[May, 1820.
We don’t know where to begin this article—whether with Mr. Matthews and his Country Cousins; or with HarlequinversusShakespear; or Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper; or the story of Goody Two-Shoes and the Fate of Calas, at the Summer Theatre of Sadler’s Wells; or with Mr. Booth’s Lear, which we have seen with great pleasure; or with Mr. Kean’s, which is a greater pleasure to come, (so we anticipate) and which we see is put off to the last moment, lest, we suppose, as the play-bills announce, ‘the immortal Shakespear should meet with opponents.’ And why should the immortal Shakespear meet with opponents in this case? Nobody can tell. But to prevent so terrible and unlooked-for a catastrophe,and to protect the property of the theatre at so alarming a crisis from cries of ‘fire’ the Manager has thought it his duty ‘to suspend the Free List during the representation, the public press excepted.’ As we have not the mortification of the exclusion, nor the benefit of the exception, we care little about the matter, but as a curiosity in theatrical diplomacy. The anxiety of the Manager about the double trust committed to him, the property of a great theatre, and the fame of a great poet, is exemplary; and the precautions he uses for their preservation, no less admirable and efficacious:—so that, if the tragedy of King Lear should pass muster for a night or two, without suffering the greatest indignities, it will be owing to thesuspension of the Free List: if Mr. Kean should ride triumphant in a sea of passion, the king of sorrows, and drown his audience in a flood of tears, it will be owing to thesuspension of the Free List: if the heart-rending tragedy of the immortal bard, as it was originally written, does not meet with the same untoward fate as the speaking pantomime of the late Mr. Garrick deceased, ‘altered by a professional gentleman of great abilities,’ it will be owing to thesuspension of the Free List. In a word, if the glory of the ‘great heir of fame’ does not totter to its base at the representation of his noblest work, nor the property of the theatre tumble about our ears the very first night, we shall have to thank Mr. Elliston’s timely care in thesuspension of the Free List! ‘Strange that an old poet’s memory should be as mortal as a new manager’s wits!’ This bold anticipation and defiance of opposition, where none can be expected, is not very politic, though it may be very valiant. It is bringing into litigation an unencumbered estate (we mean that part of it relating to the character of Shakspear) of which we are in full and quiet possession. It is not only waking the sleeping lion, but kicking him. Mr. Elliston’s shutting his doors in the face of the Free List is like Don Quixote’s throwing open the cages of the wild beasts in the caravan, and insisting that they should come out and fight him. If the Free List were that formidable and ill-disposed body of sworn foes to Shakspear, that ‘tasteless monster that the world ne’er saw,’ and into which the manager’s officious zeal for the interests of the theatre would convert them, it were best to let them alone, and not court their hostility by invidious and impracticable disqualifications. If they are determined todamnShakspear, there is no help for it: if they hold no such antipathy to him, ‘if that they love the gentle bard,’ why should their ‘unhoused, free condition, be put in circumscription and confine,’ during the Manager’s pleasure? We are in no great pain for the deathless renown of Shakspear: but we really entertain apprehensions that these Berlin and Milan decrees (in imitation of a greatman) which our arbitrary theatrical dictator is in the habit of issuing at the bottom of his play-bills, may be of no service to the life-renters of Drury-lane. We hear a report (which we do not believe, and shall be happy to contradict) that the Drury-Lane Management have put in a claim to the exclusive representation of Lear, and have proposed to suspend the performance at the other house. This we think too much, even for the gratuitous and imposing pretensions of Mr. Elliston. We shall, at this rate, soon see stuck up about the town,—‘Shakspear performed at this theatre, for a few nights only, by permission of the Manager of Drury-Lane!’ Why, this would be a sweeping clause indeed, a master-stroke at the liberty of the stage. It cannot be. It is ‘as if he would confine the interminable.’ He may seat himself in the manager’s chair, like the lady in the lobster, but the tide of Shakspear’s genius must be allowed to take its full scope, and overflow, like the Nile, the banks on either side of Russell Street. Our poet is national, not private property. Thequondamproprietor of the Circus cannot catch this mighty Proteus to make a Harlequin of him: it is not in the bond, that he should not now let any one else but Mr. Kean play Shakspear, as he once objected to let it play at all! We suspect this idle report must have arisen, not from any hint of an injunction, on the part of Mr. Elliston, against ‘a beard so old and white’ as Mr. Booth’s; but as a critical reproof to the Covent-Garden Managers, for reviving Nahum Tate’s Lear, instead of the original text; and as a friendly suggestion to them instantly to deprive Cordelia of her lover—and to exclude the Free List ‘lest the immortal Shakspear should meet with opponents!’ But we have said enough on this ridiculous subject.
