A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE OR A SERIES OF DRAMATIC CRITICISMS (continued 2)

The two finest things that Mr. Kean has ever done, are his recitation of the passage in Othello, ‘Then, oh, farewell the tranquil mind,’ and the scene in Macbeth after the murder. The former was the highest and most perfect effort of his art. To enquire whether his manner in the latter scene was that of a king who commits a murder, or of a man who commits a murder to become a king, would be ‘to consider too curiously.’ But, as a lesson of common humanity, it was heart-rending. The hesitation, the bewildered look, the coming to himself when he sees his hands bloody; the manner in which his voice clung to his throat, and choaked his utterance; his agony and tears, the force of nature overcome by passion—beggared description. It was a scene, which no one who saw it can ever efface from his recollection.

208

MR. KEAN’S ROMEO

The Champion.

January 8, 1815.

Mr. Kean appeared at Drury-Lane in the character of Romeo, for the first time on Monday last. The house was crowded at an early hour, and neither those who went to admire, nor those who went to find fault, could go away disappointed. He discovered no new and unlooked-for excellences in the part, but displayed the same extraordinary energies which he never fails to do on every occasion. There is, indeed, a set of ingenious persons, who having perceived on Mr. Kean’s first appearance, that he was a little man with an inharmonious voice, and no very great dignity or elegance of manner, go regularly to the theatre to confirm themselves in this singular piece of sagacity; and finding that the object of their contempt and wonder has not, since they last saw him, ‘added a cubit to his stature,’—that his tones have not become ‘as musical as is Apollo’s lute,’ and that there is still an habitual want of grace about him, are determined, till such a metamorphosis is effected, not to allow a particle of genius to the actor, or of taste or common sense to those who are not stupidly blind to every thing but his defects. That an actor with very moderate abilities, having the advantages of voice, person and gracefulness of manner on his side, should acquire a very high reputation, is what we can understand, and have seen some instances of; but that an actor with almost every physical disadvantage against him, should, without very extraordinary powers and capacities indeed, be able to excite the most enthusiastic and general admiration, would, we conceive, be a phenomenon in the history of public imposture, totally without example. In fact, the generality of critics who undertake to give the tone to public opinion, have neither the courage nor discernment to decide on the merits of a truly excellent and original actor, and are equally without the candour to acknowledge their error, after they find themselves in the wrong.

In going to see Mr. Kean in any new character, we do not go in the expectation of seeing either a perfect actor or perfect acting; because this is what we have not yet seen, either in him or in any one else. But we go to see (what he never disappoints us in) great spirit, ingenuity, and originality given to the text in general, and an energy and depth of passion given to certain scenes and passages, which we should in vain look for from any other actor on the stage. In every character that he has played, in Shylock, in Richard, in Hamlet, in Othello, in Iago, in Luke, and in Macbeth, there has been either a dazzling repetition of master-strokes of art and nature, or if at any time (from a want of physical adaptation, or sometimes 209of just conception of the character) the interest has flagged for a considerable interval, the deficiency has always been redeemed by some collected and overpowering display of energy or pathos, which electrified at the moment, and left a lasting impression on the mind afterwards. Such, for instance, were the murder-scene in Macbeth, the third act of his Othello, the interview with Ophelia in Hamlet, and, lastly, the scene with Friar Lawrence, and the death-scene in Romeo.

Of the characters that Mr. Kean has played, Hamlet and Romeo are the most like one another, at least in adventitious circumstances; those to which Mr. Kean’s powers are least adapted, and in which he has failed most in general truth of conception and continued interest. There is in both characters the same strong tincture of youthful enthusiasm, of tender melancholy, of romantic thought and sentiment; but we confess we did not see these qualities in Mr. Kean’s performance of either. His Romeo had nothing of the lover in it. We never saw any thing less ardent or less voluptuous. In the Balcony-scene in particular, he was cold, tame, and unimpressive. It was said of Garrick and Barry in this scene, that the one acted it as if he would jump up to the lady, and the other as if he would make the lady jump down to him. Mr. Kean produced neither of these effects. He stood like a statue of lead. Even Mr. Conway might feel taller on the occasion, and Mr. Coates wonder at the taste of the public. The only time in this scene when he attempted to give any thing like an effect, was when he smiled on over-hearing Juliet’s confession of her passion. But the smile was less like that of a fortunate lover who unexpectedly hears his happiness confirmed, than of a discarded lover, who hears of the disappointment of a rival.—The whole of this part not only wanted ‘the silver sound of lovers’ tongues by night’ to recommend it, but warmth, tenderness,—everything which it should have possessed. Mr. Kean was like a man waiting to receive a message from his mistress through her confidante, not like one who was pouring out his rapturous vows to the idol of his soul. There was neither glowing animation, nor melting softness in his manner; his cheek was not flushed, no sigh breathed involuntary from his overcharged bosom: all was forced and lifeless. His acting sometimes reminded us of the scene with Lady Anne, and we cannot say a worse thing of it, considering the difference of the two characters. Mr. Kean’s imagination appears not to have the principles of joy, or hope, or love in it. He seems chiefly sensible to pain, or to the passions that spring from it, and to the terrible energies of mind or body, which are necessary to grapple with, or to avert it. Even over the world of passion he holds but a divided sway: he either does not feel, or 210seldom expresses, deep, sustained, internal sentiment,—there is no repose in his mind: no feeling seems to take full possession of it, that is not linked to action, and that does not goad him on to the phrenzy of despair. Or if he ever conveys the sublimer pathos of thought and feeling, it is after the storm of passion, to which he has been worked up, has subsided. The tide of feeling then at times rolls deep, majestic, and awful, like the surging sea after a tempest, now lifted to Heaven, now laying bare the bosom of the deep. Thus after the violence and anguish of the scene with Iago, in the third act of Othello, his voice in the farewell apostrophe to Content, took the deep intonation of the pealing organ, and heaved from the heart sounds that came on the ear like the funeral dirge of years of promised happiness. So in the midst of the extravagant and irresistible expression of Romeo’s grief, at being banished from the object of his love, his voice suddenly stops, and faulters, and is choaked with sobs of tenderness, when he comes to Juliet’s name. Those persons must be made of sterner stuff than ourselves, who are proof against Mr. Kean’s acting, both in this scene, and in his dying convulsion at the close of the play. But in the fine soliloquy beginning, ‘What said my man, when my betossed soul, &c.’—and at the tomb afterwards—‘Here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh,’—in these, where the sentiment is subdued and profound, and the passion is lost in calm, fixed despair, Mr. Kean’s acting was comparatively ineffectual. There was nothing in his manner of delivering this last exquisitely beautiful speech, which echoed to the still sad music of humanity, which recalled past hopes, or reposed on the dim shadowings of futurity.

Mr. Kean affects the audience from the force of passion instead of sentiment, or sinks into pathos from the violence of action, but seldom rises into it from the power of thought and feeling. In this respect, he presents almost a direct contrast to Miss O’Neill. Her energy always arises out of her sensibility. Distress takes possession of, and overcomes her faculties; she triumphs in her weakness, and vanquishes by yielding. Mr. Kean is greatest in the conflict of passion, and resistance to his fate, in the opposition of his will, in the keen excitement of his understanding. His Romeo is, in the best scenes, very superior to Miss O’Neill’s Juliet; but it is with some difficulty, and after some reflection, that we should say that the finest parts of his acting are superior to the finest parts of hers;—to her parting with Jaffier in Belvidera,—to her terror and her joy in meeting with Biron, in Isabella,—to the death-scene in the same character, and to the scene in the prison with her husband as Mrs. 211Beverley. Her acting is undoubtedly more correct, equable, and faultless throughout than Mr. Kean’s, and it is quite as affecting at the time, in the most impassioned parts. But it does not leave the same impression on the mind afterwards. It adds little to the stock of our ideas, or to our materials for reflection, but passes away with the momentary illusion of the scene. And this difference of effect, perhaps, arises from the difference of the parts they have to sustain on the stage. In the female characters which Miss O’Neill plays, the distress is in a great measure physical and natural: that is,—such as is common to every sensible woman in similar circumstances. She abandons herself to every impulse of grief or tenderness, and revels in the excess of an uncontroulable affliction. She can call to her aid, with perfect propriety and effect, all the weaknesses of her sex,—tears, sighs, convulsive sobs, shrieks, death-like stupefaction, and laughter more terrible than all. But it is not the same in the parts in which Mr. Kean has to act. There must here be a manly fortitude, as well as a natural sensibility. There must be a restraint constantly put upon the feelings by the understanding and the will. He must be ‘as one, in suffering all, who suffers nothing.’ He cannot give way entirely to his situation or his feelings, but must endeavour to become master of them, and of himself. This, in our conception, must make it more easy to give entire effect and interest to female characters on the stage, by rendering the expression of passion more obvious, simple, and natural; and must also make them less rememberable afterwards, by leaving less scope for the exercise of intellect, and for the distinct and complicated reaction of the character upon circumstances. At least, we can only account in some such way for the different impressions which the acting of these two admired performers makes on our mind, when we see, or when we think of them. As critics, we particularly feel this. Mr. Kean affords a never-failing source of observation and discussion; we can only praise Miss O’Neill.—The peculiarity and the strong hold of Mrs. Siddons’ acting was, that she, in a wonderful manner, united both the extremes of acting here spoken of,—that is, all the frailties of passion, with all the strength and resources of the intellect.

