Chapter IV: Introduction: TO (1)

THE DRAMATIC CENSOR.

I have always considered those combinations which are formed in the playhouse as acts of fraud or cruelty: He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavouring to deceive the public; He that hisses in malice or sport is an oppressor and a robber.

_Dr. Johnson's Idler, No. 25._

The establishment of a regular and permanent work of dramatic criticism, and of censorship upon the public amusements of this city has often been attempted. The uniform failure of these efforts renders it natural to apprehend that the proposition now submitted to the public will incur the charge of presumption, and perhaps experience, for a time, the coldness and discouragement with which the majority of mankind are always inclined to treat even laudable exertions, if they in any degree militate against the dictates of common prudence, and are not recommended by a certainty of public approbation. Taking their auspices of the present undertaking from the fate of those hasty productions on the same subject, which have been brought forth and expired within the compass of their short season, there are too many, who, instead of applauding the hazardous boldness of the measure, and for the sake of its public utility standing forward in its encouragement and support, will endeavour to damp it by premature censure, ascribe the undertaking to vanity, or unworthiness, and if it should fail, be ready to aggravate the disappointment of the projectors with the galling imputation of temerity, impudence, or overweening self-conceit. The sympathy which mankind in general think it handsome to feel for unassuming merit, stumbling in its way through life by incautiously venturing upon ground untrodden before, will be gladly withheld from persons who are supposed wilfully to rush forward into error, with the warning monitions of example before their eyes--who obstinately persist in an unadvised and hopeless enterprise, in defiance of manifold and recent experience, and whom the imprudence and misfortunes of others have been incapable of rendering cautious or discreet.

With encountering these, and many other objections (the offspring of indistinct conception and cold hearts) the projectors of the present work lay their account; yet, since nothing honourable or arduous would ever be accomplished, if hope were to be extinguished by partial defeat, and a generous enterprise were to be abandoned, because it had before been tried without success, the work now proposed is undertaken, with the most firm conviction of its utility and the most unequivocal confidence of success. Let their difficulties be what they may, however, the editors are prepared to meet them, not only without fear, but with satisfaction; since they know that nothing but impossibility will be refused to undismayed perseverance and unremitting industry, and that in the work they are entering upon, they labour for the promotion of a purpose which, whatever the amount of their pecuniary advantage may be, will entitle them to public respect and to the gratitude of the rising generation. Before such proud hopes, all the little obstructions they anticipate--the cavils of the scrupulous, the doubts of the sceptical, the reluctance of the timid, the resistance of the refractory and incorrigible, and the sneers, the censures, and the sarcasms of the curious and the malignant vanish, as the gloomy chills and shades of the night recede before the glorious luminary of the morning.

That the drama is a most powerful moral agent in society has been admitted by men of learning and wisdom in all ages of its existence. Whether its effects be, on the whole, injurious or not, will long be a subject of contest; but be they what they may, it can have very little influence of any kind beyond that of harmless amusement, on the wise, the pious, the learned and the experienced. Were those alone to visit theatres and be exposed to its allurements, the task of the dramatic censor might without injury be dispensed with: but since it is the young, the idle, the thoughtless, and the ignorant, on whom the drama can be supposed to operate as a lesson for conduct, an aid to experience and a guide through life, and since such persons are generally unfurnished with ideas and undefended by principles, prompt to receive first impressions, and easily susceptible of false opinions and pernicious sentiments, it becomes a matter of great importance to the commonwealth that this very powerful engine, (acting as it does upon our youth through the delightful medium of amusement, and by the instrumentality of every circumstance that can lay hold of the fancy, and through the senses fascinate the heart) should be kept under the control of a systematic, a vigilant and a severe, but a just criticism.

To the formation of that rare compound "a finished man" there belong, besides the higher requisites of moral character, an infinite number of minor accomplishments, which are materially affected either for the better or the worse, by a frequent and studious attendance on dramatic representations. MANNERS, which constitute so important a part of the character of every people, are considerably fashioned by a constant observation of the pictures of human life exhibited in the theatre: on the action, the utterance and the general deportment, the effects of the stage have ever been materially felt and are unequivocally acknowledged. The most eloquent men of antiquity, and the most eloquent men in England, have owned themselves indebted to actors for perfecting them in oratory. Roscius, the actor of Rome, is immortalized by Cicero, and Garrick by lord Chatham and Edmund Burke. If then the stage has been felt to produce such weighty effects in the more arduous part of human improvement, how ponderous in its operation must it not of necessity be, on the other hand, in the promotion of evil, if it exhibit to the growing generation corrupt examples and defective models, not only unrestrained and uncensured, but sanctioned with the applause of an uninstructed and misjudging multitude. Every plaudit which a vitious play, or a bad actor receives is a blow to the public morals, and the public taste. Man is an imitative animal, and insensibly conforms to the models and examples before him. Young men who excessively admire a favourite actor, will insensibly imitate him, without scanning the man's merits or defects; and without ever reflecting upon the ultimate influence which their partiality, if it should be misplaced, may have upon their lives, fortunes and characters, will adopt his manner, his action, his enunciation, nay, his worst defects, and in short every thing that is imitable about him.