We proceed to another; Mr. Matthews’s Country Cousins. This is the third season that this gentleman has entertained the town successfully, and we trust profitably to himself, by amelangeof imitations, songs, narrative, and ventriloquism, entirely of his own getting up. For one man to be able to amuse the public, or, as the phrase is, todraw houses, night after night, by a display of his own resources and feats of comic dexterity alone, shews great variety and piquancy of talent. The Country Cousins is popular, like the rest: the audiences are, at this present speaking, somewhat thinner, but they do not laugh the less. We do not regret that Mr. Matthews has been transferred from the common stage to a stage of his own. He himself complained, at first, (as the cause of this removal) that he had not regular opportunities afforded him at Covent Garden for appearing in legitimate comedy, which was the chief object of his study and his ambition. If it were not the most ridiculous of allthings to expect self-knowledge from any man, this ground of complaint would be sufficiently curious. Mr. Matthews was seldom or never put into any characters but those of mimicry and burlesque by the managers of Covent Garden: into what characters has he put himself since he has been upon his own hands? why, seldom or never into any but those of mimicry and burlesque. We remember on some former occasion throwing out a friendly discouragement of Mr. Matthews’s undertaking the part of Rover in Wild Oats, (as not exactly fitted to his peculiar cast of acting) which we had reason to think was not received in good part: yet how did he himself propose to make it palatable, and how did he really contrive to make it tolerable, to the audience?—By the introduction of Imitations of all the actors on the London boards. It is not easy to give a character of a man (without making a fool of him) with which he shall be satisfied: but actors are in general so infatuated with applause, or sore from disappointment, that they are, of all men, the least accessible to reason. We critics are a sort of people whom they very strangely look upon as in a state of natural hostility with them. A person who undertakes to give an account of the acted drama in London, may be supposed to be led to this by some fondness for, and some knowledge of, the stage: here then ‘there’s sympathy’ between the actor and the critic. He praises the good, he holds out a warning to the bad. The last may have cause to complain, but the first do not thank you a bit the more. You cheer them in the path of glory, shew them where to pluck fresh laurels, or teach them to shun the precipice, on which their hopes may be dashed to pieces: you devote your time and attention to them; are romantic, gay, witty, profound in adorning their art with every embellishment you have in store to make it interesting to others; you occupy the eyes and ears of the town with their names and affairs; weigh their merits and defects in daily, weekly, monthly scales, with as much preparation and formality as if the fate of the world depended on their failure or success; and yet they seem to suppose that your whole business and only object are to degrade and vilify them in public estimation. What you say in praise of any individual, is set down to the score of his merit: what you say of others, in common justice to yourself, is considered as a mere effusion of spleen, stupidity, and spite—as if you took a particular pleasure in torturing their feelings. Yet, upon second thoughts, there may be some ground for all this. We do not like to have a physician feel our pulse, shake his head, and prescribe a regimen: many persons have objection to sit for their pictures, and there is, perhaps, something in the very fact of being criticised, to which human nature is not easily reconciled. To have every wordyou speak scanned, every look scrutinised,—never to be sure whether you are right or wrong; to have it said that this was too high, that too low; to be abused by one person for the very same thing that another ‘applauds you to the very echo, that does applaud again;’ to have it hinted that one’s very best effort only just wanted something to make it perfect; and that certain other parts which we thought tolerable, were not to be endured; to be taken in pieces in this manner, turned inside out, to be had up at a self-elected tribunal of impertinence,—tried, condemned, and acquitted every night,—to hear the solemn defence, the ridiculous accusation,—to be subjected to a living anatomy,—to be made the text of a perpetual running commentary,—to be set up in an antithesis, to be played upon in an alliteration,—to have one’s faults separated from one’s virtues, like the sheep from the goats by the good shepherd,—to be shorn bare and have a mark set upon one,—to be bewitched and bedevilled by the critics,—to lie at the mercy of every puny whipster, and not be suffered to know whether one stands on one’s head or one’s heels till he tells one how—has, to be sure, something very perplexing and very provoking in it; and it is not so much to be wondered at that the subjects of this kind of critical handling undergo the operation with so little patience as they do. They particularly hate those writers who pretend to patronize them, for this takes away even the privilege of resentment.