MR. KEAN’S IAGO.

The Examiner.

July 24, 1814.

We regretted some time ago, that we could only get a casual glimpse of Mr. Kean in the character of Iago; we have since been more fortunate, and we certainly think his performance of the part 212one of the most extraordinary exhibitions on the stage. There is no one within our remembrance, who has so completely foiled the critics as this celebrated actor: one sagacious person imagines that he must perform a part in a certain manner; another virtuoso chalks out a different path for him; and when the time comes, he does the whole off in a way, that neither of them had the least conception of, and which both of them are therefore very ready to condemn as entirely wrong. It was ever the trick of genius to be thus. We confess that Mr. Kean has thrown us out more than once. For instance, we are very much inclined to persist in the objection we before made, that his Richard is not gay enough, and that his Iago is not grave enough. This he may perhaps conceive to be the mere caprice of captious criticism; but we will try to give our reasons, and shall leave them to Mr. Kean’s better judgment.

It is to be remembered, then, that Richard was a princely villain, borne along in a sort of triumphal car of royal state, buoyed up with the hopes and privileges of his birth, reposing even on the sanctity of religion, trampling on his devoted victims without remorse, and who looked out and laughed from the high watch-tower of his confidence and his expectations, on the desolation and misery he had caused around him. He held on his way, unquestioned, ‘hedged in with the divinity of kings,’ amenable to no tribunal, and abusing his power in contempt of mankind. But as for Iago, we conceive differently of him. He had not the same natural advantages. He was a mere adventurer in mischief, a pains-taking, plodding knave, without patent or pedigree, who was obliged to work his uphill way by wit, not by will, and to be the founder of his own fortune. He was, if we may be allowed a vulgar allusion, a true prototype of modern Jacobinism, who thought that talents ought to decide the place; a man of ‘morbid sensibility’ (in the fashionable phrase), full of distrust, of hatred, of anxious and corroding thoughts, and who, though he might assume a temporary superiority over others by superior adroitness, and pride himself in his skill, could not be supposed to assume it as a matter of course, as if he had been entitled to it from his birth.

We do not here mean to enter into the characters of the two men, but something must be allowed to the difference of their situations. There might be the same indifference in both as to the end in view, but there could not well be the same security as to the success of the means. Iago had to pass through a different ordeal: he had no appliances and means to boot; no royal road to the completion of his tragedy. His pretensions were not backed by authority; they were not baptized at the font; they were not holy-water proof. He had the whole to answer for in his own person, and could not shift the 213responsibility to the heads of others. Mr. Kean’s Richard was therefore, we think, deficient in something of that regal jollity and reeling triumph of success which the part would bear; but this we can easily account for, because it is the traditional common-place idea of the character, that he is to ‘play the dog—to bite and snarl.’—The extreme unconcern and laboured levity of his Iago, on the contrary, is a refinement and original device of the actor’s own mind, and deserves a distinct consideration. The character of Iago, in fact, belongs to a class of characters common to Shakespear, and at the same time peculiar to him, namely, that of great intellectual activity, accompanied with a total want of moral principle, and therefore displaying itself at the constant expence of others, making use of reason as a pander to will—employing its ingenuity and its resources to palliate its own crimes, and aggravate the faults of others, and seeking to confound the practical distinctions of right and wrong, by referring them to some overstrained standard of speculative refinement.

Some persons more nice than wise, have thought the whole of the character of Iago unnatural. Shakespear, who was quite as good a philosopher as he was a poet, thought otherwise. He knew that the love of power, which is another name for the love of mischief, was natural to man. He would know this as well or better than if it had been demonstrated to him by a logical diagram, merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt, or kill flies for sport. We might ask those who think the character of Iago not natural, why they go to see it performed—but from the interest it excites, the sharper edge which it sets on their curiosity and imagination? Why do we go to see tragedies in general! Why do we always read the accounts in the newspapers, of dreadful fires and shocking murders, but for the same reason? Why do so many persons frequent executions and trials; or why do the lower classes almost universally take delight in barbarous sports and cruelty to animals, but because there is a natural tendency in the mind to strong excitement, a desire to have its faculties roused and stimulated to the utmost? Whenever this principle is not under the restraint of humanity or the sense of moral obligation, there are no excesses to which it will not of itself give rise, without the assistance of any other motive, either of passion or self-interest. Iago is only an extreme instance of the kind; that is, of diseased intellectual activity, with an almost perfect indifference to moral good or evil, or rather with a preference of the latter, because it falls more in with his favourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts and scope to his actions. Be it observed, too, (for the sake of those who are for squaring all human actions by the 214maxims of Rochefoucault), that he is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fate as to that of others; that he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtful advantage; and is himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion—an incorrigible love of mischief—an insatiable craving after action of the most difficult and dangerous kind. Our Ancient is a philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills, has more point in it than an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the heart of a flea in an air-pump; who plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his understanding, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui. Now this, though it be sport, yet it is dreadful sport. There is no room for trifling and indifference, nor scarcely for the appearance of it; the very object of his whole plot is to keep his faculties stretched on the rack, in a state of watch and ward, in a sort of breathless suspense, without a moment’s interval of repose. He has a desperate stake to play for, like a man who fences with poisoned weapons, and has business enough on his hands to call for the whole stock of his sober circumspection, his dark duplicity, and insidious gravity. He resembles a man who sits down to play at chess, for the sake of the difficulty and complication of the game, and who immediately becomes absorbed in it. His amusements, if they are amusements, are severe and saturnine—even his wit blisters. His gaiety arises from the success of his treachery; his ease from the sense of the torture he has inflicted on others. Even if other circumstances permitted it, the part he has to play with Othello requires that he should assume the most serious concern, and something of the plausibility of a confessor. ‘His cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam.’ He is repeatedly called ‘honest Iago,’ which looks as if there were something suspicious in his appearance, which admitted a different construction. The tone which he adopts in the scenes with Roderigo, Desdemona, and Cassio, is only a relaxation from the more arduous business of the play. Yet there is in all his conversation, an inveterate misanthropy, a licentious keenness of perception, which is always sagacious of evil, and snuffs up the tainted scent of its quarry with rancorous delight. An exuberance of spleen is the essence of the character. The view which we have here taken of the subject, (if at all correct) will not therefore justify the extreme alteration which Mr. Kean has introduced into the part.

Actors in general have been struck only with the wickedness of the character, and have exhibited an assassin going to the place of execution. Mr. Kean has abstracted the wit of the character, and makes Iago appear throughout an excellent good fellow, and lively 215bottle-companion. But though we do not wish him to be represented as a monster, or a fiend, we see no reason why he should instantly be converted into a pattern of comic gaiety and good humour. The light which illumines the character, should rather resemble the flashes of lightning in the mirky sky, which make the darkness more terrible. Mr. Kean’s Iago is, we suspect, too much in the sun. His manner of acting the part would have suited better with the character of Edmund in King Lear, who, though in other respects much the same, has a spice of gallantry in his constitution, and has the favour and countenance of the ladies, which always gives a man the smug appearance of a bridegroom!—We shall in another article, illustrate these remarks by a reference to some passages in the text itself.

MR KEAN’S IAGO.

(concluded)

The Examiner.

Aug. 7, 1814.

The general groundwork of the character of Iago, as it appears to us, is not absolute malignity, but a want of moral principle, or an indifference to the real consequences of the actions, which the meddling perversity of his disposition and love of immediate excitement lead him to commit. He is an amateur of tragedy in real life; and instead of exercising his ingenuity on imaginary characters, or forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. The character is a complete abstraction of the intellectual from the moral being; or, in other words, consists in an absorption of every common feeling in the virulence of his understanding, the deliberate wilfulness of his purposes, and in his restless, untamable love of mischievous contrivance. We proceed to quote some particular passages in support of this opinion.

In the general dialogue and reflections, which are an accompaniment to the progress of the catastrophe, there is a constant overflowing of gall and bitterness. The acuteness of his malice fastens upon every thing alike, and pursues the most distant analogies of evil with a provoking sagacity. He by no means forms an exception to his own rule:—

‘Who has that breast so pure,

But some uncleanly apprehensions

Keep leets and law-days, and in sessions sit

With meditations lawful?’

216His mirth is not natural and cheerful, but forced and extravagant, partaking of the intense activity of mind and cynical contempt of others in which it originates. Iago is not, like Candide, a believer in optimism, but seems to have a thorough hatred or distrust of every thing of the kind, and to dwell with gloating satisfaction on whatever can interrupt the enjoyment of others, and gratify his moody irritability. One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately after the marriage of Othello:—

‘Roderigo. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,

If he can carry her thus?

Iago. Call up her father:

Rouse him [Othello], make after him, poison his delight,

Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,

And tho’ he in a fertile climate dwell,

Plague him with flies: tho’ that his joy be joy,

Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,

As it may lose some colour.’

