THE THEATRES.—THE POOR MAN’S SUNDAY.—GROUPS FOR HOGARTH.—DR. KEIF AND MR. BAXTER AT THE OLYMPIC.—TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN ENGLAND.—MR. AND MRS. KEELEY.—MR. WIGAN.—MR. KEAN AND THE BRIMLEYS.—METHODISM.—A PENNY THEATRE.—THE PANTOMIMES.—THE BALLET.—THE STAGE IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY.—MATERIALISM.—DRURY-LANE AT 11·45 P.M.—MERRY OLD ENGLAND.—DRURY-LANE AT 1 A.M.
THE THEATRES.—THE POOR MAN’S SUNDAY.—GROUPS FOR HOGARTH.—DR. KEIF AND MR. BAXTER AT THE OLYMPIC.—TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN ENGLAND.—MR. AND MRS. KEELEY.—MR. WIGAN.—MR. KEAN AND THE BRIMLEYS.—METHODISM.—A PENNY THEATRE.—THE PANTOMIMES.—THE BALLET.—THE STAGE IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY.—MATERIALISM.—DRURY-LANE AT 11·45 P.M.—MERRY OLD ENGLAND.—DRURY-LANE AT 1 A.M.
THEspace between Oxford-street and the Strand, the chief thoroughfares of Eastern and Western London, is occupied by a quarter of the town which, in many of its parts, we would not recommend for the residence of strangers who desire respect and consideration from their London acquaintances. On the other hand, nothing can be more interesting to a curious traveller than a careful examination of this quarter. We say acareful examination; for the mere walking through it on the occasion of a visit to the theatres is not enough to exhaust this mine of strange and curious sights. Of course, every stranger walks through this quarter, for in it are the most ancient and renowned among the theatres of London, namely, Covent-garden and Drury-lane.
Old and venerable houses are they, with blackened columns and sooty walls, and surrounded with the questionable traffic of an equivocal neighbourhood. A theatre in prudish London has not much good fame to lose; these two have never at any time stood amidst the fragrance of gardens or parks, or the splendours of a court. The flight to the west has not been caused by them.But, strange to say, the modern smaller theatres, too, are to be found in the outskirts of this half-genteel region. The Lyceum, the Strand theatre, and the Adelphi, are in the Strand. Most dingy and dirty-looking are the streets which surround the Olympic. The Princess’ theatre, elated with the occasional visits of royalty, has sought an asylum in Oxford-street; and the half-classic Sadler’s Wells has gone far out to the north, into staid methodistical, and humble Islington. But Her Majesty’s Theatre, the favourite of the greatest in the land, raises its colonnade in the immediate vicinity of Leicester-square, the modern Alsatia of young France! Are we not, in the vicinity of the Haymarket, before and after midnight, exposed to the blandishments of those fair, frail creatures, that have nothing in common with the Muses, Graces, and Fays, but their state of celibacy? In short, is not the Venus vulgaris notorious for its predilection for a half-fashionable neighbourhood! When, therefore, you date your letters from Long-acre, and when, on receiving such a letter, the face of John Thingumbob, Esq., experiences a perceptible elongation, and his manner of speaking to you afterwards suggests to you the idea that he has beeniced, then believe, O stranger, that our respectable friend, John Thingumbob, Esq., doubts not the safety of your own virtue, but the stability of your finances.
In Drury-lane itself, the painted cheek is less frequently met with than in the Haymarket; the deadly sins which revel in this classic neighbourhood do not use paint, and scorn to employ the blandishments of seduction. Their names are Poverty, Drink, and Dirt.
In the Strand, just opposite to majestic Somerset-House, and half-hidden by the railings of the church-yard, which encroaches upon the natural dimensions of the street, there is a narrow passage, which turns up into Drury-lane. That lane, though of unequal breadth, is always narrow, and numberless are the blind alleys, courts, and passages on either side. The first and second floors of the high and narrow houses, shelter evidently a class of small tradesmen and mechanics, who in other countries would pass as “respectable,†while here they work for the merest necessaries of life, and, like their customers, live from hand to mouth. A few of them are usurers, preying
THE GIN PALACE. p. 267.THE GIN PALACE. p.267.
upon poverty, coining gold from its vices and morbid longings. As for the garrets of those houses, we would not for the world answer for the comfort of their inhabitants. All the lower floors are let out as shops, in which are displayed dingy dresses and articles of female ornament, coarse eatables, cheap and nasty literature, shockingly illustrated; thick-soled shoes, old clothes, awful cigars—all at very low prices. But the gin-palaces are the lions of Drury-lane; they stand in conspicuous positions, at the corners and crossings of the various intersecting streets. They may be seen from afar, and are lighthouses which guide the thirsty “sweater†on the road to ruin. For they are resplendent with plate glass and gilt cornices, and a variety of many-coloured inscriptions. One of the windows displays the portrait of the “Norfolk Giant,†who acts as barman to this particular house; the walls of another establishment inform you, in green letters, that here they sell “THE ONLY REAL BRANDY IN LONDON,†and a set of scarlet letters announces to the world, that in this house they sell “THE FAMOUS CORDIAL MEDICATED GIN, WHICH IS SO STRONGLY RECOMMENDED BY THE FACULTY.†Cream Gin, Honey Gin, Sparkling Ale, Genuine Porter, and other words calculated utterly to confound a tee-totaller, are painted up in conspicuous characters, even so that they cover the door-posts. It is a remarkable fact, that the houses which are most splendid from without, appear most dismal and comfortless from within. The landlord is locked up behind his “bar,†a snug place enough, with painted casks and a fire and an arm-chair; but the guests stand in front of the bar in a narrow dirty place, exposed to the draught of the door, which is continually opening and shutting. Now and then an old barrel, flung in a corner, serves as a seat. But nevertheless the “palace†is always crowded with guests, who, standing, staggering, crouching, or lying down, groaning, and cursing, drink and forget.
