of Covent-Garden Theatre, whom we never saw here before, but whom we shall certainly remember. Her hoop-petticoats, flying lappets, high head-dress, face, voice, and figure, reminded us but too well of that obsolete class of antiquated maidens of old families that flourished about fifty years ago, who had no idea of any thing but the self-importance which they derived from their ancestors, and of the personal attractions which were to be found in the ridiculousness of their dress. The effect was as surprising as it was painful. It was as if Miss Macnab had come in person from the grave. It was like the restoration of the Bourbons!

After this melancholy casualty, we had the Agreeable Surprise. Mrs. Gibbs played Cowslip delightfully. Fawcett was exceedingly laughable in Lingo; and would have been more so, if he had played it with more gravity. Fawcett’s fault of late is, that he has not respect enough for his art. This is a pity; for his art is a very good art. At the scene between him and Mrs. Cheshire, (Mrs. Davenport), the house was in a roar. We never knew before that Lingo and Cowslip were descendants of Touchstone and Audrey. This is one of O’Keeffe’s best farces, and his farces are the best in the world except Moliere’s. O’Keeffe is (for he is still living) our English Moliere, and we here return him our most hearty thanks for all the hearty laughing he has given us. _C’est un bon garçon._ There are in the Agreeable Surprise some of the most irresistible _double entendres_ that can be conceived, and in Lingo’s superb replication, ‘A scholar! I was a master of scholars!’ he has hit the height of the ridiculous.

MISS MERRY’S MANDANE

_The Examiner._

_July 21, 1816._

A young lady whose name is Miss Merry, has appeared with great applause in the part of Mandane, in Artaxerxes, at the New English Opera. Miss Merry is not tall, but there is something not ungraceful in her person: her face, without being regular, has a pleasing expression in it; her action is good, and often spirited; and her voice is excellent. The songs she has to sing in this character are delightful, and she sung them very delightfully. Her timidity on the first night of her appearing was so great, as almost to prevent her from going on. But her apprehensions, though they lessened the power of her voice, did not take from its sweetness. She appears to possess very great taste and skill; and to have not only a fine voice, but (what many singers want) an ear for music. Her tones are mellow, true, and varied; sometimes exquisitely broken by light, fluttering half-notes—at other times reposing on a deep-murmuring bass. The general style of her singing is equable, and unaffected; yet in one or two passages, we thought she added some extraneous and unnecessary ornaments, and (for a precious note or two) lost the charm of the expression, by sacrificing simplicity to execution. This objection struck us most in the manner in which Miss Merry sung the beautiful air, ‘If o’er the cruel tyrant Love,’ which is an irresistible appeal to the sentiments, and seems, in its genuine simplicity, above all art. This song, and particularly the last lines, ‘What was my pride, is now my shame,’ &c. ought to be sung, as we have heard them sung, as if the notes fell from her lips like the liquid drops from the bending flower, and her voice fluttered and died away with the expiring conflict of passion in her bosom. If vocal music has an advantage over instrumental, it is, we imagine, in this very particular; in the immediate communication between the words and the expression they suggest, between the voice and the soul of the singer, which ought to mould every tone, whether deep or tender, according to the impulse of true passion. Miss Merry’s execution does not rest entirely upon the ground of expression: she is not always thinking of the subject. Her ‘Soldier tired,’ and ‘Let not rage thy bosom firing,’ were both admirable. Her voice has not the piercing softness of Miss Stephens’s, its clear crystalline qualities. Neither has her style of singing the same originality, and simple pathos. Miss Stephens’s voice and manner are her own: Miss Merry belongs to a class of singers, but that class is a very pleasing one, and she is at present at the head of it. She is an undoubted acquisition both to the New English Opera, and to the English stage.

Mr. Horn’s Arbaces was very fine. He sings always in tune, and in an admirable _sostenuto_ style. He keeps his voice (perhaps indeed) too much under him, and does not let it loose often enough. His manner of singing ‘Water parted from the sea’ was of this internal and suppressed character. Though this may be the feeling suggested by part of the words, yet certainly in other parts the voice ought to be thrown out, and as it were, go a journey, like the water’s course. Of the other performers we can say nothing favourable.

