MR. KEAN
We do not wonder at Mr. Kean’s want of success in Paris. As they do not like or understand Shakespear, it is not to be supposed they should like or understand any one who goes near to represent him, or who gives anything more than a trite version or modernised paraphrase of him. Voltaire has borrowed largely from the English dramatist, and has takenOthello’sdying speech almost entire, as far as the prose-ground of it, but has contrived to leave out all the striking, picturesque points of it:—so they would no doubt object to and cancel, by a sweeping condemnation, all the unexpected and marked beauties of an impassioned recitation of it. Whatever is not literal and conventional, is with them extravagant and grotesque: they have so long been accustomed (we are speaking of serious matters) to consider affectation as nature, that they consider nature when it comes across them as affectation and quaintness.
‘The poet’s eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shape, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.’
‘The poet’s eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shape, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.’
‘The poet’s eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shape, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.’
‘The poet’s eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.’
So the actor’s eye (if truly inspired) comprehends more than is set down for him, starts at hidden fancies that only pale passion sees; and his voice is the trembling echo and the broken instrument ofthoughts and of an agony that lie too deep for mere words to express. This licence, that is, this truth of nature is, with our accomplished and more thorough-bred neighbours, entirely out of the question. Their art, whether in poetry, acting, painting, is well-drilled regimental art:—it is art in uniform and on parade. Thus tragic poetry cannot, in its dumb despair, call on all nature to supply it with an appropriate language, that places what it feels in palpable and lofty imagery before the reader: it must, on the contrary, have its rhetorical and didactic flourishes all ready for the occasion—these may be as tedious, as pompous, as bombastic as you please, but to pass or allude to anything beyond them, is vile and Gothic indeed. The actor may mouth, rant, and whine as much as he pleases, so that he does it in measured time, and seems in perfect health and spirits all the while; but if he is once thrown off his guard, and loses sight of himself and the audience in the sufferings of his hero, it is all over with him. Again, an actor’s face ‘should be as a book where one may read strange matters.’ This would be an inexpiable offence in France, where there is nothing strange, and where all must appear upon the surface or be kept quite out of sight, on the score of decency and good manners. As the poet must introduce no image or sentiment for which there is not a prescribedformula, so the tragedian must give no shade or inflection of feeling which the entire audience were not prepared complacently to anticipate. The self-love of the pit would rise in open rebellion if he did. In France it is a rule that no person is wiser than another: you cannot be beforehand with their conceit and infinite superiority in impertinence. So they themselves tell the story of a man who, hearing of the assassination of the Duke of Berri, and not willing to allow that his informant had the start of him on so interesting a topic, made answer—‘Yes, I knew it!’ We are not therefore surprised that the Parisians find fault with the only actor of much genius we possess: he must puzzle them almost as much as the Hetman Platoff; and this assuredly they cannot forgive, as in the present case their rank cowardice cannot get the better of their consummate vanity. It is ludicrous too that they should charge us with extravagance and fustian—they, who have theirPensions de l’UniversandDiligences de l’Univers[43]stuck on every pillar and post! As we know what the most refined people in the universe do not like, we are also happy in learning what they do like. For others to despise what we admire, is always to assume an attitude of seeming superiority over us: to admire what we do not think much of, is to give us our revenge again. Fastidiousness is here, as in many other cases, the effect notof an excess of refinement, but of a want of conception. When Voltaire called Shakespear a barbarian, we were a little staggered in our previous opinion, as we could not tell what lofty models of excellence he contemplated in his own mind; but when he pronounced Addison’sCatoto be a perfect tragedy, we knew what to think of him and ourselves. He might as well have pronounced a marble slab to be a perfect statue. In like manner, it might ‘give us pause’ that such competent critics are dissatisfied with Mr. Kean, if we did not learn in the same breath that they are in raptures with Mr. C. Kemble, Mr. Macready, and Miss Smithson; not that we disapprove of the last, but that being our own country people, we beg leave to judge of their relative merits better than foreigners. If they scouted our pretentions altogether, we might despond; but as theylaudus in the wrong place, we may smile in our turn. The contradiction between us is not owing to an inferiority of nature, but to a difference of opinion. We can understand why, with reason, they admire Macready: he declaims well, and so far resembles good French actors. Mr. C. Kemble is not only an excellent actor, but a very good-looking man; and good looks are a letter of recommendation, whether among the Laplanders or Hottentots, at Zenith or the Pole. Miss Smithson is tall; and the French admire tall women. All these come under a class, and meet with obvious sympathy and approbation. Mr. Kean, on the other hand, stands alone,—is merely an original; and the French hate originality: it seems to imply that there is some possible excellence or talent that they are without! Beside it appears that they expected him to be a giant.Mon Dieu qu’il est petit!—as if this was an insuperable bar to his bestriding the theatric world like a Colossus. He is diminutive, it is true: so was theLittle Corporal: but since the latter disappeared from the stage, they have ceased to be theGreat Nation. They stir up our bile by their arrogance and narrow-mindedness, and we cannot help its overflowing in some degree of ill-humour and petulance. We were heartily glad to find that Mr. Knowles’s tragedy ofVirginiusis well received in Paris—(we would always rather agree with, than differ from them, for we know their subtlety and double edge)—but this is to be attributed to the inherent and classical excellence of the composition. Its scenes present a series of elegant bas-reliefs, and are equally enchanting to the eye and to the ear.
We have received a letter from a Correspondent, praying us to put down the large poke-bonnets which ladies at present take with them to the theatre, and often persist in keeping on, as a female privilege. We confess, we do not see the custom in that amiable light: itappears to us the privilege of annoying others without any object. He says, that on applying to a gentleman in the gallery of the King’s Theatre, to know if a lady with him would have any objection to take off her bonnet, which, with her involuntary movements from side to side, prevented three persons behind her from seeing or enjoying the Opera, her friend answered, ‘You see she is in the same situation with yourself,’ pointing to another lady just before her. So that the evil being doubled was an argument for it. At this rate, people might go to the play with umbrellas, and hold them open the whole time,—or ladies with their parasols, if we must have a more light and portable nuisance,—and by thus setting up a screen to the performance, and making the absurdity truly English and complete, put an end to it by common consent of those who are only bent on incommoding others, when they think they are in some degree singular in doing it. We expect some novelty (of which we have had a dreary dearth of late) on the opening of the Haymarket Theatre next week, and a treat, which we greatly long for, in little Bartolozzi. But we must not count upon our good fortune too soon.