On sober working-days, and in tolerable weather, there is nothing to strike the uninitiated in Drury-lane. Many a capital of a small German country is worse paved and lighted. Nor is misery so conspicuous and staring in this quarter as in Spitalfields, St. Giles’, Saffron-hill, and other “back-slums†of London. But at certain bestial periods, misery oozes out of all its poreslike Mississipi mud. Saturday and Monday nights, and Sunday after Church-time, those are the times in which Drury-lane appears in full characteristic glory. A Sunday-afternoon in Drury-lane is enough to make the cheerfullest splenetic. For to the poor labourer the Lord’s day is a day of penance or dissipation. The cotton-frock and fustian-jacket are scared away from the churches and the parks by their respectful awe of rich toilettes and splendid liveries. For the poor man of England is ashamed of his rags; he has no idea of arranging them into a gracefuldraperiein the manner of the Spanish or Italian Lazarone, who devoutly believes that begging is an honest trade. Even the lowest among the low in England are proud enough to avoid the society of a highercaste, though that superiority consist but in half a degree. They consort with persons of their own stamp, among whom they may walk with their heads erect. Church and park have moreover no charm for the blunted senses of the overworked and under-fed artizan. He is too weak and fatigued to think of an excursion into the country. Steamers, omnibuses, or the rail, are too expensive. His church, his park, his club, his theatre, his place of refuge from the smell of the sewers that infect his dwelling—his sole place of relaxation—is the gin-palace.
To provide against the Sunday, he takes a supply of fire-water on Saturday evening when he has received his week’s wages, for with the stroke of twelve the sabbath shuts the door of all public-houses, and on Sunday-morning the beer or brandy paradise must not open before one o’clock in the afternoon, to be closed again from three to five. Hence that unsacred stillness which weighs down upon Drury-lane on Sunday-mornings. The majority of the inhabitants sleep away their intoxication orennui. Old time-worn maudlinness reigns supreme in the few faces which peer from the half-opened street-doors; maudlinness pervades the half-sleepy groups which surround the public-house at noon to be ready for its opening; chronic maudlinness pervades the atmosphere. And if a stray ray of light break through the clouds, it falls upon the frowsy loungers and the dim window-panes in a strange manner, as though it had no business there.
It is Saturday-night, and the orgies of Drury-lane have commenced. “That’s the way thou shouldst look,†says Dr. Keif, hurrying forward to the divan in the Strand; “that’s the way thou shouldst look, thouCitta Dolente, to awe us with thy charms. Oh for a Dutch painter of the old school to turn this scene into aHöllenbreughel.â€
A dense fog, with a deep red colouring, from the reflection of numberless gas-jets, and the pavement flooded with mud; a fitful illumination according to the strength of the gas, which flares forth in long jets from the butchers’ shops, while the less illumined parts are lost in gloomy twilight. If your nerves are delicate, you had better not pass too close by the gin-shops, for as the door opens—and those doors are always opening—you are overwhelmed with the pestilential fumes of gin. The pavements are crowded. Slatternly servants with baskets hurry to the butchers and grocers, and the haunters of the coffee-houses of Drury-lane elbow their way through the very midst of the population—thesweepingsof humanity. A wicked word this, but the only one fit for these forms of woe and livid faces, in which hunger contends with thirst, and vice with disease.
What subjects for Hogarth on the narrow space of a couple of flag-stones! How ravenous the craving which flashes from the eyes of that grey-haired woman, as she drags a slight, yellow-haired girl—perhaps her own child—to the gin-shop! The little girl follows in a dumb wooden way; but her small slight hand is shut with an anxious grasp, as though she feared to lose her weekly earnings—the wages, perhaps, of hard work, or still harder beggary. She stumbles at the threshold, and almost falls over a couple of children that are crouching on the ground, shivering with cold, and waiting for their father within. The father comes, staggering and kicking the air, with manifest danger to his equilibrium, and cursing awfully. The kick was meant for his wife, a thin woman, with hollow yellow cheeks, whose long serpent-like curls are covered with an old silk bonnet, while her stockingless feet are contained in large slippers. She counts five copper pence in her bony hand, looks at her drunken husband, and at the fatal door, and at the costermonger’s cart in themiddle of the street; and she counts her pence, and recounts them, and cannot come to the end of them, though they are but five. The large oysters in the dirty cart, too, excite her appetite. Which is it to be? the public-house or a lot of oysters? “Penny a lot, oysters!†shouts the man, as he moves his cart forward. A dozen greedy eyes watch his movements.
Similar groups are met with at every step. At the door of almost every gin-shop you see drunken women, many of them with children in their arms; and wherever you go, amidst the confused noise and murmur of many voices, you hear distinctly the most awful oaths. It is not at all necessary to quote those oaths. Let it suffice, that one of them, beginning with a B, startled Dr. Keif’s ears a hundred times at least in his walk through Drury-lane.
“Adventure number one!†said Mr. Baxter, to whom our friend communicated the result of his observations.
The fact is, Dr. Keif and Mr. Baxter are seated in the pit of the Olympic Theatre, which is small enough to enable even a short-sighted person to make the public in the boxes and the galleries the subject of a physiognomical study. The “Caucasian population†of Mr. Disraeli’s novels may be seen in large numbers enjoying their sabbath. The pit and the upper gallery are filled with sentimental cooks and housemaids, intermixed with a sprinkling of females, to whom we do but justice if we describe them aslorettesin a small way. They enjoy the patronage of a select assembly of beardless shopmen and attorneys’ clerks, who treat them to ginger-beer, soda-water, lemonade, and oranges. The curtain has just fallen.
“How do you like it?†asks Mr. Baxter.