Those who dissent from us on other propositions, will agree with us at least in this, that the highest degree of attention ought to be paid to the morals, the manners, the address and the language of youth; and that nothing which has a tendency to mislead them, in any of those essentials, should be submitted to their eyes or ears; but that on the contrary, every thing should be done, as a great moral philosopher has instructed us, "to secure them from unjust prejudices, from perverse opinions, and from incongruous combinations of images." Let it be kept in mind that we are not now discussing the question whether the stage be beneficial to society or not. Though it be a fair subject of inquiry, and will hereafter engage a share of our attention, we have no use for it, at present; since be our opinions or those of our readers what they may, the stage exists, and will continue to exist and attract the regards of mankind. The true point of consideration, therefore, is, not how far it is beneficial or how far injurious; but in what way its benefits may be enhanced, and its mischiefs, if any, be abated. He who should demonstrate that it has a pernicious tendency, would but the more strongly enforce our propositions; since he would thereby show the expediency of diminishing that tendency and of mitigating that evil which the public will forbids to be entirely prevented.

It is not merely on account of its effects upon the audience, but on that of the actors themselves, that the theatre calls loudly for a strict critical regimen. An actor resigned to his own opinion, and committed to the unrestrained licentious exercise of his own judgment, if he be not one in a million, sinks into negligence, becomes wilful, and if, as is nine times in ten the case, he should obtain the casual applause of a few stupid and injudicious spectators, becomes headstrong, refractory, and incorrigibly hardened in error. If by means of the oversight of critical judges, or the false adjudication of applause, an actor insensibly slides into popularity, he is erected into a standard of taste, by those who have not seen better; instead of being himself tested by sound principles of criticism and estimated by comparison, with the best models, he becomes gradually absolved from submission to all authority, is held up as a criterion for determining the merit of other actors, and dubbed the Roscius of his little theatre by a number of confident pretenders who know just as much about dramatic character and acting, and on the very same grounds too, as the poor islander of St. Kilda did of architecture, when he sagaciously concluded that the great church of Glasgow was excavated out of a rock, because he had never before seen an edifice made of hewn stone and mortar. Thus not only a false taste is circulated among the youth at large, but the very fountain of taste is itself polluted. This is an evil which nothing but a well-regulated body of competent critical authority can prevent. In the prosecution of the intended work, an occasion will occur of pointing out eras during which, even in the great metropolitan seat of the English drama, the public taste suffered years of vitiation from defective models being at the head of the stage. Till Garrick, led on by Nature herself, introduced her school, the theatre presented a stage on which scarce a vestige of the human character as it really existed, was to be seen. But pompous monotony of speech held the highest praise, and "DECLAMATION ROARED WHILE PASSION SLEPT."

Hitherto the theatre of Philadelphia has been too much resigned to the licentiousness of bold, and blind opinion. Men of letters, with which the city abounds, and who in every society are the natural guardians of the public taste and morals, seem to have deserted this important trust. Applause which ought to be measured out with scrupulous justice, correctness and precision, has been by admiring ignorance, poured forth in a torrent roar of uncouth and obstreperous _glee_ on the buffoon, "the clown that says more than is set down for him," and on "the robustious perriwig-pated fellow, who tears a passion all to rags," while chaste merit and propriety have often gone unrewarded by a smile.

If critical judgment were a matter of physical force or numerical calculation, then indeed the roar of the multitude would be as conclusive in reason, as it too often is in practical effect; but criticism is a matter of intellectual estimate; and many acquirements go to the composition of a well-qualified dramatic critic, to any one of which, but a small number of the auditors of a play can, in the nature of things, have the smallest pretensions. If indeed any man under the assumption of the critic's name should attempt dogmatically to impose his _dictum_ as a law upon the public, he would deserve to be repelled with indignity and rebuke. All the genuine critic will attempt to do, is to hold out those lights, with which his own study, experience, and observation have supplied him, in order to enable the public to discern more clearly what in the play or the actor is worthy of censure or applause--of rejection or adoption. In the common operations of human life, every man is compelled by the necessity of his nature to take succedaneous aid from others. The mechanic in erecting the poorest building, or forming the most simple machine, is indebted for his means to the practical geometrician, and instrument maker, and the latter again, to the master of the science of mathematics. The practical surveyor or navigator finds it his interest to be governed by rules supplied by those whom study has furnished with the great elementary principles of science, and is contented to stand indebted to them for his means of determining, the area of his land, or the latitude and longitude at sea, without impugning the rights of those studious men who have given him the compendious rules and the tables by which he works. It is so with dramatic criticism. The legitimate source of judgment lies with those who have by deep study made themselves masters of the first principles of the science; and from them the people at large, who are too much otherwise and certainly better employed, to learn those principles, must be content to take the rules and laws by which they judge. The most infatuated self-devotee would be ashamed to contest this point, if he were at all apprised of the various acquirements requisite for forming an accurate judgment of the business of the theatre, interwoven, as the dramatic art is, with some of the highest departments of literature, and the multifarious operations of the human heart. The vainest being who cajoles himself into the notion that a man either unlettered or inexperienced can form a just judgment of a play and actors, must at once be convinced of his error by reflecting that "the drama is an exhibition of the real state of sublunary nature;" and that "to instruct life, and for that purpose to copy what passes in it, is the business of the stage."[6] To understand this well, demands not only some book-learning, but that experience which, though books improve, they cannot impart, and which never can be attained by seclusion or solitary study, but must be derived from intercourse with men in all their forms of conduct, from converse with society, and from an attentive and accurate examination of that complex miscellany, the living world. To know the drama we must know men; and "if we would know men (says Rousseau) it is necessary that we should see them act." It is equally necessary too that we should lift the veil which time has thrown over the past, and see how men have thought and acted through the lapse of ages upon the uniform principles of human passion, which ever have been and ever will be the same, and by that means distinguish that which is natural, innate and permanent in man, from that which is adventitious and acquired. He whose knowledge of the world is circumscribed within the narrow limits of one generation or one society can know man only as he appears in the superficial colouring and peculiar modification of personal habit, derived from the fashions, the modes, and the capricious changes of that time, and that society, while the great body of human nature remains buried from his sight. "The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes (says the gigantic critic Johnson) are dissolved by the chance which combined them, but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase nor suffers decay." And assuredly there was never an age in which man so masked his nature under modish innovations as he does in the present.

