Chapter XVIII: Preface (9)

One of the novelties of the Castle of Andalusia, as got up at this
theatre, was Mr. Herring’s Pedrillo; an odd fish certainly, a very
outlandish person, and whose acting is altogether incoherent and
gross, but with a certain strong relish in it. It is only _too much_
of a _good thing_. His oil has not salt enough to qualify it. He has
a great power of exhibiting the ludicrous and absurd; but by its
being either not like, or over-done, the ridicule falls upon himself
instead of the character. Indeed he is literally to the comedian,
what the caricaturist is to the painter; and his representation of
footmen and fine gentlemen, is just such as we see in Gillray’s
shop-window. The same thing perhaps is not to be borne on the stage,
though we laugh at it till we are obliged to hold our sides, in a
caricature. We do not see, however, why this style of acting might
not make a distinct species of itself, like the Italian _opera
buffa_, with Scaramouch, Harlequin, and Pantaloon, among whom Mr.
Herring would shine like a gold fish in a glass-case.

TWO WORDS

_The Examiner._

_Sept. 8, 1816._

It was the opinion of Colley Cibber, a tolerable judge of such
matters, that in those degenerate days, the metropolis could only
support one legitimate theatre, having a legitimate company, and
acting legitimate plays. In the present improved state of the drama,
which has ‘gone like a crab backwards,’ we are nearly of the same
opinion, in summer time at least. We critics have been for the last
two months like mice in an air-pump, gasping for breath, subsisting
on a sort of theatrical half-allowance. We hate coalitions in
politics, but we really wish the two little Theatres would club
their stock of wit and humour into one. We should then have a very
tight, compact little company, and crowded houses in the dog-days.

The new after-piece of ‘Two Words,’ at the English Opera, is a
delightful little piece. It is a scene with robbers and midnight
murder in it; and all such scenes are delightful to the reader or
spectator. We can conceive nothing better managed than the plot of
this. The spell-bound silence and dumb-show of Rose, the servant
girl at the house in the forest, to which the benighted travellers
come, has an inimitable effect; and to make it complete, it is
played by Miss Kelly. The signals conveyed by the music of a lone
flute in such a place, and at such a time, thrill through the ear,
and almost suspend the breath. Mr. Short did not spoil the interest
excited by the story, and both Mr. Wilkinson and Mrs. Grove did
justice to the parts of the terrified servant, and the mischievous
old housekeeper, who is a dextrous accomplice in the dreadful scene.
The fault of the piece is, that the interest necessarily falls off
in the second act, which makes it rather tiresome, though the second
appearance of Miss Kelly in it, as the ward of Bartley at his great
castle, is very ingeniously contrived, and occasions some droll
perplexities to her lover, Don ——, whose life she has just saved
from the hands of the assassins, only escaping from their vengeance
herself by the arrival of her valorous guardian and a party of his
soldiers. On the whole, this is the best novelty that has been
brought out during the season at the English Opera, and we wish it
every possible success.

Mr. Terry last week had for his benefit the Surrender of Calais. He
played the part of Eustace de St. Pierre in it with judgment and
energy, but without a pleasing effect. When Mr. Terry plays these
tragic characters,

‘The line too labours, and the thoughts move slow.’

He sticks in tragedy like a man in the mud; or to borrow a higher
figure from a learned critic, ‘he resembles a person walking on
stilts in a morass.’ We shall always be glad to lift him out of it
into the common path of unpretending comedy: there he succeeds, and
is himself. The Surrender of Calais is as interesting as a tragedy
can be without poetry in it. It has considerable pathos, though of a
kind which borders on the shocking too much. It requires
accomplished actors to carry it off; but it was not, in the present
instance, very heroically cast. The Haymarket Theatre inclines more
to comedy than to tragedy; and there are several scenes in this
tragedy (for such it really is _till it is over_), which, ‘not to be
hated,’ should be seen at the greatest possible distance that the
stage allows. One advantage, at least, of our overgrown theatres is,
that they throw the most distressing objects into a milder
historical perspective.

THE WONDER

_The Examiner._

(_Covent Garden_) _Sept. 15, 1816._

The Wonder is one of our good old English Comedies, which holds a
happy medium between grossness and refinement. The plot is rich in
intrigue, and the dialogue in _double entendre_, which however is so
light and careless, as only to occasion a succession of agreeable
alarms to the ears of delicacy. This genuine comedy, which is quite
as pleasant to read as to see (for we have made the experiment
within these few days, to our entire satisfaction) was written by an
Englishwoman, before the sentimental, Ultra-Jacobinical German
School, of which a short and amusing account has been lately given
in the Courier, had spoiled us with their mawkish platonics and
maudlin metaphysics. The soul is here with extreme simplicity
considered as a mere accessary to the senses in love, and the
conversation of bodies preferred to that of minds as much more
entertaining. We do not subscribe our names to this opinion, but it
is Mrs. Centlivre’s, and we do not chuse to contradict a lady. The
plot is admirably calculated for stage-effect, and kept up with
prodigious ingenuity and vivacity to the end. The spectator is just
beginning to be tired with the variety of stratagems that follow and
perplex one another, when the whole difficulty is happily unravelled
in the last scene. The _dove-tailing_ of the incidents and
situations (so that one unexpected surprise gives place to another,
and the success of the plot is prevented by the unluckiest accident
in the world happening in the very nick of time) supplies the place
of any great force of character or sentiment. The time for the
entrance of each person on the stage is the moment when they are
least wanted, and when their arrival makes either themselves or
somebody else look as foolish as possible. The Busy Body shews the
same talent for invention and _coup-d’œil_ for theatrical effect,
and the laughableness of both comedies depends on a brilliant series
of mis-timed exits and entrances. The Wonder is not, however,
without a moral; it exhibits a rare example of a woman keeping a
secret, for the sake of a female friend, which she is under every
temptation to break, and her resolution and fidelity are, after a
number of mortifying accidents and fears, happily rewarded by the
triumph both of her friendship and her love. The situation of
Violante is more prominent than her character; or, at least, the
character is more moral than entertaining. She is a young lady of
great goodness of heart and firmness of principle, but who neither
displays any great superiority of wit in extricating herself from
the difficulties in which her regard for the safety of her friend
involves her, nor of spirit in repelling the insinuations to which
her reputation is exposed in the eyes of her lover. She submits to
her situation with firmness of purpose and conscious reliance on her
own innocence.