“Why I think we have seen enough.â€
“Wait one moment, I want to look at some one I know. Am I to understand that you didn’t like the piece?†said Mr. Baxter.
“On the contrary; I like it very much. There’s nothing like a piece of tragical clap-trap in your English theatres.â€
“Ay!—well!—just so! But then the piece was ‘done’ from the French.â€
“The natural source of the modern British drama. But never mind the piece; it’s theactingwhich amuses me. Mrs. Lackadaytelling young Ronsay of her boding dream, and Ronsay pitching into her with a declaration of love—you must confess that the scene would have done credit to the most wooden marionettes.â€
“Yes, indeed! That scene was capital!â€
“Was’nt it! The fellow stood there, like a big gun, until his turn came, and then he went off! He turned his eyes upwards, that you might have seen the whites at the distance of a mile; and he sparred with his hands, as if preparing for a set-to with the moon; and all of a sudden he stood stock still again, exactly like a gun, and the audience was fairly enraptured! And did it not strike you, that the two people had the same modulation and declamation, as a married couple of forty years’ standing, whose features have acquired the same expression, and whose limbs have fallen into the same mode of movement? At times I am inclined to believe, that the tragic actors, male and female, have been ground their trade to the tune of one and the same patent barrel-organ. Their pathos is set to music. They all delight in the same pause between the article, the adjective, and the substantive; they all make endless stops, and utter the word which follows with a kind of explosion. I presume these poor fellows try to imitate Macready.â€
“That is to say,†remarked Mr. Baxter, “they caricature him.â€
“But do you know whom Macready caricatures or imitates? I have read a good deal about Garrick, Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, and I ought to swear by them, as you all do; but still I cannot help suspecting that, even in the golden period of English tragedy, ‘all was not gold that glittered.’ There is no originality. There is too much respect for antiquated traditions among the craft.â€
“Certainly there is a good deal of tradition about it. But our actors are not at liberty to depart from those ancient ways; and the slightest deviation would raise a storm against the unfortunate innovator. The taste of the public demands—â€
“Indeed! and how does it happen that the period of the Garricks, Kembles, and Siddons did not create and lead you to a better taste? Has England gone back in education and refinement? Why it is just the reverse. The art of tragicacting must formerly have been subject to the same vices as in our days. What you say about the taste of the public is a very lame excuse. I am of opinion that your English public might be trained to a better taste; they are not fond of criticising; their feelings are not used up, and they are eminently grateful. Their taste is unrefined, but they are inclined to respect grace and dignity. Look at Madame Celeste. She carries everything before her by the grace of her untraditional movements.â€
“But then she is a pretty French woman,†said Mr. Baxter, laughing, “and pretty women, you know, will carry every thing before them. But now come before the curtain is up, for Mr. Ronsay will certainly deafen us this time.â€
“Good evening, Mr. Brimley,†whispered Mr. Baxter, as we went out, touching the shoulders of a young man who sat in the darkest corner of the pit with his hat slouched over his face, his great-coat buttoned up to his chin, and a large shawl tied round his neck, as though he were occupying the box-seat of an omnibus instead of a pit-seat in a hot and crowded theatre. The young man jumped up, blushed over and over, seized Mr. Baxter’s hands, and talked to him very earnestly, and, as it appeared, imploringly.
“Adventure No. 2,†said Mr. Baxter, when the two friends had gained the street. “That tall young fellow with the red whiskers is a Mr. Brimley; he is twenty-five years of age; he manages his father’s business in the city; he is likely to have £200,000 or £300,000 of his own, and he trembles like a school-boy lest his papa should hear of his secret escapades.â€
“What escapades are those? if it is a fair question.â€
“Perfectly fair. His great crime is, that this evening, for the first time in his life, he has gone to the theatre.â€
“Impossible!â€
“But fact. I know Peter Brimley, Esq., and Mrs. Brimley, and the whole family. A set of more honest, respectable people does not exist between the Thames and the Clyde; but if they were to understand that Mr. Ebenezer Brimley, their son, had crossed the threshold of frivolity, and placed himself on a seat of ungodly vanity, there would be more lamenting and howling among the uncles and aunts of Brimley House than there would be over abankruptcy of the firm of Brimley and Co. These people are Methodists, and yet Ebenezer the Bold has taken the first step. Since stolen water is more sweet and intoxicating than brandy honestly purchased, I am afraid Ebenezer will drink the poisonous cup to the dregs. Some of these fine days we shall hear of his having gone off with Mrs. Lackaday. Poor fellow! he has not the least idea that she is on the wrong side of forty, and he is evidently much taken with her painted beauties. Never mind, I will be silent as to the past, because I have promised him. He wont sleep this night, I tell you, that little boy of twenty-five, for fear lest some incautious word of mine might betray the secret.â€
“Then it would appear that M.Enfinis not, after all, so very wrong,†said Dr. Keif.
“Nor is he; but your Frenchman cannot see farther than the tip of his nose. The Puritans and low church people form a powerful faction in England; but the round-heads, though great nuisances, are wanted so long as there are cavaliers. And now let us enter this temple of art.â€
We pass through a low door, and enter a kind of ante-chamber, where we pay a penny each. A buffet with soda-water, lemonade, apples, and cakes, is surrounded by a crowd of thinly-clad factory girls, and a youthful cavalier with a paper cap is shooting at a target with a cross-bow, and after each shot he throws a farthing on the buffet. Passing through the ante-chamber and a narrow corridor, we enter the pit of the penny-theatre, a place capable of holding fifty persons. There are also galleries—a dozen of wooden benches rise in amphitheatrical fashion up to the ceiling; and, strange to say, the gentlemen sit on one side and the ladies on the other. This separation of the sexes is owing to a great refinement of feeling. The gentlemen, chiefly labourers and apprentices, luxuriate during the representation in the aroma of their “pickwicks,†a weed of which we can assure the reader that it is not to be found in the Havanna; but they are gallant enough to keep the only window in the house wide open.