[Footnote 6: Dr. Johnson.]

The works of the ancients, says a great writer, are the mines from which alone the treasures of true criticism are to be dug up--the pure sources of that penetration which enables us to distinguish legitimate excellence from spurious pretensions to it. He, therefore, who would get at the true principles of dramatic criticism ought to read the poetry and criticism of the two great ancient languages, and to have formed some acquaintance with those authors, whether ancient or modern, who have furnished the world with the great leading principles upon which dramatic poetry is constructed. Doctor Johnson has informed us that before the time of Dryden, the structure of dramatic poetry was not generally understood; and what was the consequence? "AUDIENCES," continues the doctor, "APPLAUDED BY INSTINCT, AND POETS OFTEN PLEASED BY CHANCE."[7]

[Footnote 7: See Johnson's Life of Dryden.]

Without calling in the aid of such high authority, no risk of contradiction can be incurred by asserting that he must be radically deficient in the requisites of a dramatic critic, who is not sufficiently versed in philological literature to discriminate between the various qualities of diction--to distinguish the language of the schools from that of the multitude--the polished diction of refinement from the coarse style of household colloquy--the splendid, figurative, and impressive combination of terms adapted to poetry, from those plain and familiar expressions suited to the sobriety of prose; and finally, to form a just estimate of a poet's pretensions to that delicacy in the selection of words which constitutes what is called beauty in style. Nor is this all, he should be perfectly competent to form a judgment of the fable and its contrivance, to determine according to the canons of criticism laid down by the greatest professors of the art, whether the scheme of a piece be obscured by unnatural complexity or rendered jejune and uninteresting by extreme simplicity, and familiarity of design--whether description be bloated, or overcharged, or imagery misplaced or extravagant; and lastly, whether the performance be on the whole deficient in, or replete with moral institution.

The editors are free to confess that while they enumerate the requisites necessary to a critic, they tremble for their own incompetency. Labour however shall not be spared---and they cherish the most sanguine hopes of supplying their general deficiency by candour and integrity; being determined while they endeavour with encouragement and applause to foster the rising genius and growing merit of the stage, to rescue it from the encroachment of sturdy incapacity, and while they sit in judgment for the security of the public taste, to be as far as the canons of dramatic criticism will allow, the strenuous advocates of the valuable man and unassuming actor--still keeping in sight that impressive truth contained in the motto: "HE THAT APPLAUDS HIM WHO DOES NOT DESERVE PRAISE, IS ENDEAVOURING TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC; HE THAT HISSES IN MALICE OR IN SPORT IS AN OPPRESSOR AND A ROBBER."

The editors have said thus much merely to explain their motives, and to smooth their way to the discharge of a task, in the performance of which they will necessarily be exposed to many invidious remarks from the misconceptions of presumptuous ignorance. Having done so they fearlessly commit the subject to the public judgment, and proceed to the execution of their duty.

DRAMATIC CENSOR.

_The Philadelphia Theatre opened on Monday the 20th of November, with_

"A CURE FOR THE HEART-ACH."

It has been said by a great moral philosopher that fashion supplies the place of reason. On superficial consideration the assertion will appear paradoxical; but there is much truth in it, and much biting satire too, upon the absurdities of the world. Fashion could not supply the place of reason, if reason were not absent; and most irrational and unaccountable indeed are all her ladyship's ways. Her capriciousness is proverbial, and her agency is generally illustrated by comparison with the most unsteady elements of the physical world. We say "Fashion that _fluctuating_ lady," alluding to the ebbing and flowing of the tide--and "Fashion that weathercock," implying that she veers about with every puff of wind. There are some few cases, however, on the other hand, in which she may be compared to a rock, because she stands immovably fixt to her seat; supplying, according to the idea of the philosopher abovementioned, the place of reason, who stands self-exiled forever. It would seem as if fashion never could take repose but in supreme irrationality. There and there alone she is firm. Whoever will take the trouble (or rather the pleasure) to read "Browne's Vulgar Errors," will see how much deeper root absurd notions strike in "the brain of this foolish compounded clay man," than those that belong to sound sense and reason. The insignia of fashion, therefore, may be considered in relation to the human head, as the notification on the door of an empty house, signifying that the family has removed to another tenement. Hence no one of common sense expects any caprice of that lady to be accounted for on rational grounds. There is one of her freaks, however, which we have endeavoured to trace to its source in the wilds of luxuriant absurdity, and have never been able to succeed. Nay, we venture to affirm that if the most sagacious man in America were asked, why it was considered a violation of the laws of fashion for a lady to attend the theatre on the opening night of a season, he would be puzzled for any other reply than that it was permanently fashionable, because it was prodigiously absurd. On the opening of our theatre this season the house was full of MEN. The audience presented one dark tissue of drab and brown, and black and blue woolen drapery, with here and there a solitary exception of cheering female attire. Had there been a heavy fall of snow, the ladies would have been sleighing--had there been a public ball the darkness of the streets would have been broken by multitudes of attractive meteors in muslin, either "hanging on the cheek of night," or hurried along like gossamer through the air. But fashion has so ordained it: and a good play and after-piece were well represented to a house which, from the little intermixture of the lovely sex, somewhat resembled the auditory of a surgeon's dissecting theatre.