Miss Boyle, the young lady who appeared in this character on Friday,
shewed herself not incompetent to its successful delineation. Her
figure is tall, and her face, though her features are small, is
pretty and expressive. Her articulation (for a first appearance) was
remarkably distinct, and her voice is full and sweet. It is however
rather sentimental than comic. She rounds her words too much, nor do
they come ‘trippingly from the tongue.’ It is sufficient if the
dialogue of genteel comedy comes with light-fluttering grace and gay
animation from the lips; it should not come labouring up all the way
from the heart. This young lady’s general demeanour is easy and
unaffected; and when she has overcome her timidity, we have no doubt
she will give considerable spirit and dignity to the more serious
scenes of the story. Her smile has much archness and expression; and
we hope, from the promise of taste and talent which she gave through
her whole performance, that she will prove an acquisition to the
stage, in a line of comedy in which we are at present absolutely
deficient. She was very favourably received throughout.

We do not think the play in general was well got up. Charles Kemble
seemed to be rehearsing Don Felix with an eye to Macduff, or some
face-making tragic character. He was only excellent in the drunken
scene. Mrs. Gibbs at one time fairly took wing across the stage, and
played the chamber-maid with too little restraint from vulgar
decorums. Mr. Abbott never acts ill, but he does not answer to our
idea of Colonel Briton. Emery’s Gibby was sturdy enough, and seemed
to prove what he himself says, that ‘a Scotchman is not ashamed to
shew his face any where.’

THE DISTRESSED MOTHER

_The Examiner._

_September 22, 1816._

A Mr. Macready appeared at Covent-Garden Theatre on Monday and
Friday, in the character of Orestes, in the Distressed Mother, a bad
play for the display of his powers, in which, however, he succeeded
in making a decidedly favourable impression upon the audience. His
voice is powerful in the highest degree, and at the same time
possesses great harmony and modulation. His face is not equally
calculated for the stage. He declaims better than any body we have
lately heard. He is accused of being violent, and of wanting pathos.
Neither of these objections is true. His manner of delivering the
first speeches in this play was admirable, and the want of
increasing interest afterwards was the fault of the author, rather
than the actor. The fine suppressed tone in which he assented to
Pyrrhus’s command to convey the message to Hermione was a test of
his variety of power, and brought down repeated acclamations from
the house. We do not lay much stress on his mad-scene, though that
was very good in its kind, for mad-scenes do not occur very often,
and when they do, had in general better be omitted. We have not the
slightest hesitation in saying, that Mr. Macready is by far the best
tragic actor that has come out in our remembrance, with the
exception of Mr. Kean. We however heartily wish him well out of this
character of Orestes. It is a kind of forlorn hope in tragedy. There
is nothing to be made of it on the English stage, beyond experiment.
It is a trial, not a triumph. These French plays puzzle an English
audience exceedingly. They cannot attend to the actor, for the
difficulty they have in understanding the author. We think it wrong
in any actor of great merit (which we hold Mr. Macready to be) to
come out in an ambiguous character, to salve his reputation. An
actor is like a man who throws himself from the top of a steeple by
a rope. He should chuse the highest steeple he can find, that if he
does not succeed in coming safe to the ground, he may break his neck
at once, and so put himself and the spectators out of farther pain.

Ambrose Phillips’s Distressed Mother is a very good translation from
Racine’s Andromache. It is an alternation of topics, of _pros_ and
_cons_, on the casuistry of domestic and state affairs, and produced
a great effect of _ennui_ on the audience. When you hear one of the
speeches in these rhetorical tragedies, you know as well what will
be the answer to it, as when you see the tide coming up the
river—you know that it will return again. The other actors filled
their parts with successful mediocrity.