Just as we enter we see the director, a small curly-headed man, with a red punch face, ascending the stage by means of a ladder. He makes two low bows, one for the ladies and one forthe gentlemen, and delivers himself of a grand oration, to excuse some small deficiences in his institution. At every third word he is interrupted by the cheers and remarks of the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,†says he. “I am sorry I cannot produce aprima donnato-night. Jenny Lind has sent me a message by my own submarine telegraph, asking for an extension of her leave. You would not surely shorten the honeymoon of the nightingale. Why, to do that would be as bad as cruelty to animals. Madame Sontag tells me, quite in confidence, that she is falling off, and that, although her voice is good enough for Yankee ears, she wants the courage to make her appearance before the refined public of No. 17, Broad-street, London. Mdlle. Wagner was at my service, cheap as any stale mackerel; but could I insult you by producing her? Would not every note have reminded you of the fact, that she values nothing in England but its copper pence. Besides, the terms of friendship which subsist between myself and Mr. Lumley—there are considerations—I hope you’ll understand me, ladies and gentlemen!â€
“Question! question!â€
“Maybe you are astonished that these boards are uncarpeted, and that no painted curtain displays its glories to your eyes!â€
A voice from the gallery:—“At your uncle’s, eh?â€
Another voice:—“Nonsense! His wife has turned the stuff into a petticoat.â€
“How little you understand me, ladies and gentlemen. In the first place, it is but decent that our stage should lament the death of the Iron Dukeâ€â€”
Interruption:—“No first place! Don’t you try to be funny, old feller!â€â€”Blasphemy—groans.
“Ladies and gentlemen, pray listen to me. Let all be serene between us. I have nothing to conceal. Ladies and gentlemen, the overture is about to commence!â€
The speaker vanishes through a trap-door, through which two fellows presently ascend. One is dressed up to represent an Irishman; the other wears the characteristic habiliments of a Scotch Highlander. They play some national airs, and while thus engaged strip themselves of every particle of their outer clothing, and appear as American planters. Some one frombelow, hands up a couple of straw hats, which they clap on their heads, and the metamorphosis is complete. They then go to the back of the stage and return with an unfortunate “African.†The part is acted by no less distinguished a person than the director himself. His face is blackened, he has a woolly wig on his head, and heavy chains on his wrists and ancles; and to prevent all misunderstandings, there is pinned to his waistcoat an enormous placard, with the magic words of “Uncle Tom.â€
The planters produce meanwhile a couple of stout whips, which instruments of torture they use in a very unceremonious manner, in belabouring the back of the sableprotegéof the Duchess of Sutherland and the women of England generally, when all of a sudden, that illustrious negro, exclaiming, “Li-ber-r-r-ty! Liber-r-r-ty!†breaks his fetters, and turning round with great deliberation, descends into the pit. Exeunt the two planters, each with a somerset.
Transformation:—Three forms issue from the back door; a colossal female, with a trident and a diadem of gilt paper, bearing the legend of “Britanniaâ€; after her, a pot-bellied old gentleman, with a red nose and a spoon in his right hand, while his left holds an enormous soup-plate, with a turtle painted on the back of it.
Britannia, heaving a deep sigh, sits down on a stool, adjusts a telescope, which is very long and very dirty, and looks out upon the ocean. The gentleman with the red nose, who, of course, represents the Lord Mayor of the good City of London, kneels down at her feet, and indulges in a fit of very significant howlings and gnashings of teeth. The third person is a sailor-boy complete, with a south-wester, blue jacket, and wide trousers, who dances a hornpipe while Britannia sighs and the Lord Mayor howls.
Now comes the great scene of the evening! Somebody or something, diving up from the very midst of the pit, makes a rush against the stage. It is the Uncle Tom of the last scene; but surely even Her Grace of Sutherland would not know him again. His face is as black and his hair as woolly as ever; but a cocked hat, a pair of red trousers and top boots, and an enormous sword, brings it home even to the dullest understanding,that this is a very dangerous person! Besides, on his back there is a placard, with the inscription: “Solouque—Napoleon—Emperorâ€!!