Mr. Morton's comedy "A Cure for the Heart Ach," is by this time so well known that to relate the fable of it here, would be uselessly to encumber the work. Of the quality of this production it would be difficult for criticism to speak candidly, without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present deplorable condition. The body of dramatic writers of the last thirty years first corrupted the public taste, and now thrive by that corruption. By hasty sketches, not of Nature as she appears in all times and places, but of particular and eccentric manners and characters, the excressences of overloaded society, they have made a short cut to the favour of the public, and inundated the stage with a torrent of ephemeral productions, to the depravation of public taste, and in defiance of classical criticism: their highest praise that they do no moral mischief, and that if they possess not the bold outline and faithful colouring of nature which distinguished the productions of their mighty predecessors, they are no less exempt from the obscenity and immoral effects of those authors. As bad writing is infinitely easier than good, the pens of our living dramatic writers in general teem with an inconceivable fertility--and the purlieus of London are beat over in every direction to hunt up game suitable to the genius of their weak-winged muse; in short, to find out new modifications of character, attractive not by its consonance to man's general nature, but by its eccentricity and departure from the ordinary tracks of human conduct.

Having thus insulated this class of comedies, and put them apart from the old stock, to which, with the exception of the Honey Moon, there is no modern production comparable, criticism may weigh the merits of each piece as compared with its class, and perhaps find something to praise. We consider some of the comedies of Mr. Morton, however, as raised high above the throng. The Cure for the Heart Ach has much in it to commend. The moral tendency of many parts of it is good, while the incidents are exceedingly laughable. _Old Rapid_ continually betraying his trade by stuffing his conversation with the technical terms of the taylor--his son's distress at it--the honest rusticity of _Frank Oatland_--the baseness, vanity and folly of _Vortex_ the nabob--the insolence and amorousness of _Miss Vortex_ his daughter, and the whimsical incidents arising from their various designs, mistakes, detections and disappointments, form altogether a _melange_ of pleasantry highly provocative of laughter, yet by no means so low as to reduce the piece to the rank of farce, which some austere critics in London have assigned it.

Of the performance generally, we repeat that it was good. Young Rapid afforded criticism much satisfaction in the person of Mr. Wood, who in many parts persuaded us that he had seen Mr. Lewis in that character, and seen him with profit. Mr. Wood's walk is not unlike that of the great original in London--a nasal tone of voice too is common to both. These, if they did not create, certainly increased the resemblance between those two gentlemen, which, however remote, was yet discernible. In _Sir Hubert Stanley_, as in every other character in which we have seen him, Mr. M'Kenzie deserved warm applause--he was dignified, pathetic and interesting. Mr. Francis gave a strong colouring to Vortex; and to say that Frank Oatland was all that the author could wish, we need only to state that he fell to the share of Mr. Jefferson. After all, we are doubtful whether old Rapid was not as well off in the hands of Mr. Warren as any other character in the play.

We were greatly interested and indeed delighted by Mrs. Wood in Jesse Oatland. Mrs. Francis was abundantly droll in Mrs. Vortex; and Mrs. Seymour was entitled to the marks of approbation she received.

_November 22._

PIZARRO and the Review composed the bill of fare for this evening. Although in the attack and defence of Pizarro criticism has worn down the edges of its weapons to very dulness, we cannot forbear taking this opportunity of recording our opinions of that extraordinary production.

No play that has appeared during the last century, possesses the power of agitating the passions, and interesting the feelings in an equal degree to Pizarro. From a child of the brain of Kotzebue, trained and corrected by Sheridan, much might be expected. And the piece before us is worthy of the talents of such men.

In any contest between _oppressed_ and _oppressors_ the heart takes in an instant, a decided and a warm part. If the crime of _oppression_ is aggravated by other guilt in the _oppressor_, and the object of it is rendered more lovely and respectable by the most exalted virtues, pity for the one rises to respect and affection--indignation against the other becomes exasperated to hatred, to abhorrence, and disgust; without the intervention of the will, but merely from the spontaneous movements of the heart, we sympathise, we silently pray for the one--we recoil from, we execrate the other. We are pressed by our very nature into the service of virtue; our souls are up in arms against vice and improbity, and thus we receive lasting impressions, which, when our hearts are not very corrupt, must forever after have a favourable influence on our moral conduct.