An actor, again, is seldom satisfied with being extolled for what he is, unless you admire him for being what he is not. A great tragic actress thinks herself particularly happy in comedy, and it is a sort of misprision of treason not to say so. Your pen may grow wanton in praise of the broad farcical humour of a low comedian; but if you do not cry him up for the fine gentleman, he threatens to leave the stage. Most of our best comic performers came out in tragedy as their favourite line; and Mr. Matthews does not think it enough to enliven a whole theatre with his powers of drollery, and whim, and personal transformation, unless by way of preface and apology he first delivers an epitaph on those talents for the legitimate drama which were so prematurely buried at Covent Garden Theatre!—If we were to speak our minds, we should say, that Mr. Matthews shines particularly, neither as an actor, nor a mimic of actors, but that his forte is a certain general tact, and versatility of comic power. You would say, he is a clever performer: you would guess he is a cleverer man. His talents are not pure, but mixed. He is best when he is his own prompter, manager, and performer, orchestra, and scene-shifter; and, perhaps, to make the thing complete, the audience should be of his own providing too.—If we had neverknown any thing more of Mr. Matthews than the account we have heard of his imitating the interior of a German family, the wife lying a-bed grumbling at her husband’s staying out, the husband’s return home drunk, and the little child’spaddingacross the room to get to its own bed as soon as it hears him, we should set him down for a man of genius. These felicitous strokes are, however, casual and intermittent in him:—they proceed from him rather by chance than design, and are followed up by others equally gross and superficial. Mr. Matthews wants taste, or has been spoiled by the taste of the town, whom ‘he must live to please, and please to live.’ His talent, though limited, is of a lively and vigorous fibre; capable of a succession of shifts and disguises; he isup toa number of good things—single hits here and there; but by the suddenness and abruptness of his turns, he surprises and shocks oftener than he satisfies. His wit does not move the muscles of the mind, but, like some practical joker, gives one a good rap on the knuckles, or a lively box on the ear. He serves up apic-nicentertainment of scraps and odd ends (some of them, we must say, old ones). He is like a host, who will not let us swallow a mouthful, but offers us something else, and directly after brings us the same dish again. He is in a continual hurry and disquietude to please, and destroys half the effect by trying to increase it. He is afraid to trust for a moment to the language of nature and character, and wants to translate it into pantomime and grimace, like a writing-master, who for the letterIhas the hieroglyphic of an eye staring you in the face. Mr. Matthews may be said to have taken tythe of half the talents of the stage and of the town; yet his variety is not always charming. There is something dry and meagre in his jokes: they do not lard the lean earth as he walks; but seem as if they might be written upon parchment. His humour, in short, is not like digging into a fine Stilton cheese, but is more like the scrapings of Shapsugar.—As an actor, we think he cannot rise higher than a waiter, (certainly not a dumb one,) or than Mr. Wiggins. In this last character, in particular, by a certain panic-struck expression of countenance at the persecution of which the hen-pecked husband is the victim, and by the huge unwieldy helplessness of his person, unable to escape from it and from the rabble of boys at his heels, he excites shouts of laughter, and hits off the humour of the thing to an exact perfection. In general, his performance is of that kind which implies manual dexterity, or an assumption of bodily defect, rather than mental capacity: take from Mr. Matthews’s drollest parts an odd shuffle in the gait, a restless volubility of speech and motion, a sudden suppression of features, or the continual repetition of some cant phrase with unabated vigour, and you reduce him to almosttotal insignificance, and a state of still life. He is not therefore like—
‘A clock that wants both hands,As useless when it goes as when it stands:’
‘A clock that wants both hands,As useless when it goes as when it stands:’
‘A clock that wants both hands,As useless when it goes as when it stands:’
‘A clock that wants both hands,
As useless when it goes as when it stands:’
for only keep him going, and he bustles about the stage to some purpose. As a mimic of other actors, Mr. Matthews fails as often as he succeeds (we call it a failure, when it is with difficulty we can distinguish the person intended,) and when he succeeds, it is more by seizing upon some peculiarity, or exaggerating some defect, than by hitting upon the true character or prominent features. He gabbles like Incledon, or croaks like Suett, or lisps like Young; but when he attempts the expressive silver-tongued cadences of John Kemble, it is the shadow of a shade. If we did not know the contrary, we should suppose he had never heard the original, but was imitating some one who had. His best imitations are taken from something characteristic or absurd that has struck his fancy, or occurred to his observation in real life—such as a chattering footman, a drunken coachman, a surly traveller, or a garrulous old Scotchwoman. This last we would fix upon as Mr. Matthews’schef-d’œuvre. It was a portrait of common nature, equal to Wilkie or Teniers—as faithful, as simple, as delicately humorous, and with a slight dash of pathos; but without one particle of caricature, of vulgarity, or ill-nature. We see no reason why the ingenious artist should not show his Country Cousins a gallery of such portraits, and of no others, once a year. ‘He might exhibit it every night for a month, and we should go to see it every night!’[44]What has impressed itself on our memory as the next best thing to this exquisite piece of genuine painting, was the broad joke of the abrupt proposal of a mutton-chop to the man who is sea-sick, and the convulsive marks of abhorrence with which it is received. The representation also of the tavern-beau in the Country Cousins, who is about to swallow a lighted-candle for a glass of brandy and water, as he is going drunk to bed, is well feigned and admirably humoured; with many more, too long to mention. It is more to our performer’s credit to suppose that the songs which he sings with such rapidity and vivacity of effect are not of his own composing; and, as to his ventriloquism, it is yet in its infancy. The fault of these exhibitions—that which appears ‘first, midst, and last’ in them, is that they turn too much upon caricaturing the most common-place and worn-out topics of ridicule—the blunders ofFrenchmen in speaking English,—the mispronunciations of the cockney dialect, the ignorance of Country Cousins, and the impertinence and foppery of relations in town. It would seem too likely from the uniform texture of these pieces, that Mr. Matthews had passed his whole time in climbing to the top of the Monument, or had never been out of a tavern, or a stage-coach, a Margate-hoy or a Dover packet-boat. We do not deny the merit of some of the cross-readings out of the two languages; but certainly we think the quantity of French and English jargon put into the mouths of French and English travellers all through these imitations, must lessen their popularity instead of increasing it, as two-thirds of Mr. Matthews’s auditors, we should imagine, cannot know the point on which the jest turns. We grant that John Bull is always very willing to laugh at Mounseer, if he knew why or how—perhaps, even without knowing how or why! But we thought many of the jokes of this kind, however well contrived or intended, miscarried in their passage through the pit, and long before they reached the two shilling gallery.