The monster bawls out “Invasion!†while, to the great delight of the ladies and gentlemen, he bumps his head several times against the chalky cliffs of Britain, which, on the present emergency, are represented by the wooden planks of the stage. The very sailor-boy, still dancing his hornpipe, shows his contempt for so much ferocity and dulness. He greets the invader with a scornful—“Parli-vow Frenchi?â€
At this juncture, the conqueror becomes aware of the presence of the short ladder, and mounts it forthwith. The boy vents his feelings of horror and disgust in an expressive pantomime, the Lord Mayor howls louder than ever, and the gnashing of his teeth is awful to behold; but just as the invader has gained the edge of the stage, he is attacked by the sailor, who, applying his foot to a part of the Frenchman’s body which shall be nameless, kicks that warrior back into the pit. The public cheer, Britannia and the Lord Mayor dance a polka, and the sailor sings “God save the Queen!â€
“If the French ambassador could but know of this!†said Mr. Baxter, as the two friends were pushing their way out through a crowd of new comers. “That one kick would give rise to half a dozen diplomatic notes. Alas, for the liberties of Old England! Now I am sure the Lord Chamberlain’s deputy would never have permitted this scene in a Drury-lane pantomime.â€
“I’m glad of it,†said Dr. Keif, testily, “since it seems to hurt you, who are a moderate Tory. But why did we go away?â€
“It was so hot. But what do you say to this sort of thing? Here you have the low and the uneducated in raptures with a histrionic representation. Are you still of opinion, that the people of England are without dramatic affinities and theatrical instincts?â€
“I never expressed such an opinion. Just now we were talking of tragic acting; but as for your comic actors, they are exquisite. No one can equal Matthews at the Lyceum or Mrs. Keeley. There you have natural freshness, energy, lightness, and refinement. Our German comic plays and actors arenothing to it. You see I can be impartial, and I will plainly tell you what my impressions are. When I saw ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Sadler’s-wells, I had to bite my lips to keep myself from laughing. Juliet, instead of proceeding from an Italian nunnery, appeared fresh from a finishing school at Brompton; the orthopedical stays and the back-board were not to be mistaken. And as for Romeo, so great was my confidence in him, that I would, without the least hesitation, have handed an express-train over to his care; he was so cool, sharp, and collected. It was just the same with Mercutio, Tybalt, and Friar Lawrence. Not that they were deficient in mimic and vocal power—no such thing! but because they conducted themselves in a frantic manner, and because they got up and down the scale of human sounds from a whisper to a roar. For the very reason that they did all this, I came to the conclusion that there is no tragic passion in these gentlemen. I saw them afterwards in comedies, and they delighted me. The broader the comedy, the nearer it approaches to the farce, the more natural does the acting appear to me. Dont laugh at me; but I never enjoyed anything so much as I did the last year’s Christmas pantomime at Drury-lane. There you have plastic jokes, madness with method, edifying nonsense—a kaleidoscope for aged children.â€
“How you go on!†said Mr. Baxter. “Don’t you know that those pantomimes, for the most part, are nothing but a tissue of stale jokes taken at random from the last volume ofPunch?â€
“No matter! The jokes, however stale, strike one as new by dint of a clever arrangement and a judicious intermixture of all the follies of the season. It is not an easy matter, let me tell you, to translate a printed witticism into an intelligible and strikingtableau. Quick and dreamlike as the scenic changes are, not a single allusion can escape the audience: they are all executed in a lapidary style. Life in London garrets and streets, shops and cellars, shown up in a sort of carnival procession—surely there is a good deal of art in that! Hogarth might have sketched this sort of thing with a drop or so more of gall; but I doubt whether he could have surpassed it in striking truthfulness. Besides I prefer seeing such scenes acted to seeing them engraved. These are the plays to bring out the mechanicalexcellence of your countrymen. Your young gentleman appears stiff and awkward enough in the drawing-room. But your clown on the stage is thebeau idealof mercurial agility. The fellow has patent steel springs in every one of his joints. Our own misnamed ‘English riders’ are mere lay-figures if compared to the clowns which overleap one another in your Christmas pantomimes. There is but one dark spot in their representations, namely, the ballet. To see twenty or thirty female Englishmen of full regulation-size dancing a ballet, is an overpowering luxury. To this day I protest that nothing was farther from the thoughts of those worthy virgins than the performance of a dance, but that their elongated legs were so many geometrical instruments moving about with a view to the practical demonstration of the various problems in Euclid. English ladies, as all the world knows, are madly fond of the higher branches of abstract science.â€
“You are a rabid critic, and a rabid critic you will remain to the end of your days,†said Mr. Baxter. “You Germans cannot get on without classifications and generalisations. For instance, you think proper to imagine a profound philosophy in the Christmas pantomimes, which, after all, are acted for the special delight of the infant population. And you dare to doubt the genius of Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Siddons, merely because you know that a few bad actors are now and then in the habit of murdering Shakespeare. However, it is impossible to exhaust the subject of the difference between English and German taste. Our tragedy is as strongly pronounced as our comedy, and what you blame in the former, you like in the latter. I am free to confess that our actors overdo their parts; but they do not overdo them to such an extent as you fancy, accustomed as you are to the contemplative, monological pathos of the German tragedians. Possibly our heroes would be all the better for a gentler roar, but certainly it cannot be said of them, that their acting is soporific. But let us leave this wordy theme! There is no denying it, that the best days of the stage are over, here and in Germany: with you from the want of substance, air, and elbow-room; with us, from an excess of overwhelming practical activity. Besides there are many other causes which it isimpossible to enumerate. There is but one point to which I would call your attention; and I would have you mind it whenever you make comparisons. With us, dramatic art has never been idolised as in Germany; we have never considered it as an institution for national education and an academy of ethics. Within the last few years only this view has been adopted and enforced by some writers. I can understand what your stage has been to you since the days of Lessing, and the losses and wants for which in Germany it was an indemnification. But you began at the wrong end. The drama is the flower of national life; you sought to convert it into its seed and root. On some occasions you have even gone the length of considering it the fruit and the object of national life. You cared more for the ideal reflection than for the real action which was to be reflected. It has often made me smile to hear your æsthetical patriots clamour for a German fleet or a German emperor, for no other reason but because these two ‘properties’ would do an immense deal of good to the drama; and I have also smiled when listening to their lamentations that Germany can never be great and powerful, since her national stage is sustained by the leavings of the French theatres. Our managers import loads of French farces and vaudevilles, and the papers show them up for it now and then; but no one believes our nationality in danger. As well might we fear the most serious consequences to the power of England, from the importation of French milliners, stays, andCuls de Paris.â€
Mr. Baxter made a short pause, and, since Dr. Keif would not speak, he continued his orationpro domo.