To elucidate and confirm our opinions on this subject, we beg leave to ask, what is that play in which there is such a mass of virtue and simplicity, and such a number of amiable personages, opposed to such a mass of villany, subtlety, fraudful avarice, and sensual vice, as in Pizarro? Not one. The lofty moral sentiments of Rolla, his exquisite feelings and exalted notions as the patriot, the friend, the lover, are unequalled. He exists out of himself, and lives but for others: for his country, his king, his friend, and the dearest object of his love, of whom being bereft by that very friend, he becomes their brother--their protector--devotes his life to death to save the man--escaping that, devotes it again to save their offspring. How much worse, if worse could be, than a satanic soul must that man have, who could be insensible to such a character! Who is there whose heart beats in harmony with heroic virtue and humanity, that would not accept such a death, to have lived such a life? Need we say more then of Pizarro than to contrast him with such a character. The only gleam of light that breaks in upon that black _Erebus_, his heart, is his conduct to Rolla when the latter throws aside his dagger; and this the poet (Sheridan) has artfully contrived for the purpose of heightening the lustre of such virtue, by showing that even that monster could not be insensible to it.

Let us add that in the true liberal spirit of Christian piety, tolerance and humanity displayed by Las Casas, a popish Spanish priest; in the noble indignation, the inflexible fortitude, and the intrepid patriotism and virtue of Orozimbo; in the valour, the beneficent wisdom, and the, ardent connubial fidelity and affection of the young Alonzo, in the tenderness, the simplicity, the conjugal and maternal virtues of Cora, and in the artless display of vivid patriotism in the old blind man and his boy--there is, exclusive of Rolla's glorious qualities, a mass of excellence sufficient to make the character of any two plays, and put each out of the reach of competition with any other that we can immediately think of.

Such as we have described are the emotions which are always produced by the play now under consideration, when it happens to be properly represented. Fortunately or unfortunately as it may happen, the play is so constructed that almost every part in it contributes largely, according to its kind, to the interest of the piece. Every person of the _oppressed_--the Peruvians, even down to the blind man and the little boy, are made by the poet to produce a large share of the general effect. For this reason it is a piece which taxes a manager highly, calling for a variety of excellent talents in the actors. It is not one of those plays which satisfy the mind and from which we come home contented, if two or three characters are well done. The play of Pizarro is a lifeless body when compared with what it ought to be, if _all_ the high Peruvians at least, are not well performed. In the movement of a watch every small wheel and every little rivet is as necessary to the general effect as the mainspring. So Las Casas, Orozimbo, the blind man, and the blind man's boy, are as necessary not perhaps to the mean progress of the fable (but to that effect, that necromantic influence upon the feelings, that penetrating moral which alone can render a play useful as well as delightful) as is the character of Rolla.

It may appear a singular avowal, yet being truth we will not withhold it, that having witnessed the performance of this play many times in England and America, we have never yet seen it performed to our _perfect_ satisfaction. Kemble was great in Rolla, but the feebleness of his voice was severely felt by the audience in the celebrated speech of the Peruvian to his soldiers. That speech has been the stumbling block of most actors we have seen. Hodgkinson, who in other respects was unexceptionable, rather failed in it. Throughout the whole character, Mr. Wood preserved a very equable tenor of acting. He had neither the rich beauties nor the striking defects of others. He evinced considerable judgment, but at times powers were evidently wanting.

Mr. M'Kenzie supported Pizarro well, and showed that he possesses abilities to support it better. It appears to us that this gentleman's physical powers are sometimes subdued by an over-scrupulous chasteness. In his answers to Elvira's solicitations on behalf of the unhappy Alonzo, he did not, we think, sufficiently mark all the feeling and emotions of the tyrant. Pizarro is stung with jealousy as well as rage; not so much the jealousy of love as of infernal pride; but both rage and jealousy are mastered by triumphant insolence and contempt. The utterance therefore of his laconic decisive sentence, "He dies," should be marked with a triumphant sneer as well as malice.

Mr. Warren did ample justice to the venerable Las Casas.

Mr. Cone who, though labouring under the disadvantages of a voice radically, and we fear, incurably monotonous, gives promise of being a useful actor, displayed considerable spirit in Alonzo. To the praise of diligence and attention to his business Mr. C. is entitled, and those rarely fail in any department to insure respectability and success. Mr. Cone's personal appearance is very much in his favour.

The only part in the play on which we can justly bestow _unqualified_ applause was Mr. Jefferson's Orozimbo. It is seldom that criticism has such a repast, a repast in which there was no fault but that of the poet in making it too short.

Elvira is not one of the characters in which Mrs. Barret appears to advantage.

Had Mrs. Wood the requisite talent of singing, we should have been much pleased with her Cora. Certainly so far as that lady was able to go, we know no person on this stage who could be substituted in her place with advantage to the character. But the omission of Cora's exquisitely beautiful, wild, and pathetic song, was a great drawback from the effect of the part.

_December 21._--TOWN AND COUNTRY, by Morton--Village Lawyer. Some of the British critics rank Mr. Morton with the farce-writers of the day, others again pronounce his comedies to be the best which the age has produced, and say that they will be selected by posterity from the perishable trash of the day. We agree with neither, thinking it likely they may remain for a _few_ years among the stock of acting plays. To say that they will be admired by posterity is praise as hyperbolical and unjust, as ranking them in farce is calumnious and untrue.