The pertinacious logical following up of his favourite principle in this passage, is admirable. In the next, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he is plotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of real enthusiasm:—

‘Roderigo. Here is her father’s house, I’ll call aloud.

Iago. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell,

As when, by night and negligence, the fire

Is spied in populous cities.’

There is nothing here of the trim levity and epigrammatic conciseness of Mr. Kean’s manner of acting the part; which is no less paradoxical than Mrs. Greville’s celebrated Ode to Indifference. Iago was a man of genius, and not a petit maitre. One of his most frequent topics, on which he is rich indeed, and in descanting on which, his spleen serves him for a muse, is the disproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is brought forward in the first scene, and is never lost sight of afterwards.

‘Brabantio. What is the reason of this terrible summons?

Iago. Sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on your gown;

Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul:

——Arise, arise,

Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,

Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.

Arise, I say.’—[And so on to the end of the passage.]

Now, all this goes on springs well oiled: Mr. Kean’s mode of 217giving the passage had the tightness of a drumhead, and was muffled (perhaps purposely so) into the bargain.

This is a clue to the character of the lady which Iago is not at all ready to part with. He recurs to it again in the second act, when in answer to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says,—

‘I cannot believe that in her—she’s full of most bless’d conditions.

Iago. Bless’d fig’s end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If

she had been bless’d, she would never have loved the Moor.’

And again, with still more effect and spirit afterwards, when he takes advantage of this very suggestion arising in Othello’s own breast:—

‘Othello. And yet how nature erring from itself—

Iago. Aye, there’s the point;—as, to be bold with you,

Not to affect many proposed matches,

Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,

Whereto we see in all things, Nature tends;

Foh! one may smell in such, a will most rank,

Foul disproportions, thoughts unnatural.’

This is probing to the quick. ‘Our Ancient’ here turns the character of poor Desdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing but the genius of Shakespear could have preserved the entire interest and delicacy of the part, and have even drawn an additional elegance and dignity from the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed. The character indeed has always had the greatest charm for minds of the finest sensibility.

For our own part, we are a little of Iago’s council in this matter; and all circumstances considered, and platonics out of the question, if we were to cast the complexion of Desdemona physiognomically, we should say that she had a very fair skin, and very light auburn hair, inclining to yellow! We at the same time give her infinite credit for purity and delicacy of sentiment; but it so happens that purity and grossness sometimes

‘nearly are allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.’

Yet the reverse does not hold; so uncertain and undefinable a thing is moral character! It is no wonder that Iago had some contempt for it, ‘who knew all quantities of human dealings, with a learned spirit.’ There is considerable gaiety and ease in his dialogue with Emilia and Desdemona on their landing. It is then holiday time with him; but yet the general satire will be acknowledged (at least 218by one half of our readers) to be biting enough, and his idea of his own character is finely expressed in what he says to Desdemona, when she asks him how he would praise her—

‘Oh gentle lady, do not put me to it,

For I am nothing, if not critical.’

Mr. Kean’s execution of this part we thought admirable; but he was quite as much at his ease in every other part of the play, which was done (we know not why) in a single key.

The habitual licentiousness of Iago’s conversation is not to be traced to the pleasure he takes in gross or lascivious images, but to a desire of finding out the worst side of every thing, and of proving himself an over-match for appearances. He has none of ‘the milk of human kindness’ in his composition. His imagination refuses every thing that has not a strong infusion of the most unpalatable ingredients, and his moral constitution digests only poisons. Virtue, or goodness, or whatever has the least ‘relish of salvation in it,’ is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid; and he even resents the good opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were an affront cast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus, at the meeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims—‘Oh, you are well tuned now: but I’ll set down the pegs that make this music, as honest as I am’—deriving an indirect triumph over the want of penetration in others from the consciousness of his own villainy.

In most of the passages which we have hitherto quoted, Iago gives a loose to his passion for theoretical evil: in the scenes with Othello, where he has to put his theory in practice, with great risk to himself, and with dreadful consequences to others, he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark and deliberate. In the very first scene with Othello, he takes a very different tone;—that tone of hypocritical virtue and affected delicacy, which always betrays the want of the reality.

‘Enter Othello, Iago, and Attendants.

Iago. Though in the trade of war I have slain men,

Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ th’ conscience,

To do no contriv’d murder. I lack iniquity

Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times

I thought to have jerk’d him here under the ribs.

Othello. ’Tis better as it is.

Iago. Nay, but he prated,

And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms

Against your honour, that with the little godliness I have

I did full hard forbear him.’

219But the part in which, according to our conception, Mr. Kean failed most, was in the third act with Othello, where ‘comes the tug of war.’ The following passage is, we think, decisive to our purpose:—

‘Iago. My noble lord.

Othello. What dost thou say, Iago?

Iago. Did Michael Cassio,

When you woo’d my lady, know of your love?

Othello. He did from first to last.

Why dost thou ask?

Iago. But for a satisfaction of my thought,

No further harm.

Othello. Why of thy thought, Iago?

Iago. I did not think he had been acquainted with it.

Othello. O yes, and went between us very oft—

Iago. Indeed!

Othello. Indeed! Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught of that?

Is he not honest?

Iago. Honest, my Lord?

Othello. Honest? Ay, honest.

Iago. My Lord, for aught I know.

Othello. What dost thou think?

Iago. Think, my Lord!

Othello. Think, my Lord! Alas, thou echo’st me,

As if there were some monster in thy thought

Too hideous to be shewn. Thou dost mean something:

I heard thee say even now, thou lik’dst not that—

When Cassio left my wife. What did’st not like?

And when I told thee, he was of my counsel,

Of my whole course of wooing; thou criedst, indeed!

And didst contract and purse thy brow together,

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

Some horrible conceit: If thou dost love me,

Shew me thy thought.

Iago. My Lord, you know I love you.

Othello. I think thou dost:

And for I know thou ‘rt full of love and honesty,

And weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them breath,

Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:

For such things in a false disloyal knave

Are tricks of custom: but in a man that’s just,

They’re cold dilations working from the heart,

Which passion cannot rule.’

Now, if there is any thing of superficial gaiety or heedlessness in this, ‘it is not written in the bond:’—the breaks and stops, the pursing and knitting of the brow together, the deep internal working 220of hypocrisy under the mask of love and honesty, escaped us on the stage.—The same observation applies to what he says afterwards of himself:—

‘Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,

As I confess it is my nature’s plague

To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy

Shapes faults that are not.’

The candour of this confession would hardly be extorted from him, if it did not correspond with the moody dissatisfaction, and suspicious, creeping, cat-like watchfulness of his general appearance. The anxious suspense, the deep artifice, the collected earnestness, and, if we may so say, the passion of hypocrisy, are decidedly marked in every line of the whole scene, and are worked up to a sort of paroxysm afterwards, in that inimitably characteristic apostrophe:—

‘O Grace! O Heaven forgive me!

Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense?

God be wi’ you: take mine office. O wretched fool

That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!

Oh monstrous world! take note, take note, O world!

To be direct and honest, is not safe.

I thank you for this profit, and from hence

I’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.’

This burst of hypocritical indignation might well have called forth all Mr. Kean’s powers, but it did not. We might multiply passages of the same kind, if we had time.

The philosophy of the character is strikingly unfolded in the part where Iago gets the handkerchief:—

‘This may do something.

The Moor already changes with my poisons,

Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,

But with a little act upon the blood,

Burn like the mines of sulphur.’

We here find him watching the success of his experiment, with the sanguine anticipation of an alchemist at the moment of projection.

‘I did say so:

Look where he comes’—[Enter Othello]—‘Not poppy nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou ow’dst yesterday.’

221Again he says:—

‘Work on:

My medicine works; thus credulous fools are caught,

And many worthy and chaste dames even thus

All guiltless meet reproach.’

So that after all, he would persuade us that his object is only to give an instructive example of the injustice that prevails in the world.

If he is bad enough when he has business on his hands, he is still worse when his purposes are suspended, and he has only to reflect on the misery he has occasioned. His indifference when Othello falls in a trance, is perfectly diabolical, but perfectly in character:—

‘Iago. How is it, General? Have you not hurt your head?

Othello. Dost thou mock me?

Iago. I mock you not, by heaven,’ &c.

The callous levity which Mr. Kean seems to consider as belonging to the character in general, is proper here, because Iago has no feelings connected with humanity; but he has other feelings and other passions of his own, which are not to be trifled with.

We do not, however, approve of Mr. Kean’s pointing to the dead bodies after the catastrophe. It is not in the character of the part, which consists in the love of mischief, not as an end, but as a means, and when that end is attained, though he may feel no remorse, he would feel no triumph. Besides, it is not the text of Shakespear. Iago does not point to the bed, but Ludovico bids him look at it:—‘Look on the tragic loading of this bed,’ &c.

We have already noticed that Edmund the Bastard is like an episode of the same character, placed in less difficult circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it.

MR. KEAN’S RICHARD II.

The Examiner.

March 19, 1815.