“Let me tell you, that there are thousands of Englishmen in town and country, who quote Shakespere as they do the Bible, but they know nothing whatever of the stage; and there are patrons of the stage, to whom you may demonstrate the decline of that institution, without eliciting one word of reproval against the Foreign Office. In Germany, the stage is petted and subsidised by a score or so of royal and princely personages. English theatres are speculations, as all other commercial undertakings; they have nothing to rely on but the support of the public. The Queen takes a box at the Princess’s, or at Covent Garden;no one will ever expect her to do more for the ‘national drama,’ or the Italian opera. The very boards which yesterday witnessed the death struggles of Desdemona and the jealousy of the Moor, are this evening given up to Franconi or a band of Indian jugglers. If any one here were to lament this ‘desecration of the Temple of the Muses,’ he would simply make himself ridiculous. The dog of Aubrey, which excited Göthe’s and Schiller’s indignation, will be a welcome guest on any London stage, so it pays. But for all that, the public know how to distinguish between poesy and clap-trap. Our actors take their position in society as gentlemen, though they have not, as your actors, the ‘position of public functionaries.’ Our dramatic authors do not indulge in oraculous preface, because they do not think it absolutely necessary that they should be prophets, while they do think it absolutely necessary to be entertaining. A poetical entertainment ennobles; poesy which is not entertaining falls short of its mark, and remains without effect. I am free to confess, that Sheridan and Otway remain unsurpassed in their respective lines. Shelley’s Beatrice, though unfit for the stage, has indication of dramatic genius of a high order; but one swallow does not make a summer. Our critics regret this; but they do not lament it as a national misfortune—they do not demonstrate from this fact the spiritual and moral decline of the nation. They are aware that dramatic productiveness is not to be had to order, that guano and artificial tendencies cannot raise a crop; they have been content with the works of Cumberland, Knowles, Bulwer, D. Jerrold, and Tom Taylor, without measuring their productions by the standard of the most renowned precedents, or abusing each individual author because he is not a Shakespeare. And for all that, Old England flourishes in power and glory. But stop, we have lost our way, and got into Seven Dials, which is, after all, but a worse edition of Drury-lane. Let us go back. The ‘Witches’ Sabbath’ must by this time be at its height, and we may as well look at what is going on.â€
They picked their way through a very narrow and dark lane.
Dr. Keif heaved a deep sigh and said—“I see you have stored up a lecture for my benefit. Your sallies and innuendoes go rightagainst the rotten side of our German hot-house life; but—but surely you must admit, that the stage is an indication of the spirit and taste of society; and certainly you are the last man whom I could have expected to deliver this matter-of-fact sermon, to which I have just had—politeness compels me to call it—thepleasureof listening. My Germanic opposition has driven you into the ranks of the Manchester men. But surely you cannot possibly have the face to tell me, that the one-sided, utilitarian tendencies of England arebeautiful.â€
“Beautiful,†replied Mr. Baxter, with a sigh. “Did I call them beautiful? Surely not; butnecessity, my dear Doctor, is a mighty goddess. We, too, who aredilettanti, would be better off for ourselves and others, if we had learnt something of agriculture, political economy, or some substantial profession or trade. This remark applies to nations also. What’s the use of going in pursuit of ‘the Beautiful’ and ‘the Great,’ when you are at a loss how to clothe Beauty and shelter Greatness. Pray be candid for this once. Was it not the case of the German Titans, when a mere chance, an earthquake, flung the keys of the house within their reach? Were they not, most of them, wilful dreamers, dabblers in politics and poetry—men who judged the progress of events after its picturesque or dramatic effect; and who, though brimful with schemes for the improvement of the ‘people,’ and overflowing with sympathy for the sufferings of the same ‘people,’ had not the least idea how to set about gaining an army, improving the finances, establishing the good cause on a basis of material interests, saving time, and making the most of the favour of the moment? These matter-of-fact virtues and abilities were everywhere wanting. And now what has been the result forthe Beautifulandthe Great?â€
“But Sir,†said Dr. Keif, “I protest your words make me giddy. Are you my old friend Baxter? You speak in the spirit of the Quaker Bright, and Cobden of plausible reputation. Do you really believe that the German revolution madefiasco, because the Germans read Schiller and Göthe; and that England is great and powerful, only because a sense for art and good taste is confined to the favoured few, while the life of your middleclasses is spread over the dead level of the flattest materialism imaginable?â€
“You are mistaken. One-sidedness is a sad thing under any circumstances; but if the choice be left me, I would prefer British one-sidedness to the German. And as for our materialism, it has been wofully exaggerated on the continent. England has a large family, many mouths to feed, sir, and appearances to be kept up, too, namely, the traditional pomp and splendour of an old aristocracy and of the crown. The nation has doubled its numbers within the last two hundred years, but our island has not increased in size, though certainly a large extent of waste land has been reclaimed. Britanniamustrule the waves if she would keep her own. Rob us of our wealth, and we are utterly lost. But no one can rob us of our wealth, because that wealth is founded on what you call our prosaical materialistic character, and what we describe as the indomitable energy and calm deliberation of the people. The Englishman understands the necessity of an untiring, practical industry and devotion to that industry has in him become a second nature. Labour, my dear Sir, civilizes the masses and ennobles the few. Consider your own words, and just think how childish it is to hold forth against the ‘flat materialism’ of a nation which is in a fair way of fully conquering the elements and withdrawing the veil from the secrets of nature! That at the present day utilitarian tendencies are predominant, even in literature, who can deny? But the brains that labour in the service of ‘the useful,’ labour also, and knowingly, too, for the benefit of humanity. Our middle classes, though not such great theatrical critics as the Germans, are attracted, and surely they are improved by a great many other sights. Just join the crowd of holyday makers that have come to see the launch of a gigantic steamer in Southampton, Liverpool, Glasgow, or Blackwall, and from a thousand sparkling eyes proud thoughts will flash at you—not mere nabob-thoughts and gold-freight speculations, as you Germans fancy; but anticipations of a better and nobler future, hopes of peaceful intercourse among and the progress of all nations; dreams of civilization in Dahomey and other barbarous countries—in short, thoughts ofwhich no art-philosopher need be ashamed. Go to the Polytechnic——.â€
The fog has vanished in Drury-lane; for about midnight the London sky is usually clear; the moon looks out from behind the steeple of St. Mary’s church in the Strand, and at each street-corner stands a policeman, he being on the look-out. The progress of the two friends is stopped by a dense crowd, surrounding a couple of Irish women, who are settling a little “difficulty†of their own. Ragged little boys stand in dangerous proximity, urging them on, and making very laudable exertions to procure for the street the gratification of a “real fight,†for hitherto the two Amazons have used their tongues rather than their fists, and indulged in an interchange of epithets beginning withband ending withy, and repeated with extreme volubility an incredible number of times.