A new pantomime, calledShakspear versus Harlequin, has been produced at Drury-lane Theatre. It is called ‘a speaking pantomime:’ we had rather it had said nothing. It is better to act folly than to talk it. The heels and wand and motley coat of Harlequin are sacred to nonsense; but the words, the cap and wings of Mercury (who was here also made the representative of Shakspear) are worthy of a better use. The essence of pantomime is practical absurdity, keeping the wits in constant chase, coming upon one by surprise, and starting off again before you can arrest the fleeting phantom: the essence of this piece was prosing stupidity remaining like a mawkish fixture on the stage, and overcoming your impatience by the force ofennui. A speaking pantomime (such as this one) is not unlike a flying waggon: but we do not want a pantomime to move in minuet-time, nor to have Harlequin’s light wand changed into a leaden mace. If we must have a series of shocks and surprises, of violations of probability, common sense, and nature, to keep the brain and senses in a whirl, let us, at least, have them hot and hot, let them ‘charge on heaps, that we may lose distinction inabsurdity,’ and not have time to doze and yawn over them, in the intervals of the battle. The bringing Harlequin to the test of reason resembles the old story of hedging in the cuckoo, and surpasses the united genius of the late Mr. Garrick (to whom this dull farce is ascribed) and of the professional gentleman who has fitted the above productions of ‘the olden times’ (viz.those of the late Mr. Garrick) to modern taste! After all, though Harlequin is tried by three grave judges, who are very unnecessarily metamorphosed into three old women, no competition,no collision takes place between him and the genius of Shakspear, unless Mr. T. Cooke’s playing very cleverly on a variety of musical instruments, so as to ravish the heart of Miss Dolly Snip (Madam Vestris) can be construed into so many proofs of the superiority of Shakspear’s Muse! Again, Mr. Harley, as Harlequin, and Mr. Oxberry (as a country clown) get up into a tree to see the sport, from which it was as difficult to dislodge them as owls from an ivy-bush; and the sport is to see Joey Snip, the tailor, have his head cut off, and walk with it about the stage, and, unlike the sign of the good woman, talk without his tongue. The slicing off a blackamoor’s head or two with the stroke of a scymitar, provided the thing is done quickly, and instantly got out of sight, we do not much object to; but we do not like to have a ghastly spectre of this sort placed before us for a whole evening, as the heads of the rebel Scotch lords were stuck on Temple-bar for half a century. It may be well said indeed,Quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi. Perhaps this exhibition of posthumous horror and impertinence might be meant as a sly hit at the ghost of Hamlet.
‘See o’er the stage the ghost ofMundenstalks.’
‘See o’er the stage the ghost ofMundenstalks.’
‘See o’er the stage the ghost ofMundenstalks.’
‘See o’er the stage the ghost ofMundenstalks.’
If so, we cry the Manager mercy. We must add, that the strength of the theatre was put in requisition for this piece, and if it could have been saved, it would. Miss Tree, to enliven so many dreary objects, danced apas seul. We would rather see this young lady dance round a may-pole at a country wake or fair.
‘But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair,What was thy enchanting measure?Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail:’—
‘But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair,What was thy enchanting measure?Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail:’—
‘But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair,What was thy enchanting measure?Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail:’—
‘But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy enchanting measure?
Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail:’—
We could not help repeating these lines as we saw the youngest of the Miss Dennetts, the tallest of the three, resume the part of Cinderella at Covent Garden,—restored, like Psyche, to her late-lost home, and transformed by the little hump-backed fairy, from a poor house-maid to a bright princess, drinking pleasure and treading air. This is a consummation more devoutly to be wished than the changing of a pipkin into a sign-post, or a wheel-barrow into a china-shop. A Fairy Tale is the true history of the human heart—it is a dream of youth realized! How many country-girls have fancied themselves princesses, nay, what country-girl ever was there that, some time or other, did not? A Fairy Tale is what the world would be, if every one had their wishes or their desserts, if our powerand our passions were equal. We cannot be at a loss for a thousand bad translations of the story of Cinderella, if we look around us in the boxes. But the real imitation is on the stage. If we could always see the flowers open in the spring, or hear soft music, or see Cinderella dance, or dream we did, life itself would be a Fairy Tale. If the three Miss Dennetts are a little less like one another than they were, on the other hand, we must say that Miss Eliza Dennett (what a pretty name) is much improved, combines a little cluster of graces in her own person, and ‘in herself sums all delight.’ She has learned to add precision to ease, and firmness of movement to the utmost harmony of form. In the scene where Cinderella is introduced at court and is led out to dance by the enamoured prince, she bows as if she had a diadem on her head, moves as if she had just burst from fetters of roses, folds her arms as the vine curls its tendrils, and hurries from the scene, after the loss of her faithless slipper, as if she had to run a race with the winds. We had only one thing to desire, that she and her lover, instead of the new ballet, had danced the Minuet de la Cour with the Gavot, as they do in the Dansomanie; that we might have called the Minuet de la Cour divine, and the Gavot heavenly, and exclaimed once more, with more than artificial rapture—‘Such were the joys of our dancing days!’ We do not despair of seeing this alteration adopted, as our recommendations are sometimes attended to: and in that case we shall feel.—But the mechanical anticipation of an involuntary burst of sentiment in supposed circumstances is in vile taste, and we leave it to lords and pettifoggers. We hate to copy them: but we like to steal from Spenser. Here is a passage descriptive of dancing, and of the delights of love, of youth, and beauty which sometimes surround it, and of the eternal echo which they leave in the ear of fancy. The Managers of Covent-Garden may perhaps apply it to their own enchanted palace: we have nothing to do with the passage but to quote it.
‘They say that Venus, when she did disposeHerself to pleasure, used to resortUnto this place, and therein to reposeAnd rest herself as in a gladsome port,Or with the Graces there to play and sport:That even her own Cytheron, though in itShe used most to keep her royal court,And in her sovereign majesty to sit,She in regard hereof refus’d and thought unfit.Unto this place, when as the Elfin knightApproach’d, him seemed that the merry soundOf a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,And many feet fast thumping th’ hollow ground,That through the woods their echo did rebound.He nigher drew to weet what it mote be:There he a troop of ladies dancing foundFull merrily, and making gladful glee,And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.All they without were ranged in a ring,And danced round; but in the midst of themThree other ladies did both dance and sing,The whilst the rest them round about did hem,And like a girlond did encompass them,And in the midst of those same three was placedAnother damsel, as a precious gem,Amidst a ring most richly well enchaced,That with her goodly presence all the rest much graced.Look how the crown which Ariadne woreUpon her ivory forehead, that same dayThat Theseus her unto her bridal bore(When the bold Centaurs made that bloody frayWith the fierce Lapiths that did him dismay)Being now placed in the firmament,Through the bright heaven doth her beams display,And is unto the stars an ornament;Which round her move in order excellent.Such was the beauty of this goodly band,Whose sundry shape were here too long to tell:But she that in the midst of them did stand,Seem’d all the rest in beauty to excel,Crown’d with a rosy girlond, that right wellDid her beseem. And ever as the crewAbout her danc’d, sweet flow’rs that far did smell,And fragrant odours, they upon her threw,But most of all, those three did her with gifts endue.Those were the Graces, daughters of delight,Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to hauntUpon this hill, and dance there day and night:Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant;And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt,Is borrowed of them. But that fair one,That in the midst was placed paravant,Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone,That made him pipe so merrily, as never none.’Faery Queen, BookVI.Canto 10.
‘They say that Venus, when she did disposeHerself to pleasure, used to resortUnto this place, and therein to reposeAnd rest herself as in a gladsome port,Or with the Graces there to play and sport:That even her own Cytheron, though in itShe used most to keep her royal court,And in her sovereign majesty to sit,She in regard hereof refus’d and thought unfit.Unto this place, when as the Elfin knightApproach’d, him seemed that the merry soundOf a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,And many feet fast thumping th’ hollow ground,That through the woods their echo did rebound.He nigher drew to weet what it mote be:There he a troop of ladies dancing foundFull merrily, and making gladful glee,And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.All they without were ranged in a ring,And danced round; but in the midst of themThree other ladies did both dance and sing,The whilst the rest them round about did hem,And like a girlond did encompass them,And in the midst of those same three was placedAnother damsel, as a precious gem,Amidst a ring most richly well enchaced,That with her goodly presence all the rest much graced.Look how the crown which Ariadne woreUpon her ivory forehead, that same dayThat Theseus her unto her bridal bore(When the bold Centaurs made that bloody frayWith the fierce Lapiths that did him dismay)Being now placed in the firmament,Through the bright heaven doth her beams display,And is unto the stars an ornament;Which round her move in order excellent.Such was the beauty of this goodly band,Whose sundry shape were here too long to tell:But she that in the midst of them did stand,Seem’d all the rest in beauty to excel,Crown’d with a rosy girlond, that right wellDid her beseem. And ever as the crewAbout her danc’d, sweet flow’rs that far did smell,And fragrant odours, they upon her threw,But most of all, those three did her with gifts endue.Those were the Graces, daughters of delight,Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to hauntUpon this hill, and dance there day and night:Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant;And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt,Is borrowed of them. But that fair one,That in the midst was placed paravant,Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone,That made him pipe so merrily, as never none.’Faery Queen, BookVI.Canto 10.