We are not in the number of those who are anxious in recommending the getting-up of Shakespear’s plays in general, as a duty which our stage-managers owe equally to the author, and the reader of those wonderful compositions. The representing the very finest of them on the stage, even by the best actors, is, we apprehend, an abuse of the genius of the poet, and even in those of a second-rate class, the quantity of sentiment and imagery greatly outweighs the immediate impression of the situation and story. Not only are the more refined 222poetical beauties and minuter strokes of character lost to the audience, but the most striking and impressive passages, those which having once read we can never forget, fail comparatively of their effect, except in one or two rare instances indeed. It is only the pantomime part of tragedy, the exhibition of immediate and physical distress, that which gives the greatest opportunity for ‘inexpressible dumb-show and noise,’ which is sure to tell, and tell completely on the stage. All the rest, all that appeals to our profounder feelings, to reflection and imagination, all that affects us most deeply in our closets, and in fact constitutes the glory of Shakespear, is little else than an interruption and a drag on the business of the stage. Segnius per aures demissa, &c. Those parts of the play on which the reader dwells the longest, and with the highest relish in the perusal, are hurried through in the performance, while the most trifling and exceptionable are obtruded on his notice, and occupy as much time as the most important. We do not mean to say that there is less knowledge or display of mere stage-effect in Shakespear than in other writers, but that there is a much greater knowledge and display of other things, which divide the attention with it, and to which it is not possible to give an equal force in the representation. Hence it is, that the reader of the plays of Shakespear is almost always disappointed in seeing them acted; and, for our own parts, we should never go to see them acted, if we could help it.

Shakespear has embodied his characters so very distinctly, that he stands in no need of the actor’s assistance to make them more distinct; and the representation of the character on the stage almost uniformly interferes with our conception of the character itself. The only exceptions we can recollect to this observation, are Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kean—the former of whom in one or two characters, and the latter, not certainly in any one character, but in very many passages, have raised our imagination of the part they acted. It may be asked then, why all great actors chuse characters from Shakespear to come out in; and again, why these become their favourite parts? First, it is not that they are able to exhibit their author, but that he enables them to shew themselves off. The only way in which Shakespear appears to greater advantage on the stage than common writers is, that he stimulates the faculties of the actor more. If he is a sensible man, he perceives how much he has to do, the inequalities he has to contend with, and he exerts himself accordingly; he puts himself at full speed, and lays all his resources under contribution; he attempts more, and makes a greater number of brilliant failures; he plays off all the tricks of his art to mimic the poet; he does all he can, and bad is often the best. We 223have before said that there are some few exceptions. If the genius of Shakespear does not shine out undiminished in the actor, we perceive certain effects and refractions of it in him. If the oracle does not speak quite intelligibly, yet we perceive that the priest at the altar is inspired with the god, or possessed with a demon. To speak our minds at once, we believe that in acting Shakespear there is a greater number of good things marred than in acting any other author. In fact, in going to see the plays of Shakespear, it would be ridiculous to suppose, that any one ever went to see Hamlet or Othello represented by Kean or Kemble; we go to see Kean or Kemble in Hamlet or Othello. On the contrary, Miss O’Neill and Mrs. Beverley are, we take it, one and the same person. As to the second point, viz. that Shakespear’s characters are decidedly favourites on the stage in the same proportion as they are in the closet, we deny it altogether. They either do not tell so much, or very little more than many others. Mrs. Siddons was quite as great in Mrs. Beverley and Isabella as in Lady Macbeth or Queen Katherine: yet no one, we apprehend, will say that the poetry is equal. It appears, therefore, not that the most intellectual characters excite most interest on the stage, but that they are objects of greater curiosity; they are nicer tests of the skill of the actor, and afford greater scope for controversy, how far the sentiment is ‘overdone or come tardy of.’ There is more in this circumstance than people in general are aware of. We have no hesitation in saying, for instance, that Miss O’Neill has more popularity in the house than Mr. Kean. It is quite as certain, that he is more thought of out of it. The reason is, that she is not ‘food for the critics,’ whereas Mr. Kean notoriously is; there is no end of the topics he affords for discussion—for praise and blame.

All that we have said of acting in general applies to his Richard II. It has been supposed that this is his finest part: this is, however, a total misrepresentation. There are only one or two electrical shocks given in it; and in many of his characters he gives a much greater number.—The excellence of his acting is in proportion to the number of hits, for he has not equal truth or purity of style. Richard II. was hardly given correctly as to the general outline. Mr. Kean made it a character of passion, that is, of feeling combined with energy; whereas it is a character of pathos, that is to say, of feeling combined with weakness. This, we conceive, is the general fault of Mr. Kean’s acting, that it is always energetic or nothing. He is always on full stretch—never relaxed. He expresses all the violence, the extravagance, and fierceness of the passions, but not their misgivings, their helplessness, and sinkings into despair. He has too 224much of that strong nerve and fibre that is always equally elastic. We might instance to the present purpose, his dashing the glass down with all his might, in the scene with Hereford, instead of letting it fall out of his hands, as from an infant’s; also, his manner of expostulating with Bolingbroke, ‘Why on thy knee, thus low, &c.’ which was altogether fierce and heroic, instead of being sad, thoughtful, and melancholy. If Mr. Kean would look into some passages in this play, into that in particular, ‘Oh that I were a mockery king of snow, to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke,’ he would find a clue to this character, and to human nature in general, which he seems to have missed—how far feeling is connected with the sense of weakness as well as of strength, or the power of imbecility, and the force of passiveness.

We never saw Mr. Kean look better than when we saw him in Richard II. and his voice appeared to us to be stronger. We saw him near, which is always in his favour; and we think one reason why the Editor of this Paper^[32] was disappointed in first seeing this celebrated actor, was his being at a considerable distance from the stage. We feel persuaded that on a nearer and more frequent view of him, he will agree that he is a perfectly original, and sometimes a perfectly natural actor; that if his conception is not always just or profound, his execution is masterly; that where he is not the very character he assumes, he makes a most brilliant rehearsal of it: that he never wants energy, ingenuity, and animation, though he is often deficient in dignity, grace, and tenderness; that if he frequently disappoints us in those parts where we expect him to do most, he as frequently surprises us by striking out unexpected beauties of his own; and that the objectionable parts of his acting arise chiefly from the physical impediments he has to overcome.

Of the other characters of the play, it is needless to say much. Mr. Pope was respectable in John of Gaunt. Mr. Holland was lamentable in the Duke of York, and Mr. Elliston indifferent in Bolingbroke. This alteration of Richard II. is the best that has been attempted; for it consists entirely of omissions, except one or two scenes which are idly tacked on to the conclusion.

THE UNKNOWN GUEST

The Examiner.

April 2, 1815.

The English Drama has made an acquisition of no less than three new pieces in the course of the week. The Unknown Guest (said to be from the pen of Mr. Arnold, the Manager) is, we suppose, to 225be considered as a dramatic trifle: it is one of the longest and dullest trifles we almost ever remember to have sat out. We think in general, that the practice of making the Manager bring out his own pieces on the stage, is a custom which would be ‘more honoured in the breach than the observance:’ it is offering a premium for the rejection of better pieces than his own. In the present instance, it would be a compliment to say, that the author has failed in wit, character, incident, or sentiment; for he has not attempted any thing of the kind. The dialogue bears no proportion in quantity to the songs; and chiefly serves as a vehicle to tack together a certain number of unmeaning lines, arranged for different voices, and set in our opinion to very indifferent music. The music of this Opera professes to be by Mr. Kelly and Mr. Braham, except that of one song, which is modestly said to be—selected;—a title which we apprehend might be extended to the whole. We do not recollect a single movement in the airs composed by Mr. Kelly, which was not familiar even to vulgarity; and the style of Mr. Braham’s songs has no other object than to pamper him in his peculiar vices, and to produce that mannerism, which is the destruction of all excellence in art. There are two or three favourite passages which seem to dwell upon his ear, and to which he gives a striking expression; these he combines and repeats with laborious foolery; and in fact, sings nothing but himself over and over continually. Nothing can be worse than this affected and selfish monotony. Instead of acquiring new and varied resources, by lending his imagination to the infinite combinations of which music is susceptible, and by fairly entering into his subject, all his ideas of excellence are taken from, and confined to the sound of his own voice. It is on this account that we listen to Mr. Braham’s singing with less pleasure than we formerly did. It is not assuredly that Mr. Braham has fallen off in his singing; on the contrary, he has improved and perfected his particular talent, but we constantly know what we have to expect, or rather to apprehend, for this anticipation at last amounts to apprehension: we perceive a limit, and this perception is always painful, where it seems to arise from any thing wilful or systematic. Those who first hear Mr. Braham, are struck with a noble simplicity and fervour in his manner of expressing certain emotions, in the eagerness with which he seems to fling himself into his subject, disdaining the rules of art, like the combatant who rushes without his armour to the battle: the sounds he utters, appear to rend his own bosom, or at other times, linger in fluttering accents on his lips. The communication between the voice and the feelings is immediate, instantaneous, irresistible; and the language of music seems the language of nature and passion. 226But when the sound becomes not only an echo to the sense, but to itself—when the same alternation of bursts of heroic passion, and thrillings of sentimental tenderness is constantly played off upon us—when there is nothing but this trite transition from the con furio, con strepito, to the affettuoso and adagio style, in their greatest extremes—we then begin to perceive something like a trick, and are little more affected than by reading the marginal directions in a music book. The inspiration of genius is fled; that which before breathed the very soul of music, becomes little better than a puppet, and like all other puppets, is good only according to its compass, and the number of evolutions it performs. We have here spoken of directness and simplicity of style, as Mr. Braham’s forte in singing; for though we agree that he has too much ornament (a very little is too much), yet we can by no means allow that this can be made an unqualified objection to his style, for he has much less than other singers.