EXIT BY MISTAKE

_The Examiner._

_July 28, 1816._

We insert the following letter, which has been sent us, merely to show our impartiality:

‘MR. EDITOR,—I have been to see the new Comedy Exit by Mistake, at
the Theatre Royal Haymarket. As this piece is _sans_ moral and
_sans_ interest, I am surprised at its being called a _Comedy_, for
many of our old _Farces_ are more worthy of the name. Perhaps the
author fondly anticipated much pathos from Mrs. Kendal’s scene with
her son (Mr. Barnard), but it would have been much better if both
mother and son had been omitted, for the latter is a hot-headed
blockhead, who commits a most unjustifiable assault upon a
_stranger_, in a _stranger’s_ house, by turning him out, which gross
affront is in the last Act overlooked. In consequence of a letter
about Mr. Roland’s departure, accompanied by his will, it is
supposed he had departed from the _world_ instead of the _country_
where he was. This is the ‘_Exit by Mistake_,’ but the chief
mistakes arise from the _entrances_ of the performers. The executor
hearing that Roland (Mr. Terry) is alive and in town, goes to an inn
to meet him, but most unaccountably mistakes Mr. Rattletrap (Russel)
an actor just arrived from America, for his own friend, and even
calls the actor by the name of Rattletrap. Poor Mr. Roland, in order
to recover his property, inquires for an attorney, and is told
there’s one _below_. Soon after the executor enters, and though
dressed in a _brown_ coat, he is mistaken for an attorney. There are
other inferior mistakes in the piece, but the greatest mistake is
the author’s—for it is a Farce instead of a Comedy. As the
play-bills state, that this piece has since been applauded by
‘brilliant and crowded audiences,’ and that ‘no orders can be
admitted;’ the proprietors have no right to complain of their rival,
the Lyceum Theatre, except Mr. Arnold should produce a good Opera to
oppose this Farcical Comedy, and then the public will see the
utility of rival theatres. Mr. Tokely’s character in it (Crockery)
is the same which the same gentleman performs in the author’s ‘Love
and Gout,’ with this difference, that in one he is a dissatisfied
gentleman, and in the other a whining servant. Mr. Jones’s character
(Restless Absent) keeps him in motion the first two Acts, but in the
last he is quite stationary.

‘DRAMATICUS.

‘_July 25, 1816._’

We do not agree with Dramaticus on the subject of the piece, which
he so resolutely condemns. He puts us a little (though not much) in
mind of John Dennis, who drew his sword on the author of a
successful tragedy, without any other provocation. As to the title
of this play, to which our critic so vehemently objects, we leave
him to settle that point with the author. We do not judge of plays,
or of any thing else by their titles.

The writer says, the Proprietors of the Haymarket have no right to
complain, ‘except Mr. Arnold should produce a good Opera to oppose
this Farcical Comedy, and then the public will see the utility of
rival theatres.’ We wish Mr. Arnold would lose no time in convincing
the public. As we have not the same faith as our correspondent in
the power of rival theatres in screwing up the wits of their
opponents, we did not go to the new comedy of Exit by Mistake,
expecting either a profound moral or high interest; and so far we
were not disappointed. But with a good deal of absurdity, there is
some whim in it: there are several very tolerable puns in it, and a
sufficient stock of lively passing allusions. It is light and
laughable, and does well enough for a summer theatre. The part of
Crockery in particular is very droll, and to us quite new, for we
are not acquainted with ‘the dissatisfied gentleman,’ his
predecessor, in Love and Gout. Crockery is a foolish fat servant
(personated exceedingly well by Mr. Tokely) who complains that every
thing is altered since he went abroad with his master, ‘cries all
the way from Portsmouth, because the mile-stones are changed, and is
in despair because an old pigstye has been converted into a
dwelling-house.’ This whimpering, maudlin philosopher, is as
tenacious of innovation as the late Mr. Burke, and as great an
admirer of _the good old times_, as the editor of a modern Journal.
In one thing we agree with honest Crockery, where he does not like
to see the sign of the Duke of Marlborough’s head pulled down for
the Duke of Wellington’s; in the first place, because the Duke of
Marlborough had a very good head, and the Duke of Wellington’s is a
mere sign-post; in the second, because we think it a more
meritorious act to drive out the English Bourbons, the Stuarts, than
to restore the French Stuarts, the Bourbons, to the throne of
_their_ ancestors. So much for the politics of the Theatre.