We highly disapprove of the dresses worn on this occasion, and
supposed to be the exact Greek costume. We do not know that the
Greek heroes were dressed like women, or wore their long hair strait
down their backs. Or even supposing that they did, this is not
generally known or understood by the audience; and though the
preservation of the ancient costume is a good thing, it is of more
importance not to shock our present prejudices. The managers of
Covent-Garden are not the Society of Antiquaries. The attention to
costume is only necessary to preserve probability: in the present
instance, it could only violate it, because there is nothing to lead
the public opinion to expect such an exhibition. We know how the
Turks are dressed, from seeing them in the streets; we know the
costume of the Greek statues, from seeing casts in the shop-windows:
we know that savages go naked, from reading voyages and travels: but
we do not know that the Grecian Chiefs at the Siege of Troy were
dressed as Mr. Charles Kemble, Mr. Abbott, and Mr. Macready were the
other evening in the Distressed Mother. It is a discovery of the
Managers; and they should have kept their secret to themselves.—The
epithet in Homer, applied to the Grecian warriors, κάρη κομόωντες,
is not any proof. It signifies not _long-haired_, but literally
_bushy-headed_, which would come nearer to the common Brutus head,
than this long dangling slip of hair. The oldest and most authentic
models we have are the Elgin Marbles, and it is certain the Theseus
is a _crop_. One would think this standard might satisfy the
Committee of Managers in point of classical antiquity. But no such
thing. They are much deeper in Greek costume and the history of the
fabulous ages than those old-fashioned fellows, the Sculptors who
lived in the time of Pericles. But we have said quite enough on this
point.

_Drury-Lane._

The chief novelties at this Theatre for the present week, have been
a Mr. Bengough, from the Theatre Royal, Bath, and a Mrs. Knight, of
the York Theatre, who have appeared in the characters of Baron
Wildenheim and Agatha Friburg, in Lovers’ Vows. Both have been
successful. Mr. Bengough is an actor who shews considerable judgment
and feeling, and who would produce more effect than he does, if he
took less pains to produce it. The appearance of study takes from
that of nature, and yet the expression of natural pathos is what he
seems to excel in. He treads the stage well, and is, we think, an
acquisition to the company.

We wonder the long-winded, heavy-handed writer in the Courier, who
has been belabouring Bertram so woefully, does not fall foul of
Lovers’ Vows, as the quintessence of metaphysical licentiousness and
the ultra-Jacobinism of ultra-Jacobinical poetry. We think that
everlasting writer might build thirty columns of lumbering
criticisms, ‘pointing to the skies,’ on any single passage of this
effusion of German sentiment and genius. We hope the worthy author
will take this hint, and after he has exhausted upon this work the
inexhaustible stores of his unspeakable discoveries and researches
into the theory of mill-stones, we would recommend him to turn his
pen to an almost forgotten play, called Remorse, at the bottom of
which, if he will look narrowly, he will find ‘a vaporous drop
profound’ of the same pernicious leaven; and by setting it
fermenting, with the help of transcendental reasoning, and the
mechanical operations of the spirit, may raise mists and clouds that
will ascend above the moon, and turn the Courier office into a
laundry!—Oh, we had forgot: Mrs. Mardyn played her old character of
Amelia Wildenheim more charmingly than ever. She acts even with more
grace and spirit than when she first came out in it, and looks as
handsome as she used to do.

MISS BOYLE’S ROSALIND

_The Examiner._

_October 6, 1816._

We have had a considerable treat this week, in Miss Boyle’s
Rosalind, at Covent-Garden Theatre. It is one of the chastest and
most pleasing pieces of comic acting we have seen for some time. We
did not think much of her in Violante, which might be owing to the
diffidence of a first appearance, or to the little she has to do in
the character. But she rises with her characters, and really makes a
very charming Rosalind. The words of Shakespear become her mouth,
and come from it with a delicious freshness, which gives us back the
sense. There should be in the tones of the voice, to repeat
Shakespear’s verses properly, something resembling the sound of
musical glasses. He has himself given us his idea on this subject,
where he says, ‘How silver sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night.’ We
were not satisfied with Miss Boyle’s enunciation in Violante. It
wanted lightness and grace. Her Rosalind was spoken with more
effect, and with more gaiety at the same time. The sentiment seemed
to infuse into her the true comic spirit, and her acting improved
with the wit and vivacity of the passages she had to deliver. This
would be a defect in a character of mere manners, like Lady Townley,
where there is always supposed to be an air or affectation of a
certain agreeable vivacity or fashionable tone; but in a character
of nature, like Rosalind, who is supposed to speak only what she
thinks, and to express delight only as she feels it, it was a great
beauty. Her eyes also became more sparkling, and her smile more
significant, according to the _naiveté_ and force of what she had to
utter. The highest compliment we can pay her acting is by applying
to it what Shakespear has somewhere said of poetry—

‘Our poesy is a gum that issues
From whence ’tis nourish’d. The fire i’th’ flint
Shews not till it be struck. Our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and like the current flies
Each bound in chafes.’

To realize this description would be the perfection of comic acting.
We must not forget her Cuckoo-song; indeed we could not, if we
would. It was quite delightful. The tone and manner in which she
repeated the word Cuckoo, was as arch and provoking as possible, and
seemed to grow more saucy every time by the repetition, but still,
though it hovered very near them, it was restrained from passing the
limits of delicacy and propriety. She was deservedly _encored_ in
it; though this circumstance seemed to throw her into some little
confusion. We have, however, two faults to find, both of which may
be easily remedied. The first is, that there is a tendency to a lisp
in some of her words: the second is, that there is a trip in her
gait, and too great a disposition to keep in motion while she is
speaking, or to go up to the persons she is addressing, as if they
were deaf. Both these are defects of inexperience: the two necessary
qualities for any young actress to set out with, in the higher
comedy, are liveliness and elegance, or in other words, feeling with
delicacy, and these we think Miss Boyle possesses. We were a good
deal pleased with Mr. Young’s Jaques. He spoke several passages
well, and is upon the whole an _improving_ actor.