Of Mr. Phillips we would not wish to speak; but as he puts himself forward and is put forward by others, we must say something. He is said to be an imitator of Mr. Braham; if so, the imitation is a vile one. This gentleman has one qualification, which has been said to be the great secret of pleasing others, that he is evidently pleased with himself. But he does not produce a corresponding effect upon us; we have not one particle of sympathy with his wonderful self-complacency. We should wish never to hear him sing again; or, if he must sing, at least, we should hope never to see him act: let him not top his part—why should he sigh, and ogle, and languish, and display all his accomplishments—he should spare the side-boxes!—Mrs. Dickons never appeared to us any thing but an ordinary musical instrument, and at present, she is very much out of tune. We do not well understand what has been said of this piece having called forth all the musical strength of the house: except Braham’s, there was not a single song sung so as not to give pain, even to a moderately cultivated ear. In this censure, we do not (of course) include Miss Kelly; in seeing her, we never think of her singing. The comic parts of this Opera (if such they can be called) were sustained by Miss Kelly, Mr. Munden, and Mr. Knight. Miss Kelly did the little she had to do, with that fine unobtrusive good sense, and reluctant naiveté, which distinguish all her performances. If she carries her shyness of the audience and of her profession to a fault, not so Mr. Munden. He out-caricatures caricature, and out-grimaces himself. We have seen him twice lately in the same character of a drunken confidant, and were both times heartily tired. He is not only perfectly conscious what he is about, but has a thorough understanding with the audience all along. He makes his 227face up into a bad joke, and flings it right in the teeth of the spectators. The expression of the masks hanging out at the shop-windows, is less extravagant and distorted. There is no one on the stage who can, or at least who does, draw up his eyebrows, roll his eyes, thrust out his tongue, or drop his under jaw, in so astonishing a manner as Mr. Munden; and if acting consisted in making wry faces, he would be the greatest actor on the stage, instead of which he is, on these occasions, only a bad clown. His over-desire to produce effect, destroys all effect on our minds.^[33]—Mr. Knight played the servant very well; but in general, there is too much an appearance in his acting, as if he was moved by wires. His feeling always flies to the extremities: his vivacity is in his feet and finger-ends. He is a very lively automaton.

March 30.

The farce of Love in Limbo, brought out at Covent-Garden Theatre, has no other merit than the plot, which, however, is neither very laughable nor very probable.—The melo-drame of Zembuca, besides the attractions of the scenery and music, has considerable neatness of point in the dialogue, to which Liston gave its full effect.

MR. KEAN’S ZANGA

The Examiner.

May 28, 1815.

Mr. Kean played for his benefit on Wednesday, the character of Zanga, in the Revenge (which he is to repeat), and the character of Abel Drugger from the Alchymist, (we are sorry to say for that night only). The house was crowded to excess. The play of the Revenge is an obvious transposition of Othello: the two principal characters are the same; only their colours are reversed. The giving the dark, treacherous, fierce, and remorseless character to the Moor, is an alteration, which is more in conformity to our prejudices, as well as to historical truth. We have seen Mr. Kean in no part, to which his general style of acting is so completely adapted as to this, or to which he has given greater spirit and effect. He had all the wild impetuosity of barbarous revenge, the glowing energy of the untamed children of the sun, whose blood drinks up the radiance of fiercer skies. He was like a man stung with rage, and bursting with stifled passions. His hurried motions had the restlessness of the panther’s: his wily caution, his cruel eye, his quivering visage, his 228violent gestures, his hollow pauses, his abrupt transitions, were all in character. The very vices of Mr. Kean’s general acting might almost be said to assist him in the part. What in our judgment he wants, is dignified repose, and deep internal sentiment. But in Zanga, nothing of this kind is required. The whole character is violent; the whole expression is in action. The only passage which struck us as one of calm and philosophical grandeur, and in which Mr. Kean failed from an excess of misplaced energy, was the one in the conclusion, where he describes the tortures he is about to undergo, and expresses his contempt for them. Certainly, the predominant feeling here is that of stern, collected, impenetrable fortitude, and the expression given to it should not be that of a pantomimic exaggeration of the physical horrors to which he professes to rise superior. The mind in such a situation recoils upon itself, summons up its own powers and resources, and should seem to await the blow of fate with the stillness of death. The scene in which he discloses himself to Alonzo, and insults over his misery, was terrific: the attitude in which he tramples on the body of his prostrate victim, was not the less dreadful from its being perfectly beautiful. Among the finest instances of natural expression, were the manner in which he interrupts himself in his relation to Alonzo, ‘I knew you could not bear it,’ and his reflection when he sees that Alonzo is dead—‘And so is my revenge.’ The play should end here: the soliloquy afterwards is a mere drawling piece of common-place morality. We ought to add, that Mr. Rae acted the part of Alonzo with great force and feeling.

Mr. Kean’s Abel Drugger was an exquisite piece of ludicrous naiveté. The first word he utters, ‘Sure,’ drew bursts of laughter and applause. The mixture of simplicity and cunning in the character could not be given with a more whimsical effect. First, there was the wonder of the poor Tobacconist, when he is told by the Conjurer that his name is Abel, and that he was born on a Wednesday; then the conflict between his apprehensions and his cupidity, as he becomes more convinced that Subtle is a person who has dealings with the devil; and lastly, his contrivances to get all the information he can, without paying for it. His distress is at the height, when the two-guinea pocket-piece is found upon him: ‘He had received it from his grandmother, and would fain save it for his grand-children.’ The battle between him and Face (Oxberry) was irresistible; and he went off after he had got well through it, strutting, and fluttering his cloak about, much in the same manner that a game cock flaps his wings after a victory. We wish he would do it again!

229

MR. BANNISTER’S FAREWELL

The Examiner.

June 4, 1815.

Mr. Bannister had the comedy of The World, and the after-piece of The Children in the Wood, for his benefit on Thursday last, at Drury-Lane. Mr. Gattie, in consequence of the indisposition of Mr. Dowton, undertook the part of Index in the play. This alteration occasioned a short interruption; but after the usual explanation, the piece proceeded, and in our opinion, Mr. Gattie made a very excellent representative of the busy, whiffling, insignificant, but good-natured character which he personated. The figure and manner of this actor are certainly better fitted for the part than those of Dowton, who has too much weight and sturdiness of mind and body, to run about on ladies’ errands, and take an interest in every thing that does not concern him. He is not a Will Wimble. Mr. Bannister played the character of Echo, which is a whimsical mixture of simplicity, affectation, and good-nature, with his usual excellence. Mr. Elliston’s Cheviot is one of his best characters. Whatever requires spirit, animation, or the lively expression of natural feelings, he does well. Sentimental comedy is the equivocal reflection of tragedy in common life, and Mr. Elliston can rehearse the one just well enough to play the other. The coincidence is complete. He raises his voice to a pitch of romantic rapture, or lowers it to the tones of sullen despondence and disappointment, with the happiest effect. The Duke, in the Honey-Moon, is the assumption of an impassioned character. The Comedy of the World, is one of the most ingenious and amusing of the modern stage. It has great neatness of dialogue, and considerable originality, as well as sprightliness of character. It is, however, chargeable with a grossness which is common to modern plays, we mean, the grossness of fashionable life in the men, and the grossness of fine sentiment in the women. Mrs. Davison did not soften down the exuberant qualities of Lady Bloomfield into any thing like decency; and the two fashionable loungers, Loiter and Dauntless, were certainly done to the life by Decamp and R. Palmer. Between the acts, Mr. Braham sung Robin Adair, and The Death of Nelson, in his most delightful style.

In the after-piece, Mr. Bannister played the favourite part of Walter, in the Children in the Wood, for the last time.

He then came forward to take his leave of the Stage, in a Farewell Address, in which he expressed his thanks for the long and flattering patronage he had received from the public. We do not wonder that his feelings were overpowered on this occasion: our own (we confess it) were nearly so too. We remember him in the first hey-day of 230our youthful spirits, in The Prize—which he played so delightfully with that fine old croaker Suett, and Madame Storace—in the farce of My Grandmother, in the Son-in-Law, in Autolycus, and in Scrub, in which our satisfaction was at its height. At that time, King, and Parsons, and Dodd, and Quick, and Edwin, were in the full vigour of their reputation, who are now all gone! We still feel the vivid delight with which we used to see their names in the play-bills, as we went along to the theatre. Bannister was almost the last of these that remained; and we parted with him as we should with one of our oldest and best friends. The most pleasant feature in the profession of a player, and which is peculiar to it, is, that we not only admire the talents of those who adorn it, but we contract a personal intimacy with them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the stage; we like to meet them in the streets; they always recall to us pleasant associations; and we feel our gratitude excited, without the uneasiness of a sense of obligation. The very gaiety and popularity, however, which surrounds the life of a favourite performer, makes the retiring from it a very serious business. It glances a mortifying reflection on the shortness of human life, and the vanity of human pleasures. Something reminds us, that ‘all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’

COMUS

The Examiner.

