 | A sketch of old England |  |
LETTER XVI.
I used to go often to the theatres here, until I grew tired of
their abominations. The dramatic art is certainly at the lowest
ebb in this country, owing to a variety of causes. The first is
the indifference of the fashionable world, who, one and all,
prefer to go to sleep at the Italian opera, to sitting out one of
Shakspeare's best plays: the second cause, I apprehend to be
the bigotry of a considerable portion of that class, which furnished
a vast many spectators to the theatres. I mean the
respectable middling class, many of whom will not go to the
play because they are told it is immoral; and many for no
other reason, than because it is no longer fashionable. It
actually smacks of radicalism to go often to the theatre.
For these, and other reasons of less extensive operation, it
happens, that except when a new well be-puffed actor; a well
be-puffed play, by some well be-puffed author; or some monster
attracts them, the theatres are but little visited by fashionable
people. The drama is no longer a fashionable topic of conversation;
and the man who ventured to introduce the name
of Shakspeare into the best society, would, beyond doubt, be
voted a great bore by the Corinthians and the young ladies of
ton. The theatres are consequently in possession of the vulgar,
who can relish nothing but spectacles or broad caricatures;
country gentry that come to town, and are taken thither by
their fashionable friends, because it is a sort of out of the way
place, where their awkwardness and old-fashioned dresses cannot
disgrace them; and strangers, driven thither by that desperate
fiend, Ennui, a native of London, though baptized
in French, who hovers night and day over this cave of
spleen. These last, whatever they may think or say on the
subject, can have little or no influence in correcting the taste of
the town.
The result is as might be expected. The taste of the mob
must be consulted, as by the mob the theatres are principally
supported. Every species of monster, moral and intellectual,
two-legged and four-legged, riots on the stage. Horses, dogs,
cossacks, elephants, camels, and dromedaries, are the heroes of
the drama, so that I have often been tempted to cry out with
the excellent mayor of Quinborough,
“Give me a play without a beast, I charge you.”
These exhibitions of quadrupeds take precedence over all
others, and command the most outrageous plaudits of the discriminating
audience. The next in public attention is the
melo-drame, where the passions are expressed by the fiddlers,
and the author is saved the trouble of attending to such low
matters. All he has to do is to produce striking situations, at
all hazards, at every risk of probability, and in defiance of
common sense. After these comes the legitimate comedy, as
the excellent critics call it, which owes all its effect to a
drunken Irishman or sailor, two or three non-descript and
original monsters not to be found on the earth, nor in the waters
under the earth; a smart hero, compounded of the opposite extremes
of harem-scarem imprudence and profound sentiment,
together with a sentimental young lady, always ready to make
a fool of her parents. The dialogue must consist in cant
phrases, gross slang, offensive double-entendre, and inflated
sentiment on the part of the young lady—as also her lover,
whenever he has time to be in love. A fourth class of plays,
very much approved of by John Bull at present, are those
not absolutely written by any body. They consist of the
united labours of the scene-painters, the machinists, the scene-shifters,
and the “Great Unknown,” whose works are regularly
dramatised by an industrious journeyman playwright,
called Nathaniel T—. They are made up of all the most
striking incidents of the novel or poem, crowded as thick as
hops, and jumbled together pretty much at random. The
whole machinery of these farragoes is held together by the fiddlers,
who, whenever the playwright is at his wit's ends, or
on the verge of absurdity or impossibility, flourish their bows,
and thunder away in the very nick of time, while the lucky
wight escapes under their cover to the next incongruity. The
audience, which in London always goes to sleep while the
music is playing, forgets what came last, and the next scene
commences with all the advantages of an utter oblivion of the
past. The nice taste of the mob is thus perfectly satisfied, in
witnessing a quick succession of striking incidents, without the
necessity of those fatiguing efforts to make them appear probable,
dramatic authors. The most illustrious of these domestic
manufacturers of second-hand trumpery is Mr. Nathaniel
T— aforesaid, whom the “Great Unknown” calls “my
friend, Mr. T—;” a proof, in my opinion, that the aforesaid
Unknown is a very good-natured knight, or he would not call
a man his friend who had committed so many assassinations
upon his Muse. Saving this gentleman, I know of no other
distinguished comic writers here at present. There are several
that write excellent farces in five acts, however, which please
the public taste just as well, and better, than a Sheridan or a
Moliere.