Mr. Macready’s Bentevole, in the Italian Lover, is very highly
spoken of. We only saw the last act of it, but it appeared to us to
be very fine in its kind. It was natural, easy, and forcible.
Indeed, we suspect some parts of it were too natural, that is, that
Mr. Macready thought too much of what his feelings might dictate in
such circumstances, rather than of what the circumstances must have
dictated to him to do. We allude particularly to the half
significant, half hysterical laugh, and distorted jocular leer, with
his eyes towards the persons accusing him of the murder, when the
evidence of his guilt comes out. Either the author did not intend
him to behave in this manner, or he must have made the other parties
on the stage interrupt him as a self-convicted criminal. His appeal
to Manoah (the witness against him) to suppress the proofs which
must be fatal to his honour and his life, was truly affecting. His
resumption of a spirit of defiance was not sufficiently dignified,
and was more like the self-sufficient swaggering airs of comedy,
than the real grandeur of tragedy, which should always proceed from
passion. Mr. Macready sometimes, to express uneasiness and
agitation, composes his cravat, as he would in a drawing-room. This
is, we think, neither graceful nor natural in extraordinary
situations. His tones are equally powerful and flexible, varying
with the greatest facility from the lowest to the highest pitch of
the human voice.

MR. MACREADY’S OTHELLO

_The Examiner._

_October 13, 1816._

We have to speak this week of Mr. Macready’s Othello, at
Covent-Garden Theatre, and though it must be in favourable terms, it
cannot be in very favourable ones. We have been rather spoiled for
seeing any one else in this character, by Mr. Kean’s performance of
it, and also by having read the play itself lately. Mr. Macready was
more than respectable in the part; and he only failed because he
attempted to excel. He did not, however, express the individual
bursts of feeling, nor the deep and accumulating tide of passion
which ought to be given in Othello. It may perhaps seem an
extravagant illustration, but the idea which we think any actor
ought to have of this character, to play it to the height of the
poetical conception, is that of a majestic serpent wounded, writhing
under its pain, stung to madness, and attempting by sudden darts, or
coiling up its whole force, to wreak its vengeance on those about
it, and falling at last a mighty victim under the redoubled strokes
of its assailants. No one can admire more than we do the force of
genius and passion which Mr. Kean shews in this part, but he is not
stately enough for it. He plays it like a gipsey, and not like a
Moor. We miss in Mr. Kean not the physiognomy, or the costume, so
much as the _architectural_ building up of the part. This character
always puts us in mind of the line—

‘Let Afric on its hundred thrones rejoice.’

It not only appears to hold commerce with meridian suns, and that
its blood is made drunk with the heat of scorching skies; but it
indistinctly presents to us all the symbols of eastern magnificence.
It wears a crown and turban, and stands before us like a tower. All
this, it may be answered, is only saying that Mr. Kean is not so
tall as a tower: but any one, to play Othello properly, ought to
look taller and grander than any tower. We shall see how Mr. Young
will play it. But this is from our present purpose. Mr. Macready is
tall enough for the part, and the looseness of his figure was rather
in character with the flexibility of the South: but there were no
sweeping outlines, no massy movements in his action.

The movements of passion in Othello (and the motions of the body
should answer to those of the mind) resemble the heaving of the sea
in a storm; there are no sharp, slight, angular transitions, or if
there are any, they are subject to this general swell and commotion.
Mr. Kean is sometimes too wedgy and determined; but Mr. Macready
goes off like a shot, and startles our sense of hearing. One of
these sudden explosions was when he is in such haste to answer the
demands of the Senate on his services: ‘I do agnise a natural
hardness,’ &c. as if he was impatient to exculpate himself from some
charge, or wanted to take them at their word lest they should
retract. There is nothing of this in Othello. He is calm and
collected; and the reason why he is carried along with such
vehemence by his passions when they are roused, is, that he is moved
by their collected force. Another fault in Mr. Macready’s conception
was, that he whined and whimpered once or twice, and tried to affect
the audience by affecting a pitiful sensibility, not consistent with
the dignity and masculine imagination of the character: as where he
repeated, ‘No, not much moved,’ and again, ‘Othello’s occupation’s
gone,’ in a childish treble. The only part which should approach to
this effeminate tenderness of complaint is his reflection, ‘Yet, oh
the pity of it, Iago, the pity of it!’ What we liked best was his
ejaculation, ‘Swell, bosom, with thy fraught, _for ’tis of aspick’s
tongues_.’ This was forcibly given, and as if his expression were
choaked with the bitterness of passion. We do not know how he would
have spoken the speech, ‘Like to the Pontic sea that knows no ebb,’
&c. which occurs just before, for it was left out. There was also
something fine in his uneasiness and inward starting at the name of
Cassio, but it was too often repeated, with a view to effect. Mr.
Macready got most applause in such speeches as that addressed to
Iago, ‘Horror on horror’s head accumulate!’ This should be a lesson
to him. He very injudiciously, we think, threw himself on a chair at
the back of the stage, to deliver the farewell apostrophe to
Content, and to the ‘pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.’
This might be a relief to him, but it distressed the audience.—On
the whole, we think Mr. Macready’s powers are more adapted to the
declamation than to the acting of passion: that is, that he is a
better orator than actor. As to Mr. Young’s Iago, ‘we never saw a
gentleman acted finer.’ Mrs. Faucit’s Desdemona was very pretty. Mr.
C. Kemble’s Cassio was excellent.