June 11, 1815.

Comus has been got up at Covent-Garden Theatre with great splendour, and has had as much success as was to be expected. The genius of Milton was essentially undramatic: he saw all objects from his own point of view, and with certain exclusive preferences. Shakespear, on the contrary, had no personal character, and no moral principle, except that of good-nature. He took no part in the scene he describes, but gave fair play to all his characters, and left virtue and vice, folly and wisdom, right and wrong, to fight it out between themselves, just as they do on their ‘old prize-fighting stage’—the world. He is only the vehicle for the sentiments of his characters. Milton’s characters are only a vehicle for his own. Comus is a didactic poem, or a dialogue in verse, on the advantages or disadvantages of virtue and vice. It is merely a discussion of general topics, but with a beauty of language and richness of illustration, that in the perusal leave no feeling of the want of any more powerful interest. On the stage, the poetry of course lost above half of its 231effect: but this was compensated to the audience by every advantage of scenery and decoration. By the help of dance and song, ‘of mask and antique pageantry,’ this most delightful poem went off as well as any common pantomime. Mr. Conway topped the part of Comus with his usual felicity, and seemed almost as if the genius of a maypole had inspired a human form. He certainly gives a totally new idea of the character. We allow him to be ‘a marvellous proper man,’ but we see nothing of the magician, or the son of Bacchus and Circe in him. He is said to make a very handsome Comus: so he would make a very handsome Caliban; and the common sense of the transformation would be the same. Miss Stephens played the First Nymph very prettily and insipidly; and Miss Matthews played the Second Nymph with appropriate significance of nods and smiles. Mrs. Faucit, as the Lady, rehearsed the speeches in praise of virtue very well, and acted the scene of the Enchanted Chair admirably. She seemed changed into a statue of alabaster. Miss Foote made a very elegant Younger Brother.—It is only justice to add, that Mr. Duruset gave the songs of the Spirit with equal taste and effect; and in particular, sung the final invocation to Sabrina in a full and powerful tone of voice, which we have seldom heard surpassed.

These kind of allegorical compositions are necessarily unfit for actual representation. Every thing on the stage takes a literal, palpable shape, and is embodied to the sight. So much is done by the senses, that the imagination is not prepared to eke out any deficiency that may occur. We resign ourselves, as it were, to the illusion of the scene: we take it for granted, that whatever happens within that ‘magic circle’ is real; and whatever happens without it, is nothing. The eye of the mind cannot penetrate through the glare of lights which surround it, to the pure empyrean of thought and fancy; and the whole world of imagination fades into a dim and refined abstraction, compared with that part of it, which is brought out dressed, painted, moving, and breathing, a speaking pantomime before us. Whatever is seen or done, is sure to tell: what is heard only, unless it relates to what is seen or done, has little or no effect. All the fine writing in the world, therefore, which does not find its immediate interpretation in the objects or situations before us, is at best but elegant impertinence. We will just take two passages out of Comus, to shew how little the beauty of the poetry adds to the interest on the stage: the first is from the speech of the Spirit as Thyrsis:—

‘This evening late, by then the chewing flocks

Had ta’en their supper on the savoury herb

232Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,

I sat me down to watch upon a bank

With ivy canopied, and interwove

With flaunting honeysuckle, and began,

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,

To meditate my rural minstrelsy,

Till Fancy had her fill; but ere a close,

The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,

And filled the air with barbarous dissonance:

At which I ceased, and listen’d them a while,

Till an unusual stop of sudden silence

Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds

That draw the litter of close-curtain’d sleep:

At last a soft and solemn breathing sound

Rose like a steam of rich distill’d perfumes,

And stole upon the air, that even Silence

Was took ere she was ‘ware, and wished she might

Deny her nature, and be never more

Still to be so displaced.’

This passage was recited by Mr. Duruset; and the other, which we proposed to quote, equally became the mouth of Mr. Conway:—

‘Two such I saw, what time the labour’d ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came,

And the swinkt hedger at his supper sat;

I saw them under a green mantling vine

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots:

Their port was more than human as they stood:

I took it for a fairy vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colours of the rainbow live

And play in th’ plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,

And as I pass’d, I worshipp’d.’

To those of our readers who may not be acquainted with Comus, these exquisite passages will be quite new, though they may have lately heard them on the stage.

There was an evident want of adaptation to theatrical representation in the last scene, where Comus persists in offering the Lady the cup, which she as obstinately rejects, without any visible reason. In the poetical allegory, it is the poisoned cup of pleasure: on the stage, it is a goblet filled with wine, which it seems strange she should refuse, as the person who presents it to her, has certainly no appearance of any dealings with the devil.

Milton’s Comus is not equal to Lycidas, nor to Samson Agonistes. 233It wants interest and passion, which both the others have. Lycidas is a fine effusion of classical sentiment in a youthful scholar: his Samson Agonistes is almost a canonisation of all the high moral and religious prejudices of his maturer years. We have no less respect for the memory of Milton as a patriot than as a poet. Whether he was a true patriot, we shall not enquire: he was at least a consistent one. He did not retract his defence of the people of England; he did not say that his sonnets to Vane or Cromwell were meant ironically; he was not appointed Poet-Laureat to a Court which he had reviled and insulted; he accepted neither place nor pension; nor did he write paltry sonnets upon the ‘Royal fortitude’ of the House of Stuart, by which, however, they really lost something.^[34]

MR. KEAN’S LEON

The Examiner.

July 2, 1815.

We went to see Mr. Kean in Leon, at Drury-Lane, and, on the whole, liked him less in it than we formerly liked Mr. Kemble in the same part. This preference, however, relates chiefly to personal considerations. In the first scenes of the play, Mr. Kemble’s face and figure had a nobleness in them, which formed a contrast to the assumed character of the idiot, and thus carried off the disgusting effect of the part. Mr. Kean both acted and looked it too well. At the same time, we must do justice to the admirable comic talents displayed by Mr. Kean on this occasion. We never saw or heard looks or tones more appropriate and ludicrous. The house was in a roar. His alarm on being first introduced to his mistress, his profession of being ‘very loving,’ his shame after first saluting the lady, and his chuckling half-triumph on the repetition of the ceremony, were complete acting. Above all, we admired the careless self-complacent idiotcy with which he marched in, carrying his wife’s fan, and holding up her hand. It was the triumph of folly. Even Mr. Liston, with all his inimitable graces in that way, could not have bettered it. In the serious part of the character he appeared to us less perfect. There was not repose enough, not enough of dignity. Leon, we apprehend, ought to be the man of spirit, but still more the gentleman. He has to stand in general upon the 234defensive, upon his own rights, upon his own ground, and need not bluster, or look fierce. We will mention one instance in particular. Where he tells the Duke to leave the house, which we think he should do with perfect coolness and confidence, he pointed with his finger to the door, ‘There, there,’ with the same significant inveteracy of manner, as where, in Iago, he points to the dead body of Othello. The other parts of the play were well supported. Mrs. Glover deserves great praise for her Estifania. Mr. Bartley shewed both judgment and humour in the Copper Captain; and yet we were not satisfied with his performance. There is a thinness in his voice, and a plumpness in his person, neither of which is to our taste. His laughing when he finds that Cacafogo had been cheated by Estifania, was perfectly well done; but there was an effeminacy in his voice which took away from the hearty effect which Bannister used to give to this scene. Knight, in the old woman, was excellent. His reiteration of ‘What?’ in answer to the Copper Captain’s questions, had the startling effect produced by letting off a pistol close at one’s ears. It evidently proceeded from a person blest with ‘double deafness’ of body and mind. The morality of this excellent comedy is very indifferent; and having been prompted by the observations of some persons of fashion near us, we got into a train of agreeable reflections on the progressive refinement of this our age and country, which it was our intention to have communicated to our readers,—but that we dropt them in the lobbies!

THE TEMPEST

The Examiner.

July 23, 1815.