Tragedy, who has certainly more lives than a cat, and has
been daggered and ratsbaned at least a dozen times within the
last twenty years, has lately, it is said, revived here with great
splendour. Mr. Walker has written the tragedy of Wallace;
Mr. Sheil, that of Damon and Pythias; Mr. Haynes, that of
the Bridal Night; and Lord Byron, as distant rumour states
rather obscurely, four new ones, only one of which is yet before
the public. That I presume you have read, as I perceive it has
been republished in the United States. Of the other three I
know nothing, except what has leaked out from persons lately
arrived from Italy. One, it is hinted, is antediluvian, another
Asiatic, and the third Italian. His lordship, in addition to
these, has, it is said, written his own life, besides a poem,
called, I know not what, for it is only rumour as yet. He has,
I should think, rather too many irons in the fire to do any one
of these jobs as it ought to be done; and I fear is frittering
away his genius, by lending it alternately, or, as it would seem,
at one and the same time, to the most lofty and the most frivolous
objects. It is stated that he intends to give his biography
to “the first lyric poet of the age,” who has already sold it to
Mr. John Murray for two thousand guineas. Whether this
“first lyric poet of the age” be Mr. Southey, Mr. Wordsworth,
or Mr. Thomas Moore, I cannot determine; for each
of these has his respective admirers, aye, and critics too, who
will not give up a hair's breadth of their opinions. With respect
to the two thousand guineas, I do not believe in one
quarter of it; for it is one of the secrets of the excellent art of
puffing here, to circulate accounts of the enormous sums paid
by booksellers for their copyrights. The enlightened public,
which always applies the Hudibrastic criterion, and estimates
the value of a thing at what it will bring, will run after a two
thousand guinea book, when they would run away from one of
ten pounds. The admirers of genius here have never purchased
a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, since they found out he
pounds.
Another of the accoucheurs, who assisted at the late new
birth of a tragedy, is known to the Muses by the name of
Barry Cornwall. For some unknown cause he is a great
favourite of the Edinburgh Review, which has for some time
past been preparing the way for giving him a run upon the
town. He first published some smaller pieces of poetry, which
were praised by the reviewer. He then felt the public pulse
with some fragments of a tragedy, which were also praised by
the reviewer. Then, after a vast deal of preliminary puffing,
and appeals to public curiosity, the new tragedy of Mr. Barry
Cornwall, which was to establish a new era of the drama, was
acted before the discriminating mob, which constitutes a London
audience. The Literary Gazette, and a few other half-crown
critics, attempted to maintain its reputation; but it did
not obtain a run, as was expected. It is by no means equal to
our countryman Payne's tragedy of Brutus, which is quite as
original as Mirandola, and, in the opinion of the best judges
here, much superior to any tragedy brought out within several
years past.
But the most popular of all those inspired writers, who have
lately assisted at the resurrection of tragedy, is Mr. Maturin,
an Irish clergyman, who is, in the region of fiction, what
Counsellor Phillips is in that of law. There is certainly some
of the smoke of genius in this writer, and where there is smoke,
they say, there must be fire: but it seems to be a sort of clumsy,
unpurposed, and indiscriminate faculty, engendered in horrors,
and nestled in the same cradle with the great “raw head and
bloody bones” of the nursery. It seems always labouring with
some mighty godhead, and yet produces nothing but shapeless
monsters. Devoted to a mere accumulation of horror upon
horror, extravagance upon extravagance, his efforts seem those
of the cyclop, Polyphemus, the result of energy and blindness
combined. His genius appears, in fact, entirely devoted to the
salutary purpose of exciting a people, like the citizens of London,
the genteeler portion of whom are so used to boxing-matches,
and the lower classes to executions, that their blunted
sympathies can only be awakened on the stage by the most disgusting
exhibitions of extravagant horrors.
Mr. Maturin always has his pockets full of daggers and ratsbane;
and not content, like Bob Acres, with killing a man a
week, murders away in every page, like a perfect Jack Ketch
in tragedy. Then his characters are always insuperably melancholy
or ineffably mad, without ever, on any occasion, either
thinking, feeling, or expressing themselves like the people who
an excursion to the planet Mercury, or some other in the near
neighbourhood of the sun, and there studied nature sublimated
to “hissing hot,” at the same time that his brain became heated
to the salamander temperament, We have convulsions; murders
by dagger and poison; ravings, writhings, gnashings of
teeth, and extremes of all kinds, which are the mere ordinary,
every-day amusements of his characters; and from beginning
to end, not one of them is sufficiently cool to act like a person
in his sober senses for half a minute together.
But it would appear, my dear brother, that these blustering,
poisoning, daggering, and ratsbaning tragedies are not only
eminently fitted for the audience, but actually seem manufactured
on purpose for the actors who are to perform them.
These last are eternally in a fever or a fidget, just like the
author. Their muscles are always in a busy convulsive motion,
and their eyes, as it were, starting out of their heads, like the
honest captain in Italy, who got what he called “a d—d
painted snowball in his mouth.” They rage, roar, grin, and
skip about like so many mad harlequins; and it is worth a great
deal to see one of them fight a battle and die on the stage.
The English, with all their humanity, you know are fond of
boxing-matches, cock-fighting, and bull-baiting, except when
they see these things abroad, when their tourists always write
down their people brutes, or something equally complimentary.