_Drury-Lane._

The town has been entertained this week by seeing Mr. Stephen Kemble
in the part of Sir John Falstaff, as they were formerly with seeing
Mr. Lambert in his own person. We see no more reason why Mr. Stephen
Kemble should play Falstaff, than why Louis XVIII. is qualified to
fill a throne, because he is fat, and belongs to a particular
family. Every fat man cannot represent a great man. The knight was
fat; so is the player: the Emperor was fat, so is the King who
stands in his shoes. But there the comparison ends. There is no
sympathy in mind—in wit, parts, or discretion. Sir John (and so we
may say of the gentleman at St. Helena) ‘had guts in his brains.’
The mind was the man. His body did not weigh down his wit. His
spirits shone through him. He was not a mere paunch, a bag-pudding,
a lump of lethargy, a huge falling sickness, an imminent apoplexy,
with water in the head.

The Managers of Drury-Lane, in providing a Sir John Falstaff to
satisfy the taste of the town, seem to ask only with Mr. Burke’s
political carcass-butchers, ‘How he cuts up in the cawl: how he
tallows in the kidneys!’ We are afraid the Junto of Managers of
Drury-Lane are not much wiser than the junto of Managers of the
affairs of Europe. This, according to the luminous and voluminous
critic in the Courier, is because their affairs are not under the
management of a single person. Would the same argument prove that
the affairs of Europe had better have been under the direction of
one man? ‘The gods have not made’ the writer in the Courier logical
as well as ‘poetical.’ By the rule above hinted at, every actor is
qualified to play Falstaff who is physically incapacitated to play
any other character. Sir John Falstaffs may be fatted up like prize
oxen. Nor does the evil in this case produce its own remedy, as
where an actor’s success depends upon his own leanness and that of
the part he plays. Sir Richard Steele tells us (in one of the
Tatlers) of a poor actor in his time, who having nothing to do, fell
away, and became such a wretched meagre-looking object, that he was
pitched upon as a proper person to represent the starved Apothecary
in Romeo and Juliet. He did this so much to the life, that he was
repeatedly called upon to play it: but his person improving with his
circumstances, he was in a short time rendered unfit to play it with
the same effect as before, and laid aside. Having no other resource,
he accordingly fell away again with the loss of his part, and was
again called upon to appear in it with his former reputation. Any
one, on the contrary, who thrives in Falstaff, is always in an
increasing capacity to overlay the part.—But we have done with this
unpleasant subject.

THEATRICAL DEBUTS

_The Examiner._

_October 20, 1816._

There have been two theatrical or operatic debuts, to which we are
in arrears, and of which we must say a word—Miss Mori’s Rosetta in
Love in a Village, at Covent-Garden, and Miss Keppel’s Polly in the
Beggar’s Opera, at Drury-Lane. Both of them appeared to us to be
indifferent. Miss Mori is by much the best singer of the two, but
there is something exceedingly unprepossessing and hard both in her
voice and manner. She sings without the least feeling, or lurking
consciousness that such a thing is required in a singer. The notes
proceed from her mouth as mechanically, as _unmitigated_ by the
sentiment, as if they came from the sharp hautboy or grating
bassoon. We do not mean that her voice is disagreeable in itself,
but it wants softness and sweetness of modulation. The words of the
songs neither seem to tremble on her lips, nor play around her
heart. Miss Mori did not look the character. Rosetta is to be sure a
waiting-maid, but then she is also a young lady in disguise. There
was no appearance of the _incognita_ in Miss Mori. She seemed in
downright earnest, like one of the country girls who come to be
hired at the statute-fair. She was quite insensible of her
situation, and came forward to prove herself a fine singer, as one
of her fellow-servants might have done to answer to a charge of
having stolen something. We never saw a _debutante_ more at ease
with the audience: we suppose she has played in the country. Miss
Matthews, who is a good-natured girl, and wished to _patronize_ her
on so delicate an emergency, presently found there was no occasion
for her services, and withdrew from the attempt with some
trepidation.

If Miss Mori did not enchant us by her incomprehensible want of
sensibility, neither did Miss Keppel by the affectation of it.
Sensibility is a very pretty thing, but it will not do to make a
plaything of, at least in public. It is not enough that an actress
tries to atone for defects by throwing herself on the indulgence of
the audience:—their eyes and ears must be satisfied, as well as
their self-love. Miss Keppel acts with very little grace, and sings
very much out of tune. There were some attempts made to prejudice
the audience against this young lady before she appeared: but they
only had the effect which they deserved, of procuring a more
flattering reception than she would otherwise have met with: but we
do not think she will ever become a favourite with the town.