There is another new piece, A Man in Mourning for Himself, come out
at the new English Theatre, which, whether it is Comedy, Opera, or
Farce, we do not know. But—_de mortuis nil nisi bonum_. So let it
pass. But there is a Mr. Herring in it, whom we cannot pass by
without notice. He is the oddest fish that has lately been landed on
the stage. We are to thank Mr. Arnold for bringing him ashore. This
_did_ require some sagacity, some discrimination. We never saw any
thing more amphibious,—with coat-pockets in the shape of fins, and a
jowl like gills with the hook just taken out. He flounders and
flounces upon the stage with the airs and genius of a Dutch plaise.
His person detonates with boisterous wit and humour, and his voice
goes off like a cracker near a sounding-board. With these
preparatory qualifications, he played a valet who is his own master;
and the jumble of high life below stairs was very complete. This
gentleman’s gentleman was very coarse and very mawkish; very
blustering and very sheepish; and runs his head into scrapes without
the slightest suspicion. We have never seen Mr. Herring before; but
on this occasion he was, according to our tastes, in fine pickle and
preservation.

The Beggar’s Opera was performed on Thursday, when Miss Merry
appeared in the part of Polly, and Mr. Horn as Captain Macheath.
Miss Merry displayed great sweetness and taste in most of the songs,
and her acting was pleasing, though she laboured under considerable
embarrassment. We liked her ‘Ponder well,’ and ‘My all’s in my
possession,’ the best. She seemed to us not to be quite perfect
either in ‘Cease your funning,’ or in the exquisite little air of
‘He so teased me.’ We have no doubt, however, that she will make in
time a very interesting representative of one of the most
interesting characters on the stage, for we hardly know any
character more artless and amiable than Gay’s Polly, except perhaps
Shakespear’s Imogen. And Polly has the advantage on the stage, for
she _may be sung_, but Imogen cannot be _acted_.

Mr. Horn’s Macheath was much better than what we have lately seen.
He sung the songs well, with a little too much ornament for the
profession of the Captain: and his air and manner, though they did
not fall into the common error of vulgarity, were rather too precise
and finical. Macheath should be a fine man and a gentleman, but he
should be one of God Almighty’s gentlemen, not a gentleman of the
black rod. His gallantry and good-breeding should arise from
impulse, not from rule; not from the trammels of education, but from
a soul generous, courageous, good-natured, aspiring, amorous. The
class of the character is very difficult to hit. It is something
between gusto and slang, like port-wine and brandy mixed. It is not
the mere gentleman that should be represented, but the blackguard
sublimated into the gentleman. This character is qualified in a
highwayman, as it is qualified in a prince. We hope this is not a
libel. Miss Kelly’s Lucy was excellent. She is worthy to act Gay.

THE ITALIAN OPERA

_The Examiner._

(_King’s Theatre_) _August 4, 1816._

In Schlegel’s work on the Drama, there are the following remarks on
the nature of the Opera:

‘In Tragedy the chief object is the poetry, and every other thing is
subordinate to it; but in the Opera, the poetry is merely an
accessary, the means of connecting the different parts together, and
it is almost buried under its associates. The best prescription for
the composition of the text of an Opera is to give a poetical
sketch, which may be afterwards filled up and coloured by the other
arts. This anarchy of the arts, where music, dancing, and decoration
endeavour to surpass each other by the most profuse display of
dazzling charms, constitutes the very essence of the Opera. What
sort of opera music would it be, where the words should receive a
mere rhythmical accompaniment of the simplest modulations? The
fantastic magic of the Opera consists altogether in the luxurious
competition of the different means, and in the perplexity of an
overflowing superfluity. This would at once be destroyed by an
approximation to the severity of the ancient taste in any one point,
even in that of costume; for the contrast would render the variety
in all the other departments quite insupportable. The costume of the
Opera ought to be dazzling, and overladen with ornaments; and hence
many things which have been censured as unnatural, such as
exhibiting heroes warbling and trilling in the excess of
despondency, are perfectly justifiable. This fairy world is not
peopled by real men, but by a singular kind of singing creatures.
Neither is it any disadvantage to us, that the Opera is conveyed in
a language which is not generally understood; the text is altogether
lost in the music, and the language, the most harmonious and
musical, and which contains the greatest number of open vowels and
distinct accents for recitative, is therefore the best.’