‘They say that Venus, when she did disposeHerself to pleasure, used to resortUnto this place, and therein to reposeAnd rest herself as in a gladsome port,Or with the Graces there to play and sport:That even her own Cytheron, though in itShe used most to keep her royal court,And in her sovereign majesty to sit,She in regard hereof refus’d and thought unfit.
‘They say that Venus, when she did dispose
Herself to pleasure, used to resort
Unto this place, and therein to repose
And rest herself as in a gladsome port,
Or with the Graces there to play and sport:
That even her own Cytheron, though in it
She used most to keep her royal court,
And in her sovereign majesty to sit,
She in regard hereof refus’d and thought unfit.
Unto this place, when as the Elfin knightApproach’d, him seemed that the merry soundOf a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,And many feet fast thumping th’ hollow ground,That through the woods their echo did rebound.He nigher drew to weet what it mote be:There he a troop of ladies dancing foundFull merrily, and making gladful glee,And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.
Unto this place, when as the Elfin knight
Approach’d, him seemed that the merry sound
Of a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,
And many feet fast thumping th’ hollow ground,
That through the woods their echo did rebound.
He nigher drew to weet what it mote be:
There he a troop of ladies dancing found
Full merrily, and making gladful glee,
And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.
All they without were ranged in a ring,And danced round; but in the midst of themThree other ladies did both dance and sing,The whilst the rest them round about did hem,And like a girlond did encompass them,And in the midst of those same three was placedAnother damsel, as a precious gem,Amidst a ring most richly well enchaced,That with her goodly presence all the rest much graced.
All they without were ranged in a ring,
And danced round; but in the midst of them
Three other ladies did both dance and sing,
The whilst the rest them round about did hem,
And like a girlond did encompass them,
And in the midst of those same three was placed
Another damsel, as a precious gem,
Amidst a ring most richly well enchaced,
That with her goodly presence all the rest much graced.
Look how the crown which Ariadne woreUpon her ivory forehead, that same dayThat Theseus her unto her bridal bore(When the bold Centaurs made that bloody frayWith the fierce Lapiths that did him dismay)Being now placed in the firmament,Through the bright heaven doth her beams display,And is unto the stars an ornament;Which round her move in order excellent.
Look how the crown which Ariadne wore
Upon her ivory forehead, that same day
That Theseus her unto her bridal bore
(When the bold Centaurs made that bloody fray
With the fierce Lapiths that did him dismay)
Being now placed in the firmament,
Through the bright heaven doth her beams display,
And is unto the stars an ornament;
Which round her move in order excellent.
Such was the beauty of this goodly band,Whose sundry shape were here too long to tell:But she that in the midst of them did stand,Seem’d all the rest in beauty to excel,Crown’d with a rosy girlond, that right wellDid her beseem. And ever as the crewAbout her danc’d, sweet flow’rs that far did smell,And fragrant odours, they upon her threw,But most of all, those three did her with gifts endue.
Such was the beauty of this goodly band,
Whose sundry shape were here too long to tell:
But she that in the midst of them did stand,
Seem’d all the rest in beauty to excel,
Crown’d with a rosy girlond, that right well
Did her beseem. And ever as the crew
About her danc’d, sweet flow’rs that far did smell,
And fragrant odours, they upon her threw,
But most of all, those three did her with gifts endue.
Those were the Graces, daughters of delight,Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to hauntUpon this hill, and dance there day and night:Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant;And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt,Is borrowed of them. But that fair one,That in the midst was placed paravant,Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone,That made him pipe so merrily, as never none.’
Those were the Graces, daughters of delight,
Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt
Upon this hill, and dance there day and night:
Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant;
And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt,
Is borrowed of them. But that fair one,
That in the midst was placed paravant,
Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone,
That made him pipe so merrily, as never none.’
Faery Queen, BookVI.Canto 10.
Faery Queen, BookVI.Canto 10.