“You’ve got no pluck! you daughter of a dog’s daughter, that’s what you hasn’t!†shouts a little imp of a fellow, jumping right between them, and splashing all the bystanders. With bursts of laughter and many curses, the crowd disperses down the street and follows a stretcher, carried by two policemen, who have just issued from a dark gate-way. On the stretcher, her head and legs hanging down, is a tall, consumptive-looking girl, with her hair loosened and sweeping down like a black veil.
“They’re taking her to the station-house,†says a woman with a pipe and a strong Irish accent—“taking her to the station-house, for the blessed dthrop is such a stranger in her throat—poor Poll! believe me, gintlemin, it’s only hunger has made her drunk—only hunger!â€
Through all the various sounds of yells, groans, and curses, we hear at a distance the unharmonious concert of two barrel-organs, one of which is grinding out a woful caricature of the Marseillaise, while the other, addressing itself to the human family generally, informs them, with an awful screech, that “There’s a good time coming, boys,†which cheering intelligence is, in the end, qualified by the growl of “Wait a little longer.†A few yards on, a beggar-boy with naked feet, and with an almost naked back, has taken up his post where the mud is deepest in the road, and sings, with a thin, small voice, “Yebanks and braes of bonnie Doon.†Nobody cares for him, for the public are attracted by two artists who are performing in the next street. They are brothers, by their looks, and work together. The younger, a tiny boy with an aged face, taxes the ingenuity of the public by conundrums, whose chief characteristic is, that they are almost always political and smutty. “Why is her most gracious Majesty like a notorious pick-pocket?†shouts he, in a tone which would do honour to a trained school-master. While the public are trying to find the answer, the elder brother imitates the songs of birds and the voices of beasts. They all give it up. “Because she is often confined,†says the little boy, with a most indecent wink at some females. And the songs of birds and voices of beasts are again imitated, and conundrums of a still grosser description propounded and explained; and the hat goes round and comes back with a few pence and half-pence in it.
“And this is classic soil,†said Mr. Baxter. “The whole of this ought to be sacred to the antiquarian, to the adorer of the so-called merry old England. When I shut my eyes—and mind, if I can manage to shut my ears and nose too—I see Nell Gwynn, the merry friend of Charles II., with very thin dress, and not much of it, and with her pet lamb under her arm, walking out of the great portal; she vanishes through the green gate in Lord Craven’s garden. The rays of the setting sun gild the curiously-carved gables of the villas in the Strand, but the cavaliers are already on their way back from the play; and Kynaston, dressed in the costume which he wore on the stage for the part of Juliet, takes a drive with some discreet ladies of fashion, rank, and pleasure.â€
“A merry life, indeed!†said Dr. Keif. “Keep your eyes, ears, and nose shut, and go on.â€
“Not now, dear Doctor. If you are curious on the subject, I will send you some of the old books and chronicles of the time. You will find that theatrical doings in those days, however interesting, are rather instructive than taking. I dare say, you fancy the age was without prudery, and there you are right; but the natural healthy cheerfulness which we find in Shakspeare had long since evaporated. The period of therestoration was insolent but not merry. That the cavaliers were rude and brutal means nothing; the upper classes generally were rude and brutal in all countries at that time; but ours added to a barbarous brutality, a more than French dissoluteness of morals. Strange enough were the doings of the last Stuarts. Fancy yourself in Great Russell Street, following the troops of cavaliers and ladies, with long curly locksà la Vallière, on their road to the theatre. As they leave their chairs or carriages, or dismount from their horses, they draw their masks over faces heated and bloated with drink. Almost everybody is masked. The custom comes from the times of the Puritans, when people went secretly to the theatre. The dissolute second Charles, with his gloomy gypsy face, comes just in time to stop a brawl between the Duke of Buckingham and Killigrew the actor. Killigrew has disarmed the duke, and laid his scabbard about his grace’s ears. Buckingham will send a couple of bravos by and bye, and half kill the actor—a fate which even poor Dryden could not escape. The play begins amidst the interruptions and howling of drunken noblemen who occupy the foreground of the stage, trip up the heroine, and kick the hero into the orchestra. His Majesty, meanwhile, in the presence of his lieges, ogles one of his numerous mistresses, or makes smutty speeches to an orange-girl, with a voice so loud that it is plainly heard on the stage. That is a scene from merry Old England!â€
All of a sudden the lights are put out in the gin-palaces, the barrel-organs are silent, the howling and cursing shrinks into a hoarse murmur; and the multitude disperse gradually, like muddy water which runs through the gutters and is lost under ground. The street is all silent and lonely; only one tall figure comes with rapid and noiseless steps out of one of the alleys. It looks round in every direction; but there is no policeman in sight. It steps up to our two friends, and looks at them in silence with staring glassy eyes. It is not the spirit of midnight, nor is it a ghost; but neither is it a form of flesh and blood, for it is all skin and bones. And the clear light of the harvest-moon displays a half-starved woman with an infant on her arm, to whom her bony hand is a hard death-bed. For some minutesshe stares at the strangers. They put some silver into her hand, and she, without any remark or thanks, turns round and walks slowly away.