The foregoing remarks give the best account we have seen of that
splendid exhibition, the Italian Opera. These German critics can
explain every thing, and upon any given occasion, _make the worse
appear the better reason_. Their theories are always at variance
with common sense, and we shall not in the present instance,
undertake to decide between them. There is one thing, however, which
we will venture to decide, which is, that the feelings of the
English people must undergo some very elaborate process
(metaphysical or practical) before they are thoroughly reconciled to
this union of different elements, the consistency and harmony of
which depends on their contradiction and discord. We take it, the
English are so far from being an opera-going, that they are not even
a play-going people, from constitution. You can hardly get them to
speak their sentiments, much less to sing them, or to hear them sung
with any real sympathy. The boxes, splendid as they are, and
splendid as the appearance of those in them is, do not breathe a
spirit of enjoyment. They are rather like the sick wards of luxury
and idleness, where people of a certain class are condemned to
perform the quarantine of fashion for the evening. The rest of the
spectators are sulky and self-important, and the only idea which
each person has in his head, seems to be that he is at the opera.
Little interest is shewn in the singing or dancing, little pleasure
appears to be derived from either, and the audience seem only to be
stunned and stupified with wonder. The satisfaction which the
English feel in this entertainment is very much _against the grain_.
They are a people, jealous of being pleased in any way but their
own.

We were particularly struck with the force of these remarks the
other evening in the gallery, where our fellow-countrymen seemed to
be only upon their good behaviour or self-defence against the
ill-behaviour of others, some persons asserting their right of
talking loud about their own affairs, and others resenting this, not
as an interruption of their pleasures, but as an encroachment on
their privileges. Soon after a Frenchman came in, and his eye at
once fastened upon the ballet. At a particular air, he could no
longer contain himself, but joined in chorus in an agreeable
under-voice, as if he expected others to keep time to him, and
exclaiming, while he wiped his forehead from an exuberance of
satisfaction, his eyes glistening, and his face shining, ‘_Ah c’est
charmant, c’est charmant!_’ Now this, being ourselves English, we
confess, gave us more pleasure than the opera or the ballet, in both
of which, however, we felt a considerable degree of melancholy
satisfaction, _selon la coutume de notre pays_—according to the
custom of our country.

The opera was Cosi fan Tutti, with Mozart’s music, and the ballet
was the Dansomanie. The music of the first of these is really enough
(to borrow a phrase from a person who was also a great man in his
way) ‘to draw three souls out of one weaver:’ and as to the ballet,
it might make a Frenchman forget his country and all other things.
This ballet is certainly the essence of a ballet. What a grace and a
liveliness there is in it! What spirit and invention! What can
exceed the ingenuity of the dance in which the favoured lover joins
in with his mistress and the rival, and makes all sorts of advances
to her, and receives her favours, her pressures of the hand, and
even kisses, without being found out by the other, who thinks all
these demonstrations of fondness intended for him! What an
enthusiasm for art in the character of the master of the house, who
is seized by the Dansomanie! What a noble and disinterested zeal in
the pursuit and encouragement of his favourite science! What a
mechanical sprightliness in all about him, particularly in the
servant who throws down a whole equipage of china, while he is
dancing with it on his head, and is rewarded by his master for this
proof of devotion to his interests! What a sympathy throughout
between the heels and the head, between the heart and the fingers’
ends! The Minuet de la Cour, danced in full dresses, and with the
well-known accompaniment of the music, put us in mind of the old
chivalrous times of the Duke de Nemours and the Princess of Cleves,
or of what really seems to us longer ago, the time when we ourselves
used to be called out at school before the assembled taste and
fashion of the neighbourhood, to go through this very dance with the
partner whom we had selected for this purpose, and presented with a
bunch of flowers on the occasion!