On the subject of the pantomime and the miscellaneous Drama, we have two words to add,viz.that we have been to see the Heart of Midlothian at the Surrey Theatre, of which we spoke by hearsay in our last but one, and which answered our warmest expectations; and that we took a pleasant stroll up to the Aquatic Theatre of Sadler’s Wells, and after dining at the Sir Hugh Middleton’s Head, saw a very pretty play-house, Goody Two Shoes, the Monastery, and the Fate of Calas. Goody Two Shoes was played first, on the evening we were there, because Mr. Grimaldi and Mr. Barnes were in it, and they were obliged afterwards to perform in the pantomime at Covent Garden. Did Miss Vallancy go with them? Otherwise, we should like to have seen her again in the course of the evening. All that we could see to praise in the Monastery was its faithfulness to the original, and the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley. We hope that under the management of a gentleman (Mr. Howard Paine,) so well acquainted with both departments of his undertaking, the literary and dramatic, this theatre will soon flourish in all the pride of summer. We had nearly omitted to notice a new Hamlet, that came out at Drury-lane a few weeks ago, who, it appeared to us, would have made the prettiest Hamlet we have seen, if he had been only equal to the part. Indeed he looked it to perfection; he had an elegant figure with a thoughtful face; and on the ordinary conduct and conception of the character, was at once the gentleman and scholar. In the more declamatory and impassioned scenes, however, his voice totally broke down under him, and he did not repeat the part as was given out; for he was the next morning pierced through with the feathered arrows of criticism, as if his breast had been a target. The gentlemen-critics of the daily press have not, in general, their cue on the first night of a performer’s appearance. If he fails, they fall upon him without mercy; if he succeeds, they are almost afraid to say so, lest others should say that they were wrong. They pretend (some of them) to lead public opinion and yet have no opinion of their own. They dare not boldly and distinctly declare their opinion of a new dramatic experiment, and the reason is, their convictions are not clear enough to warrant their placing any confidence in them, till they are confirmed by being put to the vote. The first quality of a good critic is courage; but mental courage, like bodily, is the result of conscious strength. Some of the Vampyre crew, indeed, retreat from the dimness and inanity of their perceptions, into the solid darkness of their prejudices, and the crude consistence of their everrankling spite; and, in that strong-hold of dirt and cob-webs, are impervious to every ray of sense or reason. We might leave them, if they had themselves been contented to remain, in their narrow, gloomycells, the proper hiding-place of ignorance and bigotry; but when they come out into the blaze of noon,
‘Shut their blue-fringed lids, and hold them close,And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,Cry out, where is it?’—
‘Shut their blue-fringed lids, and hold them close,And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,Cry out, where is it?’—
‘Shut their blue-fringed lids, and hold them close,And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,Cry out, where is it?’—
‘Shut their blue-fringed lids, and hold them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cry out, where is it?’—
it is time to stop their ominous flight, and send them back to that life of sloth and pride, where the poison of dull-eyed envy preys only upon itself.
There was a want of proper spirit and gallantry shown the other day in the critical reception of Mr. Booth’s Lear. It was not thought that he would make any thing of it, and therefore it was not said that he did. Because he was on his trial, he was not to have a hearing. Because he wasnot‘the most favoured actor of the day,’ he was to have no favour at all shown him.Fiat justitia, ruat cælum.When Mr. Booth does nothing but make wry faces and odd harsh noises in a character, in imitation of Mr. Kean, we will say, that he does it ill: but when he plays it as he did Lear, we will say that he does it not ill, but well, and that in prejudging him, we have been mistaken. It does not lessen Mr. Macready in our opinion, that (as we understand) he refused this character in obstinate despair of doing it justice: but if this was a proof of modesty and judgment in him, it certainly ought to raise our idea of Mr. Booth’s talents, that he was able to get through it in the way he did. Where failure would have been so fatal and so marked, it was a sufficient triumph even to a proud ambition not to fail. If the part in our adventurous actor’s hands wanted something of the breadth and majesty of Lear, it did not want for life or spirit, or a human interest. If he did not give the torrent and whirlwind of the passion, he had plenty of its gusts and flaws. Without his crown, or even the faded image of one, circling his brow, he bustled about the stage with a restlessness and impetuosity of feeling that kept expectation continually awake and gratified the attention which had been so excited. There was no feebleness, and no vulgarity in any part of Mr. Booth’s acting, but it was animated, vigorous, and pathetic throughout. The audience, we are sure, the first night, thought and felt as we did. In the exclamation, ‘I am every inch a king,’ his energy rose to dignity: again, in his reiteration of Gloucester’s epithet of ‘thefieryDuke,’ applied to his son-in-law, his manifest impatience, and increasing irritability, showed that Mr. Booth had felt the full force of that beautiful passage in which his own half-conscious infirmity is played off so finely on the ill-fated old king; and in the scenes with Edgar as mad Tom, where his wits begin to unsettle, the distraction and alienationof his mind, wandering from its own thoughts to catch hold of a clue less painful, and yet broken and entangled like them, were pourtrayed with equal skill and delicacy. In the more set speeches, as in the curse on his daughters, Mr. Booth, we thought, comparatively failed; but where action was to come in aid of the sentiment and point the meaning, he was almost uniformly correct and impressive. In fact, it is only when the poet’s language is explained by the comment of gesture or some sudden change of look, or situation—that is, when tragedy is enlivened by pantomime, that it becomes intelligible to the greater part of the audience; and we do not see how an actor can be supposed to do those things well which are almost abstractions in his art, and in which he is not encouraged by the sympathy or corrected by the judgment of his hearers. We observed, that the finest touches of thought, of poetry and nature in this play, which were not set off by the accompaniment of show and bustle, passed in profound silence, and without the smallest notice. The sublimity of repose is one in which our play-house frequenters do not seem to be proficients, and the players may be excused, if they do not always cultivate (as we might wish) this occult and mysterious branch of their profession. Of Mr. C. Kemble’s Edgar we cannot speak in terms of too high praise. In the supposed mad-scenes, his conception and delivery of the part excited the warmest approbation; his fine face and figure admirably relieved the horror of the situations; and, whenever we see Mad Tom played (which is not often), we should wish to see it played by him. The rest of the play was very respectably got up, and all we could object to was the interspersion of the love-scenes by Tate. The happy ending, and the triumph and dotage of the poor old king in repeating again and again, ‘Cordelia’s Queen, Cordelia’s Queen,’ were perhaps allowable concessions to the feelings of the audience.
