THEATRICAL CRITICISM.
Reading edition
The following dramatic bulletin which appeared in a Dublin newspaper on the first appearance of the celebrated Mrs. Siddons in that city, is quite as good a critique and as free from blunders, as some which have appeared in our own journals more recently:—
"On Saturday, May 30, 1784, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all the world has been talking, exposed her beautiful, adamantine, soft and lovely person for the first time, at the Smock Alley Theatre, in the bewitching, tearful, and all melting character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics in the impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a heavenly angel; but how were we supernaturally surprised into the most awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess. The house was crowded with hundreds more than it could hold—with thousands of admiring spectators who went away without obtaining a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun in the firmament of the muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen and princess of tears! this Donellan of the poisoned bowl! this empress of the pistol and dagger! this chaos of Shakspeare! this world of weeping clouds! this Terpsichore of the curtains and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and earthquake! this Katterfelto of wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief, and soared above all the natural powers of description! she was nature itself! she was the most exquisite work of art! she was the very daisy, primrose, tube rose, sweet-briar, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall-flower, cauliflower and rosemary! in short she was a bouquet of Parnassus. Where expectation was raised so high, it was thought she would be injured by her appearance; but it was the audience who were injured—several of them fainted before the curtain was drawn up.
"When she came to the scene of parting with her wedding ring, ah! what a sight was there! The very fiddlers in the orchestra, albeit unused to the melting mood, blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears fell from the bassoon player's eyes in such plentiful showers that they choked the finger stops; and making a spout of that instrument, poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience, and the noise of cork drawing from the smelling bottles, prevented the mistakes between flats and sharps being discovered.
"One hundred and nine ladies fainted, forty-six went into fits, and ninety-five had strong hysterics! The world will hardly credit the truth, when they are told that fourteen children, five women, one hundred tailors and six common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that flowed from the galleries, the slips and the boxes, to increase the briny pond in the pit; the water was three feet deep, and the people that were obliged to stand upon the benches, were, in that position, up to their ankles in tears!
"An act of parliament against her playing any more, will certainly pass."