The comedy before us is a very pleasing production. The plot is well imagined, and the author has contrived to condense into it more bustle and incident than can readily be found in a piece of the same length. Reuben Gleuroy, the hero, is a noble character, possessed of the most exalted virtues, which are continually brought into active exercise for the good of his fellow beings. He preaches little and does a great deal, and displays a generosity and greatness of mind touching, as the world now goes, upon the chivalrous. But that which makes him more conspicuously amiable and interesting is that while he takes the most ardent and active concern in the happiness of mankind, he is himself reduced by the wickedness of others to a state of misery almost of distraction, which awakens the most poignant sympathy for his situation. Deserted, as he imagines, by the object of his dearest affections, Rosalie Summers, who is supposed to have eloped with a villain of high rank of the name of Plastic, he goes to London and finds his brother in the last stage of ruin and despair by gambling, and stops his hand just at the moment he is attempting suicide. In the end he reforms the brother, discovers his Rosalie, and finds that she is innocent and faithful; and by a series of those events, which whether likely or not, modern dramatists without scruple press into their service, is made perfectly happy. The colouring of this admirable portrait is not a little heightened in its effect by a tinge of eccentricity caught from a life of rural retirement in the romantic mountainous country of Wales. On this character and that of old Mr. Cosey, a philanthropic, wealthy, and munificent stock-broker, whose cash, always at the disposal of his friends, enables Reuben to accomplish his purposes, the author seems to have dwelt _con amore_. The comic dialogue of the piece arises chiefly from the contrasted feelings of Mr. Cosey and Mr. Trot. Cosey admires the city, and is miserable in Wales, while Trot, a wealthy cotton-spinner, rejoices at the loss of a large share of his property because it furnishes him with a pretext for returning to the country and leaving the _abominable_ city to which he was hurried away by the vanity of his wife.

Mr. Wood displayed in Reuben, much ability, sound sense, and fine feeling. No person that we know on the stage discloses in his performances so little of the mere actor. That indefinable something, which though obvious to perception cannot be described, but is understood by the term "plain gentleman," tinctures all he says and does upon the stage. Whether this be detrimental to him as a general actor, we have not yet seen this gentleman often enough to determine: but this we will say, that while it stands a perpetual security against his being positively disagreeable in any character he may be obliged to act, it throws a charm over all those for which he is best fitted by nature.

The amiable, the inimitable Cosey, never was, nor ever can be more perfectly at home than in the person of Mr. Jefferson. Were the author to see the performance and to observe the correspondence of the actor's physiognomy as well as action and utterance, with the sentiments of the character, he would from his heart exclaim in the words of Cosey himself, "NOW THIS IS WHAT I CALL COMFORTABLE."

It would be great injustice not to acknowledge the pleasure we received from Mr. Francis in the character of Trot, which he conceived and executed with great humour and spirit.

A Mr. West from the southward made his appearance in the Yorkshire rustic Hawbuck. His face and person are well adapted to a certain class of low comedy; his voice still more so. If he will but avoid that bane of comedians, the effort to raise laughter by spurious humour and low trick, he will thrive in his department.

In the drawing of the female parts there is nothing sufficiently striking to call forth the powers of an actress. What was to be done was sufficiently well done by Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Wilmot. But, were they well cast? or, should they not change sides?

_FARCES FOR THE FIRST WEEK._

_November 20._ OF AGE TOMORROW.

Every character tolerably well played.

_November 22._ WAGS OF WINDSOR.

Hardinge, an old favourite of the town in Irish characters, appeared the first time for four years in Looney M'Twoulter. His return to this stage was hailed with thunders of applause; and all his songs were _encored_.--We have not seen Caleb Quotem better performed in England, nor so well by a great deal in America as this night by Jefferson.--Wilmot is a true child of nature and simplicity in all such characters as John Lump.

_November 24._ VILLAGE LAWYER.

We abhor this farce. Scout, from whom it takes its name, is too detestable a picture of human meanness and depravity to be fit for farce, the proper effects of which, however nonsensical it may be, ought to be to enliven and not create disgust. We cannot bear to see a respectable actor in it. Blisset, a favourite son of Momus, played the Sheepstealer. Mr. West, whom we have mentioned in Hawbuck, played Old Snarl with great humour, which his audience, and indeed himself, seemed heartily to enjoy. In characters of low humour, particularly crabbed old men, Mr. West would be very pleasing, if he would aim less at raising gallery laughter by spurious means. And all that could be done for Mrs. Scout was done by Mrs. Francis.

_November 27._

ELLA ROZENBERG.--WOOD DEMON.