Nothing, therefore, except the wild beasts, delights them half
so much at the play, as seeing Richard and Richmond, Macbeth
and Macduff, Hotspur and Harry, fight like bull-dogs or
bruisers. They appear to enjoy every imaginary thrust, pretty
much in the spirit of an Indian banqueting upon the tortures of
a prisoner at the stake; and they would never forgive an actor
if he suffered himself to be killed like a Christian man, by the
first thrust through the body. But the dying is the triumph of
the art, and occasions equal satisfaction with an execution at
Tyburn, The hero must not be less than a quarter of an hour
about it. He must roll and tumble about the stage, like one in
a fit of the cholic, and at the last pang give himself a flip-flap
like a flounder, and fall flat on his back, as stiff as buckram. If
he do not lie in this way, John Bull will set about demolishing
the playhouse directly.
I have seen the critics convulsed with ecstacy, and the
whole house in a roar of delight, at a death-scene of Roscius
Kean. On receiving his first wound, he doubled himself up
like a tobacco worm, and announced the accident with a
broad grin. But he fell to again with most resolute courage.
Anon he received another poke, which caused him to stagger
various displays of determined valour, grinning terribly all
the while. On receiving the third push, he wheeled round,
staggered, stamped, and fenced with the air like a blind game
cock, until finally he received a coup de grace, which caused
him to jump up two yards, and fall down in the most affecting
manner. Now, heaven be praised! thought I, the man is
dead at last. But I was out in my reckoning, for then began
the cream of the affair: the rollings, the contortions, the gnashings
of teeth, the bitings of the dust, the gropings about for the
sword, and, finally, the great flip-flap which crowns all. I
swear to you, brother, one of these first-rate actors is as hard
to kill as our Missouri bears, which, it is said, are so tenacious
of life, that a bullet or two through the vitals is a mere fleabite.
Now, if the result of this terrible battle were not perfectly
well known to every one of the audience beforehand, at
least, to a great majority of them, one might suppose, that
the intense interest it excited was simply the effect of a high
state of suspense and anxiety to see which of the combatants
would be victorious. But they all know perfectly well, that
Macduff will kill Macbeth; and Richmond, Richard; so that
it can only originate in that innate love of bloodshed, which is
gratified even with a mere sham battle and fictitious death.
Comic acting, like Comedy herself, is on a scale still inferior
to that of tragic acting. The real fine gentleman is no more,
either in real life here, or in the comedies or comedians of the
present time, unless Mr. Elliston may be called an exception.
In the room of those sprightly wits and courageous coxcombs,
who give such charms to the elder plays, we now see a miserable
specimen of a modern Corinthian, stupid as the author
himself, and depending entirely for endurance on the size of
his neckcloth, the enormity of his costume, and a few cant
phrases, equally destitute of meaning and wit. The rest depends
upon the actor, who is obliged to animate the skeleton,
by every exertion of the powers of grimace and buffoonery.
The broad vulgarity, mixed up with incongruous and exaggerated
feeling, as its contrast, by which the comedy of the
present day is characterised, is equally at war with genteel humour
and sprightliness, as well as natural, unaffected sentiment.
It is the exertion of an exhausted genius, fostered
by a worn-out taste. The actors must, of course, accommodate
themselves to the poverty of the age, and bring their powers
down to the dead level of dramatic degradation. Besides,
they have no heart to exert themselves, after seeing a Newfoundland
dog, or an elephant, greeted with applauses on the
stage, that in a better age would have only fallen to the lot of
a Garrick, a Betterton, a Cibber, or an Abingdon.
It is impossible to compare the French stage with the English
at this period, without being forcibly struck with the entire superiority
of the Theatre Français, which is devoted to the
preservation of the national taste, over either of the London
theatres. At the former, I always found an audience, refined,
decorous, quiet, and attentive. Every noise was promptly
repressed by the sentiment of the house, and every indecorum
immediately arrested by a burst of indignant feeling, which
the most hardy insolence or determined profligacy cannot withstand.
The costume of the actors, while accommodated, in
the most scrupulous manner, to the age and people to which
the characters appertained, was totally divested of all tinsel
and glitter: the scenery and decorations were always in the
most chaste and appropriate style; nor did I ever see an instance
of the Birmingham brilliancy, with which Mr. Kean sometimes
dazzles a London audience. The taste of the vulgar is never
appealed to at the Theatre Français, by exhibitions of wild
beasts; nor are the menageries emptied of their four-footed
tenants, for the purpose of giving a zest to an intellectual banquet.
There is no puffing in newspapers and play-bills, nor is
the public ever assured by an anonymous friend that the spectacle
will be entirely superb. The audience judges for itself,
and the decision is seldom, if ever, reversed; because it consists
of the most enlightened people of the capital. In short, there
is a total absence, a studied rejection, of all those impudent
quackeries, and unblushing impostures, to which the theatres
here, continually resort to inveigle the mob into their toils.
Nothing but the legitimate drama is admitted on the stage of
the Theatre Français; nor would it be possible for the taste
of the polite audience to be brought to endure the profanations
nightly exhibited on the London boards.
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