As we returned some evenings ago from seeing the Tempest at Covent-Garden, we almost came to the resolution of never going to another representation of a play of Shakespear’s as long as we lived; and we certainly did come to this determination, that we never would go by choice. To call it a representation, is indeed an abuse of language: it is travestie, caricature, any thing you please, but a representation. Even those daubs of pictures, formerly exhibited under the title of the Shakespear Gallery, had a less evident tendency to disturb and distort all the previous notions we had imbibed from reading Shakespear. In the first place, it was thought fit and necessary, in order to gratify the sound sense, the steady, sober judgment, and natural unsophisticated feelings of Englishmen a hundred years ago, to modernize the original play, and to disfigure its simple and beautiful structure, by loading it with the common-place, clap-trap sentiments, 235artificial contrasts of situations and character, and all the heavy tinsel and affected formality which Dryden had borrowed from the French school. And be it observed, further, that these same anomalous, unmeaning, vulgar, and ridiculous additions, are all that take in the present farcical representation of the Tempest. The beautiful, the exquisitely beautiful descriptions in Shakespear, the still more refined, and more affecting sentiments, are not only not applauded as they ought to be (what fine murmur of applause should do them justice?)—they are not understood, nor are they even heard. The lips of the actors are seen to move, but the sounds they utter exciting no corresponding emotions in the breast, are no more distinguished than the repetition of so many cabalistical words. The ears of the audience are not prepared to drink in the music of the poet; or grant that they were, the bitterness of disappointment would only succeed to the stupor of indifference.

Shakespear has given to Prospero, Ariel, and the other characters in this play, language such as wizards and spirits, ‘the gay creatures of the element,’ might want to express their thoughts and purposes, and this language is here put into the mouth of Messrs. Young, Abbott, and Emery, and of Misses Matthews, Bristow, and Booth. ‘’Tis much.’ Mr. Young is in general what is called a respectable actor. Now, as this is a phrase which does not seem to be very clearly understood by those who most frequently use it, we shall take this opportunity to define it. A respectable actor then, is one who seldom gratifies, and who seldom offends us; who never disappoints us, because we do not expect any thing from him, and who takes care never to rouse our dormant admiration by any unlooked-for strokes of excellence. In short, an actor of this class (not to speak it profanely) is a mere machine, who walks and speaks his part; who, having a tolerable voice, face, and figure, reposes entirely and with a prepossessing self-complacency on these natural advantages: who never risks a failure, because he never makes an effort; who keeps on the safe side of custom and decorum, without attempting improper liberties with his art; and who has not genius or spirit enough to do either well or ill. A respectable actor is on the stage, much what a pretty woman is in private life, who trusts to her outward attractions, and does not commit her taste or understanding, by hazardous attempts to shine in conversation. So we have generals, who leave every thing to be done by their men; patriots, whose reputation depends on their estates; and authors, who live on the stock of ideas they have in common with their readers.

Such is the best account we can give of the class of actors to which Mr. Young belongs, and of which he forms a principal ornament. As 236long as he contents himself to play indifferent characters, we shall say nothing: but whenever he plays Shakespear, we must be excused if we take unequal revenge for the martyrdom which our feelings suffer. His Prospero was good for nothing; and consequently, was indescribably bad. It was grave without solemnity, stately without dignity, pompous without being impressive, and totally destitute of the wild, mysterious, preternatural character of the original. Prospero, as depicted by Mr. Young, did not appear the potent wizard brooding in gloomy abstraction over the secrets of his art, and around whom spirits and airy shapes throng numberless ‘at his bidding;’ but seemed himself an automaton, stupidly prompted by others: his lips moved up and down as if pulled by wires, not governed by the deep and varied impulses of passion; and his painted face, and snowy hair and beard, reminded us of the masks for the representation of Pantaloon. In a word, Mr. Young did not personate Prospero, but a pedagogue teaching his scholars how to recite the part, and not teaching them well.

Of one of the actors who assisted at this sacrifice of poetical genius, Emery, we think as highly as any one can do: he is indeed, in his way, the most perfect actor on the stage. His representations of common rustic life have an absolute identity with the thing represented. But the power of his mind is evidently that of imitation, not that of creation. He has nothing romantic, grotesque, or imaginary about him. Every thing in his hands takes a local and habitual shape. Now, Caliban is a mere creation; one of the wildest and most abstracted of all Shakespear’s characters, whose deformity is only redeemed by the power and truth of the imagination displayed in it. It is the essence of grossness, but there is not the smallest vulgarity in it. Shakespear has described the brutal mind of this man-monster in contact with the pure and original forms of nature; the character grows out of the soil where it is rooted uncontrouled, uncouth, and wild, uncramped by any of the meannesses of custom. It is quite remote from any thing provincial; from the manners or dialect of any county in England. Mr. Emery had nothing of Caliban but his gaberdine, which did not become him. (We liked Mr. Grimaldi’s Orson much better, which we saw afterwards in the pantomime.) Shakespear has, by a process of imagination usual with him, drawn off from Caliban the elements of every thing etherial and refined, to compound them into the unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Miss Matthews played and sung Ariel. She is to be sure a very ‘tricksy spirit:’ and all that we can say in her praise is, that she is 237a better representative of the sylph-like form of the character, than the light and portable Mrs. Bland, who used formerly to play it. She certainly does not sing the songs so well. We do not however wish to hear them sung, though never so well; no music can add any thing to their magical effect.—The words of Shakespear would be sweet, even ‘after the songs of Apollo!’

MY WIFE! WHAT WIFE?

The Examiner.

July 30, 1815.

The Haymarket is the most sociable of all our theatres. A wonderful concentration of interest, and an agreeable equality of pretension reign here. There is an air of unusual familiarity between the audience and the actors; the pit shakes hands with the boxes, and the galleries descend, from the invisible height to which they are raised at the other theatres, half-way into the orchestra. Now we have certain remains of a sneaking predilection for this mode of accommodating differences between all parts of the house; this average dissemination of comfort, and immediate circulation of enjoyment; and we take our places (just as it happens), on the same good terms with ourselves and our neighbours, as we should in sitting down to an ordinary at an inn. Every thing, however, has its drawbacks; and the Little Theatre in the Haymarket is not without them. If, for example, a party of elderly gentlewomen should come into a box close at your elbow, and immediately begin to talk loud, with an evident disregard of those around them, your only chance is either to quit the house altogether, or (if you really wish to hear the play), to remove to the very opposite side of it; for the ill-breeding of persons of that class, sex, and time of life, is incorrigible. At the great Theatres, it is sometimes very difficult to hear, for the noise and quarrelling in the gallery; here the only interruption to the performance is from the overflowing garrulity and friendly tittle-tattle of the boxes. The gods (as they are called), at Drury-lane and Covent-garden, we suspect, ‘keep such a dreadful pudder o’er our heads,’ from their impatience at not being able to hear what is passing below; and, at the minor theatres, are the most quiet and attentive of the audience.

It is the immemorial practice of the Haymarket Theatre to bring out, every season, a number of new pieces, good, bad, or indifferent. To this principle we are indebted for an odd play, with an odd title, ‘My Wife! What Wife?’ and whether it belongs to the class of 238good, bad, or indifferent, we could not make up our minds at the time, and it has nearly escaped our memory since. Whether from its excellences or its absurdities, it is altogether very amusing. The best part of it is a very unaccountable, easy, impudent, blundering Irish footman, admirably represented by Mr. Tokely, whom we here take the liberty of introducing to the notice of our readers. ‘Good Mr. Tokely, we desire better acquaintance with you.’ We do not know whether this gentleman is himself an Irishman, but he has a wonderful sympathy with the manners and peculiarities of the character he had to represent. The ease, the ignorance, the impudence, the simplicity, the cunning, the lying, the good-nature, the absurdity, and the wit of the common character of the Irish, were depicted with equal fidelity and naiveté by this very lively actor; and his brogue was throughout a complete accompaniment to the sense. It floated up and down, and twisted round, and rose and fell, and started off or rattled on, just as the gusts of passion led.

The Irish and the Scotch brogue are very characteristic. In the one, the words are tumbled out altogether: in the other, every syllable is held fast between the teeth and kept in a sort of undulating suspense, lest circumstances should require a retractation before the end of the sentence. The Irish character is impetuous: the Scotch circumspect. The one is extreme unconsciousness, the other extreme consciousness. The one depends almost entirely on animal spirits, the other on will; the one on the feeling of the moment, the other on the calculation of consequences. The Irish character is therefore much more adapted for the stage: it presents more heterogeneous materials, and it is only unconscious absurdity that excites laughter. We seldom see a Scotchman introduced into an English farce: whereas an Irishman is always ready to be served up, and it is a standing dish at this kind of entertainment. Mr. Tokely sung two songs in the afterpiece with great effect. The laughing song was a thing of pure execution, made out of nothing but the feeling of humour in the actor.

Mr. Terry played the principal serious character in ‘My Wife! What Wife?’ He is a very careful and judicious actor: but his execution overlays the character. He is a walking grievance on the stage; a robust personification of the comedie larmoyante; a rock dropping tears of crystal; an iron figure, ‘in the likeness of a sigh.’ Mr. Jones was intended as a lively set-off to Mr. Terry. It was but a diversity of wretchedness. Mr. Jones is no favourite of ours. He is always the same Mr. Jones, who shews his teeth, and rolls his eyes,—

‘And looks like a jackdaw just caught in a snare.’

239Mr. Meggett has played Octavian twice at this theatre. He is a very decent, disagreeable actor, of the second or third-rate, who takes a great deal of pains to do ill. He did not, however, deserve to be hissed, and he only deserves to be applauded, because he was hissed undeservedly. He is a Scotch edition of Conway, without his beauty, and without his talent for noisy declamation.