MR. KEMBLE’S CATO

_The Examiner._

_October 27, 1816._

Mr. Kemble has resumed his engagements at Covent-Garden Theatre for
the season; it is said in the play-bills, for the last time. There
is something in the word _last_, that, ‘being mortal,’ we do not
like on these occasions: but there is this of good in it, that it
throws us back on past recollections, and when we are about to take
leave of an old friend, we feel desirous to settle all accounts with
him, and to see that the balance is not against us, on the score of
gratitude. Mr. Kemble will, we think, find that the public are just,
and his last season, if it is to be so, will not, we hope, be the
least brilliant of his career. As his meridian was bright, so let
his sunset be golden, and without a cloud. His reception in Cato, on
Friday, was most flattering, and he well deserved the cheering and
cordial welcome which he received. His voice only failed him in
strength; but his tones, his looks, his gestures, were all that
could be required in the character. He is the most classical of
actors. He is the only one of the moderns, who both in figure and
action approaches the beauty and grandeur of the antique. In the
scene of the soliloquy, just before his death, he was rather
inaudible, and indeed the speech itself is not worth hearing; but
his person, manner, and dress, seemed cast in the very mould of
Roman elegance and dignity.

THE IRON CHEST

_The Examiner._

_December 1, 1816._

The Iron Chest is founded on the story of Caleb Williams, one of the
best novels in the language, and the very best of the modern school:
but the play itself is by no means the best play that ever was
written, either in ancient or modern times, though really in modern
times we do not know of any much better. Mr. Colman’s serious style,
which is in some measure an imitation of Shakespear’s, is natural
and flowing; and there is a constant intermixture as in our elder
drama, a _melange_ of the tragic and comic; but there is rather a
want of force and depth in the impassioned parts of his tragedies,
and what there is of this kind, is impeded in its effect by the
comic. The two plots (the serious and ludicrous) do not seem going
on and gaining ground at the same time, but each part is intersected
and crossed by the other, and has to set out again in the next
scene, after being thwarted in the former one, like a person who has
to begin a story over again in which he has been interrupted. In
Shakespear, the comic parts serve only as a relief to the tragic.
Colman’s tragic scenes are not high-wrought enough to require any
such relief; and this perhaps may be a sufficient reason why modern
writers, who are so sparing of their own nerves, and those of their
readers, should not be allowed to depart from the effeminate
simplicity of the classic style. In Shakespear, again, the comic
varieties are only an accompaniment to the loftier tragic movement:
at least the only exception is in the part of Falstaff in Henry IV.
which is not however a tragedy of any deep interest:—in Colman you
do not know whether the comedy or tragedy is principal; whether he
made the comic for the sake of the tragic, or the tragic for the
sake of the comic; and you suspect he would be as likely as any of
his contemporaries to parody his own most pathetic passages, just as
Munden caricatures the natural touches of garrulous simplicity in
old Adam Winterton, to make the galleries and boxes laugh. The great
beauty of Caleb Williams is lost in the play. The interest of the
novel arises chiefly from two things: the gradual working up of the
curiosity of Caleb Williams with respect to the murder, by the
incessant goading on of which he extorts the secret from Falkland,
and then from the systematic persecution which he undergoes from his
master, which at length urges him to reveal the secret to the world.
Both these are very ingeniously left out by Mr. Colman, who jumps at
a conclusion, but misses his end.

The history of the Iron Chest is well known to dramatic readers. Mr.
Kemble either could not, or would not play the part of Sir Edward
Mortimer (the Falkland of Mr. Godwin’s novel)—he made nothing of it,
or at least, made short work of it, for it was only played one
night. He had a cough and a cold, and he hemmed and hawed, and
whined and drivelled through the part in a marvellous manner. Mr.
Colman was enraged at the ill-success of his piece, and charged it
upon Kemble’s acting, who he said did not do his best. Now we
confess he generally tries to do his best, and if that best is no
better, it is not his fault. We think the fault was in the part,
which wants circumstantial dignity. Give Mr. Kemble only the _man_
to play, why, he is nothing; give him the paraphernalia of
greatness, and he is great. He ‘wears his heart in compliment
extern.’ He is the statue on the pedestal, that cannot come down
without danger of shaming its worshippers; a figure that tells well
with appropriate scenery and dresses; but not otherwise. Mr. Kemble
contributes his own person to a tragedy—but only that. The poet must
furnish all the rest, and make the other parts equally dignified and
graceful, or Mr. Kemble will not help him out. He will not lend
dignity to the mean, spirit to the familiar; he will not impart life
and motion, passion and imagination, to all around him, for he has
neither life nor motion, passion nor imagination in himself. He
minds only the conduct of his own person, and leaves the piece to
shift for itself. Not so Mr. Kean. ‘Truly he hath a devil;’ and if
the fit comes over him too often, yet as tragedy is not the
representation of _still-life_, we think this much better than being
never roused at all. We like

‘The fiery soul that working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o’er informed the tenement of clay.’

Mr. Kean has passion and energy enough to afford to lend it to the
circumstances in which he is placed, without leaning upon them for
support. He can make a dialogue between a master and a servant in
common life, tragic, or infuse a sentiment into the Iron Chest. He
is not afraid of being let down by his company. Formal dignity and
studied grace are ridiculous, except in particular circumstances;
passion and nature are every where the same, and these Mr. Kean
carries with him into all his characters, and does not want the
others. In the last, however, which are partly things of manner and
assumption, he improves, as well as in the recitation of set
speeches; for example, in the Soliloquy on Honour, in the present
play. His description of the assassination of his rival to Wilford
was admirable, and the description of his ‘seeing his giant form
roll before him in the dust,’ was terrific and grand. In the
picturesque expression of passion, by outward action, Mr. Kean is
unrivalled. The transitions in this play, from calmness to deep
despair, from concealed suspicion to open rage, from smooth decorous
indifference to the convulsive agonies of remorse, gave Mr. Kean
frequent opportunities for the display of his peculiar talents. The
mixture of common-place familiarity and solemn injunction in his
speeches to Wilford when in the presence of others, was what no
other actor could give with the same felicity and force. The last
scene of all—his coming to life again after his swooning at the
fatal discovery of his guilt, and then falling back after a ghastly
struggle, like a man waked from the tomb, into despair and death in
the arms of his mistress, was one of those consummations of the art,
which those who have seen and have not felt them in this actor, may
be assured that they have never seen or felt any thing in the course
of their lives, and never will to the end of them.