The Opera had less justice done it than the Ballet. The laughing
Trio was spoiled by Mr. Naldi, who performs the part of an ‘Old
Philosopher’ in it, but who is more like an impudent valet or
_major-domo_ of an hotel. We never saw any one so much at home; who
seems so little conscious of the existence of any one but himself,
and who throws his voice, his arms and legs about with such a total
disregard of _bienseance_. The character is a kind of Opera
Pandarus, who exposes the inconstancy of two young ladies, by
entangling them in an intrigue with their own lovers in disguise.
Mr. Braham, we are told, sings Mozart with a peculiar greatness of
gusto. But this greatness of gusto does not appear to us the real
excellence of Mozart. The song beginning _Secondate_, in which he
and his friend (Signor Begri) call upon the gentle zephyrs by
moonlight to favour their design, is exquisite, and ‘floats upon the
air, smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiles.’

‘And Silence wish’d, she might be never more
Still to be so displaced.’

Madame Fodor’s voice does not harmonize with the music of this
composer. It is hard, metallic, and jars like the reverberation of a
tight string. Mozart’s music should seem to come from the air, and
return to it. Madame Vestris is a pretty little figure, and is in
this respect a contrast to Madame Fodor.

OLD CUSTOMS

_The Examiner._

_August 11, 1816._

We have suffered two disappointments this week, one in seeing a
farce that was announced and acted at the English Opera, and the
other in not seeing one that was announced and not acted at the
Haymarket. We should hope that which is to come is the best; for the
other is very bad, as we think. Old Customs is a farce or operetta,
in which an uncle (Mr. Bartley) and his nephew (Mr. Wrench) court
the same young lady (Miss L. Kelly). She prefers the nephew, from
whom she has received several letters. These, with her answers, she
sends to Mr. Bartley in a packet or basket, to convince him of her
real sentiments, and of the impropriety of his prosecuting his
rivalry to his nephew. In the mean time, it being Christmas or New
Year’s Day (we forget which), Bartley’s servant (Russell) receives a
visit from his old mother, who, in this season of compliments and
presents, brings him a little sister in a basket, and leaves it to
his care, while she goes to see her acquaintance in the village.
Russell, after singing a ludicrous lullaby to the baby, goes out
himself and leaves it in the basket on the table, a great and
improbable neglect, no doubt, of his infant charge. His master
(Bartley) soon after comes in, and receives the letter from his
mistress (Miss L. Kelly) informing him of a present she has sent him
_in a basket_, meaning her packet of love-letters, and apologizing
for the abrupt method she has taken of unfolding the true state of
her heart and progress of her affections. Bartley looks about for
this important confidential basket, and finds that which the old
woman had left with her son, with its explanatory contents. At this
indecency of the young lady, and indignity offered to himself, he
grows very much incensed, struts and frets about the stage, and when
Miss L. Kelly herself, with her father and lover, comes to ask his
decision upon the question after the clear evidence which she has
sent him, nothing can come up to the violence of his rage and
impatience, but the absurdity of the contrivance by which it is
occasioned. His nephew (Mr. Wrench) provokes him still farther, by
talking of a present which he has left with him that morning, an
embryo production of his efforts to please, meaning a manuscript
comedy, but which Mr. Bartley confounds with the living
Christmas-box in the basket. A strange scene of confusion ensues, in
which every one is placed in as absurd and ridiculous a situation as
possible, till Russell enters and brings about an unforeseen
_denouement_, by giving an account of the adventures of himself and
his little brother.

Such is the plot, and the wit is answerable to it. There was a good
deal of laughing, and it is better to laugh at nonsense than at
nothing. But really the humours of punch and the puppet-shew are
sterling, legitimate, classical comedy, compared with the stuff of
which the Muse of the new English Opera is weekly delivered. But it
is in vain to admonish. The piece, we understand, has since been
withdrawn.