Our play-houses are just now crowded with French people, with or without white cockades. A very intelligent French man and woman sat behind us the other evening at the representation of the Mountaineers, (one of the best of our modern plays) who were exceedingly shocked at the constant transitions from tragic to comic in this piece. It is strange that a people who have no keeping in themselves, should be offended at our want of keeping in theatrical representations. But it is an old remark, that the manners of every nation and their dramatic taste are opposite to each other. In the present instance, there can be no question, but that the distinguishing character of the English is gravity, and of the French levity. How then is it that this is reversed on the stage? Because the English wish to relieve the continuity of their feelings by something light and even farcical, and the French cannot afford to offer the same temptation to their natural levity. They become grave only by system, and the formality of their artificial style is resorted to as a preservative against the infection of their national disposition. One quaint line in a thousand sad ones, operating on their mercurial and volatile spirits, would turn the whole to farce. The English are sufficiently tenacious of strong passion to retain it in spite of other feelings: the French are only tragic by the force of dulness, and every thing serious would fly at the appearance of a jest.

MR. HARLEY’S FIDGET

The Examiner.

August 6, 1815.

Mr. Harley is an addition to the comic strength of the Lyceum. We have not seen him in the part of Leatherhead, in The Blue Stocking, in which he has been much spoken of; but as an intriguing knave of a servant, he was the life of a very dull and incredible farce, which came out the other night under the title of My Aunt; and we afterwards liked him still better as Fidget, in The Boarding House, where he had more scope for his abilities. He gave the part with all the liveliness, insinuating complaisance, and volubility of speech and motion, which belong to it. He has a great deal of vivacity, archness, and that quaint extravagance, 240which constitutes the most agreeable kind of buffoonery. We think it likely he will become a considerable favourite with the public; and the more so, because he is not only a very amusing actor, but also possesses those recommendations of face, person, and manner, which go a great way in conciliating public favour. These are the more necessary in those burlesque characters, which have little foundation in real life, and which, as they serve chiefly to furnish opportunities for the drollery of the actor to display itself, bring him constantly before us in his personal capacity.

We are really glad to be pleased whenever we can, and we were pleased with Peter Fidget. His dress and his address are equally comic and in character. He wears a white morning jean coat, and a white wig, the curls of which hang down like lappets over his shoulders, and form a good contrast with the plump, rosy, shining face beneath it. He comes bolt upon the stage, and jumps into the good graces of the audience before they have time to defend themselves. Peter Fidget, ‘master of a boarding-house, with a green door—brass knocker—No. 1, round the corner—facing the Steyne—Brighton’—is a very impudent, rattling fellow, with a world of business and cares on his back, which however it seems broad enough to bear, the lightness of whose head gets the better of the heaviness of his heels, and whose person thrives in proportion to his custom. It is altogether a very laughable exaggeration, and lost none of its effect in the hands of Mr. Harley.

In the new farce of My Aunt, Mr. Wallack played the character of a fashionable rake, and he is said to have played it well. If this is a good specimen of the class, we can only say we do not wish to extend our acquaintance with it; for we never saw any thing more disagreeable. Miss Poole played the Niece to Mrs. Harlowe’s Aunt; and seemed a very proper niece for such an aunt. Mr. Pyne ‘warbled his love-lorn ditties all night long;’—for a despairing lover, we never saw any one look better, or flushed with a more purple grace—‘as one incapable of his own distress.’ He appears to have taken a hint from Sir John Suckling;—

‘Prythee, why so pale, fond lover,

Prythee why so pale?

Will, if looking well won’t win her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prythee, why so pale?’

We went to the Haymarket Theatre on Thursday, to see Mr. Meggett in the Iron Chest, with that laudable desire which we 241always feel to find out any error in our former opinions; but in this desire, as it generally happens, we were disappointed. We however consider Mr. Meggett’s Sir Edward Mortimer as a much more successful delineation than his Octavian. The character is taken from Falkland, in Mr. Godwin’s Caleb Williams, which is unquestionably the best modern novel. The character, as it is treated by Colman, is one of much less genius and elevation than the original. It is harsh, heavy, fierce, and painfully irritable, but at the same time forcible and affecting. Such, at least, was the impression we received from Mr. Meggett’s representation of it. What this actor wants is genial expression, and a certain general impulse which is inseparable from all passion. The tide of feeling in him frets itself away in narrow nooks and estuaries. His habitual manner is too hard and dry—he makes too dead a set at every thing. He grinds his words out between his teeth as if he had a lockjaw, and his action is clenched till it resembles the commencement of a fit of the epilepsy. He strains his muscles till he seems to have lost the use of them. If Mr. Kemble was hard, Mr. Meggett is rigid, to a petrifying degree. We however think that he gave considerable force and feeling to the part, by the justness of his conception, and by the energy of his execution. But neither energy nor good sense is sufficient to make the great actor:—it requires genius, which nothing can give. Study may teach us to distinguish the forms and classes of things; but it is genius alone which puts us in possession of the powers of art or nature. This play, when it first came out, excited a great deal of idle controversy and vulgar abuse. It appears to us to be a play of great interest; but that interest depends upon the sentiment, and not on the story or situations, and consequently is very little understood by a mixed audience.

Miss Greville made an interesting representative of Helen, the mistress of Sir Edward Mortimer. Mr. Barnard had considerable merit in Wilford, the Caleb Williams of the piece; though he seemed somewhat too insignificant an instrument to produce such terrible effects. Mr. Tokely played the ruffian (Orson) admirably well. Mrs. Belfield, his Dulcinea in the gang of robbers, perfectly frightened us in the cave-scene. We felt as much disconcerted by the uncalled-for phrensy of this theatrical amazon, as the Squire of Dames in Spenser did, when he was carried off by the giantess, Ogygia; or, as Mr. Capel Lofft must have done the other day, when Mrs. Mary Ann Bulmer pounced upon him in the Chronicle.

Mr. Foote was the brother of Sir Edward Mortimer. This gentleman is of the Wroughton school; that is, he belongs to the 242old English class of honest country gentlemen, who abound more in good nature than good sense, and who have a most plentiful lack of gall and wit. Mr. Foote does not discredit this branch of the profession. These persons are always very comfortable in themselves, and busy about other people. This is exceedingly provoking. They speak with good emphasis and discretion, and are in general of a reasonable corpulence. Whenever we see an actor of this class, with a hat and feather, a gold belt, and more than ordinary merit, we are strangely reminded of our old friend Mr. Gyngell, the celebrated itinerant manager, and the only showman in England, who, after the festivity of the week, makes a point of staying the Sunday over, and goes with all his family to church.

LIVING IN LONDON

The Examiner.

August 13, 1815.

A new Comedy, called Living in London, by the author (as it appears) of Love and Gout, has been brought forward at the Haymarket Theatre. It is in three acts. The first act promised exceedingly well. The scenes were well-contrived, and the dialogue was neat and pointed. But in the second and third, the comic invention of the writer seemed to be completely exhausted; his plot became entangled and ridiculous, and he strove to relieve the wearied attention of the audience, by some of the most desperate attempts at double entendre we ever remember. Thus a servant is made to say, that ‘no one can bring up his master’s dinner but himself.’ We are told by very good authority, that ‘want of decency is want of sense.’ The plot is double, and equally ill-supported in both its branches. A lady of fashion (who was made as little disgusting as the part would permit by Miss Greville) makes overtures of love to a nobleman, (Lord Clamourcourt, Mr. Foote), by publishing an account of a supposed intrigue between herself and him in the newspapers. The device is new, at least. The same nobleman is himself made jealous of his wife by the assumption of her brother’s name (Neville) by a coxcomb of his acquaintance, by the circumstance of a letter directed to the real Neville having been received by the pretended one, and by the blunders which follow from it. The whole developement of the plot is carried on by letters, and there is hardly a scene towards the conclusion, in which a footman does not come in, as the bearer of some alarming piece of intelligence. Lord Clamourcourt, just as he is sitting down to dinner with his wife, receives a letter from his mistress; he hurries away, and his Lady 243having no appetite left, orders the dinner back. Lord Clamourcourt is no sooner arrived at the place of assignation than he receives an anonymous letter, informing him that Neville is at his house, and he flies back on the wings of jealousy, as he had come on those of love. All this is very artificial and improbable. Quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi.

We were a good deal disappointed in this play, as from the commencement we had augured very favourably of it. There was not much attempt to draw out the particular abilities of the actors; and the little that there was, did not succeed. Matthews, who is in general exceedingly amusing, did not appear at all to advantage. The author did not seem to understand what use to make of him. He was an automaton put into his hands, of which he did not know how to turn the pegs. He is shoved on, and then shoved off the stage to no purpose, as if his exit or his entrance made the jest. One person twirls him round by the flap of his coat, and another jerks him back again by the tail of his periwig. He is first a stupid servant, and is next metamorphosed, without taking his degrees, into an ignorant doctor. He changes his dress, but the same person remains. He has nothing to do but to run about like a dog to fetch and carry, or to fidget over the stage like the dolls that dance (to please the children) to the barrel-organs in the street. For our own parts, we had rather see Punch and the puppet-shew.