Ella Rozenberg, a melo-drame, by Mr. Kenny, was brought out for the first time at Drury Lane in 1807, and has ever since maintained its ground in the public opinion. It is extremely interesting, and though there is nothing new or singular in the plot or incidents is calculated to lay fast hold on the imagination and feelings. At the opening of the piece, the scene of which is laid near a Prussian camp, the heroine _Ella Rosenberg_ reduced by the disappearance of her husband to a state of poverty, is living under the protection of captain _Storm_, a crippled old officer of invalids, and the friend of her deceased father. Here she has concealed herself for two years, when she is discovered by colonel _Mountfort_, who having conceived a criminal passion for her, had in order to gratify that passion, purposely provoked her husband to draw his sword upon him, in consequence of which apprehending the severity of the military law, the latter had set off to the capital to appeal to the electoral prince, but was no more heard of. The colonel, who is a finished master of intrigue, enters Storm's house in disguise, and attempts with the help of a band of his soldiers to carry off Ella by force. In this he is opposed by the good and gallant old officer, who, sword in hand, beats off the soldiers, tears the colonel's sash from him, and in a rage tramples it under foot, in consequence of which Storm is made prisoner, and Ella left unprotected, is borne away by the soldiers. The elector, who has just returned victorious from the war, appears considering a petition from old Storm on behalf of Ella, which interests him so much, that he resolves to visit her incognito. Mountfort, who is a favourite of the elector's and has just arrived to congratulate him, is alarmed, endeavours to dissuade him from going to Ella, and in the meantime to secure himself from detection orders the immediate trial of Storm, who is found guilty and sentenced to die. Ella escapes and reaches Storm, her old protector, just as he is on his way to execution. He does all he can to keep his fate concealed from her; but it being betrayed, she is torn from him in a state of distraction and anguish, and being consigned by her generous protector to the care of a brother officer who commands the guard, is conducted to a solitary inn by a soldier. The elector appears at night passing in disguise to visit the cottage of Storm, and is encountered by Rosenberg, who appears in the most wretched state, flying from his pursuers, and supplicates him for the means to procure shelter. Without disclosing who he is, Rosenberg informs the elector that he (Rosenberg) has been secretly and violently imprisoned. The elector directs him to the house to which Ella is carried by the soldiers, and promises to meet him there in the morning and assist him. Rosenberg reaches the inn whither Ella too is brought in a state of insensibility, and placed in a separate apartment. Mountfort arrives alone, and not knowing Rosenberg engages him to guard Ella, while he goes to seek a conveyance for her. Rosenberg now finds the cause of his imprisonment--an interesting discovery takes place between him and Ella--but he is detected by one of his pursuers, and is again in the hands of his enemies, when the elector enters, and obtaining the most perfect conviction of the villany of Mountfort, disgraces him, restores the young couple to rank and happiness, and the brave and virtuous old Storm to life, liberty and joy.

The plot of this melo-drame is wrought up with uncommon skill: the interest rising by a progressive climax which keeps the heart in a warm glow of feeling from the first scene to the last. Old Storm is worth a whole army of what are called heroes, and the elector is a model of justice and humanity for princes to imitate.

According to the London casting Rosenberg would have fallen to the share of the first player in the house: but we had no reason to complain of Mr. Cone. Mr. Warren discharged the high office of elector with dignity; and Mr. M'Kenzie was an excellent representative of the old cut-and-thrust-colonel. Such characters as Ella are always interesting when played by Mrs. Wood.

The tasteful amateur must have been roused and delighted by the music, particularly the overture.

Ella Rosenberg was followed by one of the most monstrous productions, the mind of man ever groaned withal. Never did melancholy madman labouring under the horrors of an inflammation of the brain--never did a wretch fevered with gluttony and intemperance, and writhing under the pressure of the night-mare, dream of more horrible circumstances than those which Mr. Lewis has offered in this prodigious melo-drame, for the ENTERTAINMENT of the British nation. Where will the taste of England stop in its descent? Where will the impositions on it by bastard genius end? Yet since this monster has produced a powerful effect, and is managed with such perverted skill as to excite a strong interest, and since whole audiences condescend to club tastes with the scarecrow old women of the heath and the mountain, and to play "look at the bugabow," with the nurselings of the lap, we should be sorry to be deficient in curtesy, or when so many good and wise people drivel not to drivel a little too; we bend therefore with stiff and painful obedience to our duty, and offer our readers a short summary of the fable.

To clear the way then, be it in the first place known, that Mr. Matthew Lewis has found out a new kind of infernal agent--a demon who delights in human sacrifices, and lives in the woods. Perhaps it is because we are poorly versed in demonology that we do not recollect to have heard of this particular infernal before. Be that as it may, _Count Hardyknute_ of Holstein, having been sent into the world deformed in person and poor in circumstances, and being resolved to sell his soul to damnation for the bettering of his body, makes a contract with the demon, in condition of his being made handsome and powerful, to sacrifice to him a human victim on a particular day in each year; in failure of which he is to become the prey of the demon, who is very handsomely named _Sangrida_. The count has sacrificed nine victims before the opening of the piece, and is meditating with himself with what fat offering he shall next glut the maw of Sangrida, in anniversary punctuality. _Leolyn_, a dumb boy, the rightful heir of the estate and title which Hardyknute had usurped, has been secretly bred up by _Clotilda_ as her own, but Hardyknute discovers him by the mark of a bloody arrow on his wrist, and determines to help Sangrida to his little body. _Una_, a beautiful young lady, to whom the count pays his addresses, is selected by the guardian spirit of Holstein to be the preserver of the intended victim. The time approaches for the fulfilment of the agreement. By a process of the most horrible kind of enchantment Una is enabled to remove the boy so as to elude the count, and gets possession of the key of an enchanted place on which the boy is chained. She gets him down from it--the clock is seen just near the stroke of one--she resolves to push the hand forward--Hardyknute seizes and is about despatching her, when Leolyn with difficulty mounts to the clock, pushes forward the hand and it strikes one--the demon appears, seizes the count in his claws--the earth opens, and the demon carries him down, in the same manner that an alligator or shark carries down a puppy dog, to devour him in comfort.