MR. KEMBLE’S KING JOHN

_The Examiner._

(_Covent Garden_) _December 8, 1816._

We wish we had never seen Mr. Kean. He has destroyed the Kemble
religion; and it is the religion in which we were brought up. Never
again shall we behold Mr. Kemble with the same pleasure that we did,
nor see Mr. Kean with the same pleasure that we have seen Mr. Kemble
formerly. We used to admire Mr. Kemble’s figure and manner, and had
no idea that there was any want of art or nature. We feel the force
and nature of Mr. Kean’s acting, but then we feel the want of Mr.
Kemble’s person. Thus an old and delightful prejudice is destroyed,
and no new enthusiasm, no second idolatry comes to take its place.
Thus, by degrees, knowledge robs us of pleasure, and the cold icy
hand of experience freezes up the warm current of the imagination,
and crusts it over with unfeeling criticism. The knowledge we
acquire of various kinds of excellence, as successive opportunities
present themselves, leads us to acquire a combination of them which
we never find realized in any individual, and all the consolation
for the disappointment of our fastidious expectations is in a sort
of fond and doating retrospect of the past. It is possible indeed
that the force of prejudice might often kindly step in to suspend
the chilling effects of experience, and we might be able to see an
old favourite by a voluntary forgetfulness of other things, as we
saw him twenty years ago; but his friends take care to prevent this,
and by provoking invidious comparisons, and crying up their idol as
a model of abstract perfection, force us to be ill-natured in our
own defence.

We went to see Mr. Kemble’s King John, and he became the part so
well, in costume, look, and gesture, that if left to ourselves, we
could have gone to sleep over it, and dreamt that it was fine, and
‘when we waked, have cried to dream again.’ But we were told that it
was really fine, as fine as Garrick, as fine as Mrs. Siddons, as
fine as Shakespear; so we rubbed our eyes and kept a sharp look out,
but we saw nothing but a deliberate intention on the part of Mr.
Kemble to act the part finely. And so he did in a certain sense, but
not by any means as Shakespear wrote it, nor as it might be played.
He did not harrow up the feelings, he did not electrify the sense:
he did not enter into the nature of the part himself, nor
consequently move others with terror or pity. The introduction to
the scene with Hubert was certainly excellent: you saw instantly,
and before a syllable was uttered, partly from the change of
countenance, and partly from the arrangement of the scene, the
purpose which had entered his mind to murder the young prince. But
the remainder of this trying scene, though the execution was
elaborate—painfully elaborate, and the outline well conceived,
wanted the filling up, the true and master touches, the deep
piercing heartfelt tones of nature. It was done well and skilfully,
_according to the book of arithmetic_; but no more. Mr. Kemble, when
he approaches Hubert to sound his disposition, puts on an insidious,
insinuating, fawning aspect, and so he ought; but we think it should
not be, though it was, that kind of wheedling smile, as if he was
going to persuade him that the business he wished him to undertake
was a mere jest; and his natural repugnance to it an idle prejudice,
that might be carried off by a certain pleasant drollery of eye and
manner. Mr. Kemble’s look, to our apprehension, was exactly as if he
had just caught the eye of some person of his acquaintance in the
boxes, and was trying to suppress a rising smile at the
metamorphosis he had undergone since dinner. Again, he changes his
voice three several times, in repeating the name of Hubert; and the
changes might be fine, but they did not vibrate on our feelings; so
we cannot tell. They appeared to us like a tragic _voluntary_.
Through almost the whole scene this celebrated actor did not seem to
feel the part itself as it was set down for him, but to be
considering how he ought to feel it, or how he should express by
rule and method what he did not feel. He was sometimes slow, and
sometimes hurried: sometimes familiar, and sometimes solemn: but
always with an evident design and determination to be so. The
varying tide of passion did not appear to burst from the source of
nature in his breast, but to be drawn from a theatrical leaden
cistern, and then directed through certain conduit-pipes and
artificial channels, to fill the audience with well regulated and
harmless sympathy.

We are afraid, judging from the effects of this representation, that
‘man delight not us, nor woman neither:’ for we did not like Miss
O’Neill’s Constance better, nor so well as Mr. Kemble’s King John.
This character, more than any other of Shakespear’s females, treads
perhaps upon the verge of extravagance; the impatience of grief,
combined with the violence of her temper, borders on insanity: her
imagination grows light-headed. But still the boundary between
poetry and phrensy is not passed: she is neither a virago nor mad.
Miss O’Neill gave more of the vulgar than the poetical side of the
character. She generally does so of late. Mr. Charles Kemble in the
Bastard, had the ‘bulk, the thews, the sinews’ of Falconbridge:
would that he had had ‘the spirit’ too. There was one speech which
he gave well—‘Could Sir Robert make this leg?’ And suiting the
action to the word, as well he might, it had a great effect upon the
house.