MY LANDLADY’S NIGHT-GOWN

_The Examiner._

_August 18, 1816._

The new Farce at the Haymarket-Theatre, called My Landlady’s
Night-Gown, is made of very indifferent stuff. It is very tedious
and nonsensical. Mr. Jones is the hero of the piece, and gives the
title to it; for being closely pressed by some bailiffs, he suddenly
slips on his Landlady’s Night-gown, and escapes in disguise from his
pursuers, by speaking in a feigned female voice to one of them, and
knocking the other down by an exertion of his proper and natural
prowess. Such is the story which he himself tells, to account for
the oddity of his first appearance. Yet the apology is not
necessary. Mr. Jones himself is always a greater oddity than his
dress. There is something in his face and manner that bids equal
defiance to disguise or ornament. The mind is affirmed by a great
poet to be ‘its own place:’ and Nature, in making Mr. Jones, said to
the tailor, You have no business here. Whether he plays my Lord
Foppington in point-lace, or personates an old woman in My
Landlady’s Night-Gown, he is just the same lively, bustling,
fidgetty, staring, queer-looking mortal; and the gradations of his
metamorphosis from the nobleman to the footman are quite
imperceptible. Yet he is an actor not without merit; the town like
him, and he knows it; and as to ourselves, we have fewer objections
to him the more we see of him. Use reconciles one to any thing. The
only part of this entertainment which is at all entertaining, is the
scene in which Russell, as the tailor, measures Jones for a new suit
of clothes. This scene is not dull, but it is very gross, and the
grossness is not carried off by a proportionable degree of wit. We
could point out the instances, but not with decency. So we shall let
it alone. Tokely’s character is very well, but not so good as
Crockery. He is an actor of some humour, and he sometimes shews a
happy conception of character; but we hope he will never play Sir
Benjamin Backbite again.

_New English Opera._

Miss Merry has disappointed us again, in not appearing in Rosetta.
We may perhaps take our revenge, by not saying a word about her when
she does come out. It was certainly a disappointment, though Miss
Kelly played the part in her stead, who is a fine sensible girl, and
sings not amiss. But there is that opening scene where Rosetta and
Lucinda sit and sing with their song-books in their hands among the
garden bowers and roses, for which we had screwed up our ears to a
most critical anticipation of delight, not to be soothed but with
the sweetest sounds. To enter into good acting, requires an effort;
but to hear soft music is a pleasure without any trouble. Besides,
we had seen Miss Stephens in Rosetta, and wanted to compare notes.
How then, Miss Merry, could you disappoint us?

Mr. Horn executed the part of Young Meadows with his usual ability
and propriety, both as an actor and a singer. We also think that Mr.
Chatterley’s Justice Woodcock was a very excellent piece of acting.
The smile of recognition with which he turns round to his old flame
Rosetta, in the last scene, told completely. Mrs. Grove’s Deborah
Woodcock reminded us of Mrs. Sparks’s manner of acting it, which we
take to be a high compliment.

Mr. Incledon appeared for the first time on this stage, as Hawthorn,
and sung the usual songs with his well-known power and sweetness of
voice. He is a true old English singer, and there is nobody who goes
through a drinking song, a hunting song, or a sailor’s song like
him. He makes a very loud and agreeable noise without any meaning.
At present he both speaks and sings as if he had a lozenge or a
slice of marmalade in his mouth. If he could go to America and leave
his voice behind him, it would be a great benefit—to the parent
country.

CASTLE OF ANDALUSIA

_The Examiner._

(_New English Opera_) _Sept. 1, 1816._

We hear nothing of Miss Merry; and there is nothing else at this
theatre that we wish to hear. Even Mr. Horn is nothing without her;
he stands alone and unsupported; and the ear loses its relish and
its power of judging of harmonious sounds, where it has nothing but
harshness and discordance to compare them with. We are sorry to
include in this censure Miss Kelly, whose attempts to supply the
place of _Prima Donna_ of the English Opera, do great credit to her
talents, industry, and good-nature, but still they have not given
her a voice, which is indispensable to a singer, as singing is to an
Opera. If the Managers think it merely necessary to get some one to
_go through_ the different songs in Artaxerxes, the Beggar’s Opera,
or Love in a Village, they might hire persons to read them through
at a cheaper rate; and in either case, we fear they must equally
have to hire the audience as well as the actors. Mr. Incledon sung
the duet of ‘All’s well,’ the other night, with Mr. Horn, in the
Castle of Andalusia, and has repeated it every evening since. Both
singers were very much and deservedly applauded in it. Mr.
Incledon’s voice is certainly a fine one, but its very excellence
makes us regret that its modulation is not equal to its depth and
compass. His best notes come from him involuntarily, or are often
misplaced. The effect of his singing is something like standing near
a music-seller’s shop, where some idle person is trying the
different instruments; the flute, the trumpet, the bass-viol, give
forth their sounds of varied strength and sweetness, but without
order or connection.