Such is the piece, and such the depravity of a nation's taste. It is no wonder that the tasteful, the learned and the judicious, should wage an open war of wit and satire upon such things. On this subject we refer our readers to a piece signed THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS, which will appear in our next number.

SECOND WEEK.

_November 29._ RECONCILIATION, OR FRATERNAL DISCORD, _with_ FALSE AND TRUE.

It would be superfluous to say any thing of a play so well known and so justly admired.

_December 1._ ABAELLINO, OR THE GREAT BANDIT, _with the_ LADY OF THE ROCK.

The Great Bandit is one of those extraordinary productions which distinguish the present dramatic writers of Germany from those of all ages and all countries. There are but few topics connected with the stage which deserve more serious discussion than this of the German drama. A proper investigation of it would require more room than we can at present spare: but we shall not so far desert our duty as to decline it when we can devote to it the deliberation it deserves. A future, and not far distant number will contain such reflections as occur to us on the subject.

_December 2._ ROAD TO RUIN--DON JUAN.

Mr. Wood in _Harry Dornton_ was very successful. It is a line of acting for which he is well calculated. The character of _Goldfinch_ was better performed by Mr. Jefferson than it could be in any other person in this theatre. But we received less pleasure from it than from any other we have seen him play, _Scout_ excepted.

_FARCES FOR THIS WEEK._

The Wood Demon, though used as an after-piece, demanded observation of a more serious kind than is due to farce, and has therefore received it in pages 71 and 72.

The farce of "False and True" is a wretched thing. To speak Johnsonically it is a congeries of inexplicable nonsense. An Irishman, who, after having committed the _very probable_ blunder of going to Naples instead of Dublin, mistakes Vesuvius for the hill of Hoath, is the most laughable character of the piece. What could be done for it Hardinge did. A song of his was spoiled by the neglect of the band, whose conduct deserved reprehension from the manager.

The Lady of the Rock is the production of Holcroft. Had he not himself given it to the world as his own, we should have thought it a libel upon his understanding to ascribe it to his pen.

No pantomime has ever made so deep and so universal an impression as Don Juan. The merit of the original belongs to the celebrated Moliere. Averse on principle to pantomime, we have often felt ourselves indebted to it for relief from the drowsiness induced by some modern plays; but that perhaps was more owing to the badness of the play than the value of the pantomime. Of all pantomimes Don Juan is the most blamable. It is good in its kind, but the kind _is bad_.

THIRD WEEK.

_Monday, Dec._ 4. SPEED THE PLOUGH--ELLA ROSENBERG.

The comedy of Speed the Plough is deservedly reckoned among the best of the modern stock, and considered as reflecting great credit upon the muse of Mr. Morton. The plot is very skilfully mixed up, notwithstanding the difficulty that always must attend carrying on, in connection with each other, two interests of a totally distinct and opposite nature, connecting two contradictory agencies without either encroaching on the other, and conducting an alternation of serious and comic scenes to one end, without making them clash. This Mr. Morton has, to a considerable degree, successfully accomplished; making that which occasions the difficulty subservient to one of the most desirable but arduous ends in dramatic writing, that of concealing the final unravelling or denouement, as it is called, of the plot.

A striking beauty in this play, and the more striking because seldom met with, is the fidelity with which some of the characters are drawn from life; not as it is found in a solitary individual, but as it appears in a whole numerous class. Such is farmer Ashfield--such is dame Ashfield. Yet the characters in general are not very impressive, and there are some inconsistencies in them as well as in the arrangement of the incidents. A young lady's suddenly, and at first sight, falling in love with a peasant boy, though it may have happened, is an occurrence too singular to be perfectly natural; and as a dramatic incident, it is a coarseness which cannot well be reconciled to the characteristic delicacy of such a young lady, even by the _ex post facto_ discovery that the object of her love was in reality a person of condition. We do not think that love at first sight, which is in reality nothing more than Forwardness indulging itself in the airs of Romance, and Prurience calling in Fate to sanction its indelicacy, ought to be clothed in such a respectable and captivating dress as our author has bestowed upon it in this play.

Yet with these defects to counterbalance them, Speed the Plough is replete with beauties--the dialogue is neat, spirited, and forcible; and there are many delicate touches of the pathetic, and much excellent moral sentiment to recommend it.

The best character, beyond all comparison, is that of Farmer Ashfield. It is a picture of real life, originals of which are found in multitudes in England--plain, honest, benevolent, and under a rustic garb, possessing a heart alive to the noblest feelings. No man that we know in this country possesses such happy requisites for exhibiting the farmer in the true colours of nature as Mr. Jefferson. In the rustic deportment and dialect--in the artless effusions of benignity and undisguised truth--and in those masterly strokes of pathos and simplicity with which the author has finished this inimitable picture Mr. Jefferson showed uniform excellence: and as in the humorous parts his comic powers produced their customary effect on our risibility, so in the serious overflowings of the farmer's honest nature the mellow, deep, impressive tone of the actor's voice vibrated to the heart, and excited the most exquisite sensations.