Henri Quatre.—There are two lines in a modern poem which we often repeat to ourselves—
’Twas Lancelot of the Lake, a bright romance,That like a trumpet made young spirits dance:’
’Twas Lancelot of the Lake, a bright romance,That like a trumpet made young spirits dance:’
’Twas Lancelot of the Lake, a bright romance,That like a trumpet made young spirits dance:’
’Twas Lancelot of the Lake, a bright romance,
That like a trumpet made young spirits dance:’
and we were much disposed to apply them to this romantic, light and elegant drama. We prophesy that the Managers and the public have a splendid career before them for the season.This will do.We saw it in the first opening scene, a view near Paris, the clearest, the most sparkling, the most vivid we ever saw. ‘Ah! brilliant land! ah! sunny, cloudless skies! Not all the ink, that has been shed to blacken thee, can blot thy shining face! Not all the blood that has been spilt to enslave thee can choke up thy living breath!’ If wecan thus be transported to another and a gayer region, and made to drink the warmth and lustre of another climate by the painter’s magic art, what can we desire more?—What the pencil had in this case done, the poet’s pen did not undo: what the author had written, the actors did not spoil. Theydoorder these things well at Covent Garden. We never saw a piece better got up in all its parts, nor one more adapted to the taste of the town in scenery, in dresses, in songs, in passing allusions, in popular sentiments; nor one that went off with lessennui, or with more continual bursts of flattering applause. The writing (as far as it was French) was, as might be expected, lively and sentimental: as far as we could perceive Mr. Morton to have had a hand in it, it consisted of strong touches of obvious nature, and showed a perfect understanding with the actors and the audience. The characters were strikingly conceived, and admirably sustained. Mr. Macready’s Henri Quatre was (we think) his very happiest effort. There was an originality, a raciness in it that hit our palates. With something, nay, with much of the stiffness and abruptness of one of ‘the invincible knights of old,’ used to march in rusty armour, there was at the same time the ease, the grace and gallantry of an accomplished courtier. ‘He is ten times handsomer,’ says the fair Jocrisse, ‘than Uncle Jervais,’ and according to her husband’s comment, ‘Handsome is that handsome does.’ There was a spirit of kindness blended with authority in his tones and in his actions; he was humane, and yet a king and a soldier. Some of the sentiments put into his mouth were worthy of the attention of princes, if they had time for serious reflection, and called forth loud and repeated plaudits. Henry professed his desire to reign by love not fear in the hearts of his subjects; and quoted a saying of his mother’s on the mode of effecting this purpose, that ‘a pound of honey would draw more flies than a ton of vinegar.’ We seemed suddenly and unaccountably carried back to the heroic times of camps and courts, in the company of this good-natured, high spirited, old fashioned monarch, and his favourite counsellor, Sully, a pattern of sound thinking and plain-speaking, who was characteristically represented by Mr. Egerton. It is his business to prevent the king from doing anything wrong,—‘no sinecure,’ as he honestly declares. We like these bitter jests; and we found that others were of our thinking, though they flew about as thick as hail. We should have thought this piece more likely to have been imported from Spain than France, at the present crisis of affairs. At any rate, Mr. Morton has given a truly English version of it. Mr. Emery played a blunt, rough old soldier (Moustache,) well, who is afterwards appointed keeper of a prison—‘Because,’ he says to his sovereign, ‘you think me a savage.’ ‘No!’ (is the answer,)‘but because with the courage and rough outside of a lion you have the heart of a man.’ The scenes in which Charles Kemble, as Eugene de Biron, is committed to his charge under sentence of death—is liberated by him to perform a last act of friendship and of affection, and returns on his parole of honour to meet his fate (from which however he is delivered by having, in his night’s adventure, saved the lives of Henri and Sully, who had been attacked by assassins in a forest hard by) are among the most interesting of the story. We do not enter into the details of the plot, because we hope all our readers will go to see this piece, and it is anticipating a pleasure to come. Besides, we are bad hands at getting up a plot, and should on that account make but indifferent ministers of state. But the whole was delightful. Miss M. Tree was delightful as the village representative of the fair Gabrielle; Mr. Liston was happy as the husband of Jocrisse, ‘whom the king had deigned to salute,’ and to put a diamond ring on her finger, which was to introduce them to the Louvre in their wooden shoes on his coronation day.—Miss Stephens sung sweetly; Mr. Fawcett was at home in the old general; Irish Johnstone blundered in his own beautifulbrogue, and every thing was as it should be. We like things to succeed in this manner: that they do not always do so, is assuredly no fault of ours.
L.