CORIOLANUS

_The Examiner._

_December 15, 1816._

Coriolanus has of late been repeatedly acted at Covent-Garden
Theatre. Shakespear has in this play shewn himself well versed in
history and state-affairs. Coriolanus is a storehouse of political
common-places. Any one who studies it may save himself the trouble
of reading Burke’s Reflections, or Paine’s Rights of Man, or the
Debates in both Houses of Parliament since the French Revolution or
our own. The arguments for and against aristocracy, or democracy, on
the privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty and
slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace and war, are here very
ably handled, with the spirit of a poet, and the acuteness of a
philosopher. Shakespear himself seems to have had a leaning to the
arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling of
contempt for his own origin; and to have spared no occasion of
baiting the rabble. What he says of them is very true: what he says
of their betters is also very true, though he dwells less upon it.
The cause of the people is indeed but ill calculated as a subject
for poetry: it admits of rhetoric, which goes into argument and
explanation, but it presents no immediate or distinct images to the
mind, ‘no jutting frieze, buttress, or coigne of vantage’ for poetry
‘to make its pendant bed and procreant cradle in.’ The language of
poetry naturally falls in with the language of power. The
imagination is an exaggerating and exclusive faculty: it takes from
one thing to add to another: it accumulates circumstances together
to give the greatest possible effect to a favourite object. The
understanding is a dividing and measuring faculty: it judges of
things, not according to their immediate impression on the mind, but
according to their relations to one another. The one is a
monopolizing faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of present
excitement by inequality and disproportion; the other is a
distributive faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of ultimate
good by justice and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, the
other a republican faculty. The principle of poetry is a very
anti-levelling principle. It aims at effect, it exists by contrast.
It admits of no medium. It is every thing by excess. It rises above
the ordinary standard of sufferings and crimes. It presents an
imposing appearance. It shews its head turretted, crowned and
crested. Its front is gilt and blood-stained. Before it, ‘it carries
noise, and behind it, it leaves tears.’ It has its altars and its
victims, sacrifices, human sacrifices. Kings, priests, nobles, are
its train-bearers; tyrants and slaves its executioners—‘Carnage is
its daughter!’ Poetry is right royal. It puts the individual for the
species, the one above the infinite many, might before right. A lion
hunting a flock of sheep or a herd of wild asses, is a more poetical
object than they; and we even take part with the lordly beast,
because our vanity, or some other feeling, makes us disposed to
place ourselves in the situation of the strongest party. So we feel
some concern for the poor citizens of Rome, when they meet together
to compare their wants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in,
and, with blows and big words, drives this set of ‘poor rats,’ this
rascal scum, to their homes and beggary, before him. There is
nothing heroical in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing to
be starved, or complaining that they are like to be so; but when a
single man comes forward to brave their cries, and to make them
submit to the last indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our
admiration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for
their pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the
plea of necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority, or even
the natural resistance to it, has nothing to excite or flatter the
imagination; it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress
others, that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We had
rather be the oppressor than the oppressed.

The love of power in ourselves, and the admiration of it in others,
are both natural to man; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a
slave. Wrong, dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance, has more
attraction than abstract right.—Coriolanus complains of the
fickleness of the people: yet the instant he cannot gratify his
pride and obstinacy at their expense, he turns his arms against his
country. If his country was not worth defending, why did he build
his pride on its defence? He is a conqueror and a hero; he conquers
other countries, and makes this a plea for enslaving his own; and
when he is prevented from doing so, he leagues with its enemies to
destroy his country. He rates the people ‘as if he were a God to
punish, and not a man of their infirmity.’ He scoffs at one of their
tribunes for maintaining their rites and franchises: ‘Mark you his
absolute _shall_?’ not marking his own absolute _will_ to take every
thing from them; his impatience of the slightest opposition to his
own pretensions being in proportion to their arrogance and
absurdity. If the great and powerful had the beneficence and wisdom
of gods, then all this would have been well: if with greater
knowledge of what is good for the people, they had as great a care
for their interest as they have for their own; if they were seated
above the world, sympathising with their welfare, but not feeling
the passions of men, receiving neither good nor hurt from them, but
bestowing their benefits as free gifts on them, they might then rule
over them like another Providence. But this is not the case.
Coriolanus is unwilling that the Senate should shew their ‘cares’
for the people, lest their ‘cares’ should be construed into ‘fears,’
to the subversion of all due authority; and he is no sooner
disappointed in his schemes to deprive the people not only of the
cares of the state, but of all power to redress themselves, than
Volumnia is made madly to exclaim,

‘Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish.’

This is but natural: it is but natural for a mother to have more
regard for her son than for a whole city: but then the city should
be left to take some care of itself. The care of the state cannot,
we here see, be safely entrusted to maternal affection, or to the
domestic charities of high life. The great have private feelings of
their own, to which the interests of humanity and justice must
courtesy. Their interests are so far from being the same as those of
the community, that they are in direct and necessary opposition to
them; their power is at the expense of our weakness; their riches,
of our poverty; their pride, of our degradation; their splendour, of
our wretchedness; their tyranny of our servitude. If they had the
superior intelligence ascribed to them (which they have not) it
would only render them so much more formidable; and from gods would
convert them into devils.