“The holy sabbath has commenced,†said Dr. Keif, “the puritanical sabbath, on which misery feels three times more miserable.â€
“My dear friend,†said Mr. Baxter, “twenty-five years ago you might have found the whole of Oxford Street crowded with figures similar to the one which has just left us. If you would see them in our days, you must seek for them in some dark corner of Drury Lane. And Puritanism in 1853 is mild and gentle compared to the Puritanism of the Round-heads; it is nothing but a natural reaction against the dissolute Cavalier spirit which has come down even to the commencement of this century. In the English character one extreme must be balanced by the other. Either merry and mad, or sober and prude; we are either drunkards or teetotallers, brawlers or peace-twaddlers. Of course, if harmonic and measured dignity, if the instinct for beauty of form, were innate in us, then, indeed, this nation would not be the persevering, hard-working, powerful John Bull which it is; or if it were, we should shame your German proverb, that the trees nowhere grow into the heavens. Good night, Doctor; and ‘au revoir.’ â€
Sir John to Dr. Keif.
Hyde Cottage,November 15.
My dear Doctor,
Herewith I return the proof-sheets of Part II. of the “Saunterings in and about London;†and I beg to thank you for them; although I know you sent them less for my amusement than because you wished to procure for me a sort of private view of myself and my prejudices as you call them. Never mind! an English gentleman can afford to hear the truth spoken anywhere and anyhow; and, if you promise to resign some of your Teutonic crotchets, I gladly pledge my word in return, that I will never again try to reason a Frenchman’s hind-leg straight; for, after all, that unfortunate dispute was the worst our friend could lay to my charge.
Now, as for our friend’s book, which you tell me is to be published at Berlin—the most intelligent and erudite of all the German capitals—really, Doctor, I do not half like the idea! How are these two little volumes ever to give the Germans a proper idea of what London really is? A good many capital descriptions there are—but, dear me! how much there is that is wanting. I tell you the very things are wanting which would most improve the German mind, if your friend had but condescended to notice them. Not a word does he say of our picture galleries, incomparable though they undoubtedly are. The Bridgewater, Vernon, and Hampton Court collections are not mentioned; nor is the British Museum—nor St. Paul’s—nor the Colosseum—nor Madame Tussaud’s—nor are Barclay and Perkins! He does not even mention our most magnificent streets and quarters.Regent-street, Bond-street, Belgravia, and Westbourne-terrace are most wickedly neglected by our flighty friend. He has not a word for the monster concerts of Exeter-hall, and he absolutely forgets that there are such places as Covent-garden, Billingsgate, and Hungerford markets. The Zoological-gardens, the Botanical-gardens, Kew, Richmond, Windsor, arts, literature, charities—all are passed over in contemptuous silence.
My dear Doctor, I put it to you; if those places and matters are not mentioned at all, how are the foreigners ever to understand what London is? The people of Berlin are actually led to believe that we have no picture-galleries and hospitals! Your friend might write ten volumes without exhausting the subject. Don’t you agree with me? We must have a word or two on the subject when you come to see us.
The country is charming just now. Where, out of England, can you find such beautiful green meadows, and so mild an air, in November? I walk about without a great coat, thinking of the mountains of snow in Germany, and of the wolves that make their way over the mountains and into the very sanctuary of the Cologne Cathedral. It’s a little damp now and then—especially after sunset—but it doesn’t matter; for in the evening I have my fire and my newspaper. The fact is, there’s no comfort except in England, and in the country! Come and look at our cottage. The children expect you; so do I.
Yours, etc.
P.S.—At this season of the year you had better take a glass of Cognac in the morning. You’ll find some bottles in the cellar. Before going to bed take one of my pills. You’ll find a box on my table. Don’t be obstinate. You can have no idea of the dangers of an English November.
Dr. Keif to Sir John.
Guildford Street,November 16.
My dear Sir,
I think of coming on Sunday. In the meanwhile I must give you some sort of explanation respecting the incompleteness of our friend’s “Saunterings.â€
He might indeed, in his book, have mentioned all the remarkable places and sights of your metropolis; but he could only havementionedthem. He preferred taking up a few strong features and phases, and expatiating on them. Of course a great deal was passed over in silence; you, as an Englishman, have the greatest right to complain of such neglect. But, most respectable Sir John, pray do not forget that in this manner mention has not been made of many things which are by no means agreeable to British ears when commented upon by foreigners. A good many capital descriptions there are; but, dear me, how much is wanting! I tell you the very things are wanting which we Germans, I trust, shall never think of imitating.
Not a word of your dog and rat fights. Not a word of the manifest incompetency of the majority of your sculptors and painters. Not a syllable of your unequalled musical barbarism. Not a word of the stupendous prostitution—of the dirt—the dissoluteness—the bestiality—in the lower Thames quarters and the Borough. No detailed descriptions of your gin palaces and sailors’ saloons—your learned professions—the intricacies of the law—medicine swamped in charlatanism—your High Church—your Low Church, and sectarian fanaticism—your bigotted Universities, Oxford and Cambridge—the narrow-mindedness of your aristocracy, and the snobbism of your middle classes: all these matters are altogether left out.
My dear Sir John, you are quite right. Itwouldtake tenvolumes to exhaust the subject. Between ourselves, perhaps you would not half like it if our friend were to continue his “Saunterings.â€
London is awful just now. Where in all the world can such fogs and such a pestilential atmosphere be found, except in London? The wolves in the Cologne Cathedral are mere creations of your free-born British fancy; and, as for the present absence of your great coat—do I not know that Englishmen brave even the rigours of a German winter in check trousers and dress coats? But they are cunning enough to don those respectable habiliments over sundry layers of flannel. Have you left off your vests, etc.? Of course you are comfortable in your country cottage, and I shall come to admire you in all your glory.
Yours, etc.
P.S.—Your medical advice is valuable; I mean, in part, to conform to it. I found the Cognac, and shall take it as directed. But your pills I shall not take. I’m reading the French papers, and they do quite as well.
THE END.J. WERTHEIMER AND CO., PRINTERS, FINSBURY CIRCUS.