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BARNES.
It will not be easy for us to forget the first time we
saw this actor. Going into the Park theatre one
evening after the performance had commenced, we
perceived a person on the boards conducting himself
in what appeared to us a very extraordinary
manner; though it is not easy to find words clearly
to explain what that manner was. He was moving
his body across the boards in a most eccentric
fashion, throwing his limbs into all sorts of unimaginable
positions, ogling, squinting, puffing out his
cheeks, and alternately elongating and contracting
the muscles of the thin and narrow face of which
he was the owner, with the most ridiculous and ludicrous
rapidity. The business of the stage was at
a stand, and the other actors appeared to wait with
exemplary patience for the termination of those curious
proceedings; and then they, and this person
in particular, played out the rest of the scene in a
seemed to take all in good part; while we were lost
in astonishment, and knew not which to wonder at
most, the impudence of the actor, or the passiveness
of the audience. Hinting as much to a gentleman
in the vicinity, he smilingly replied that “it was
Barnes;” the announcement of which piece of information
he seemed to consider as a perfectly satisfactory
explanation of what had taken place or of
whatever might take place.
Verily, there is much truth in the saying, that
“custom is second nature.” When Clara Fisher
first appeared in this country, every one noticed
and talked about the slight lisp which it was then
averred she had, though now, nine-tenths of her
admirers will deny that any such peculiarity does,
or ever did exist. So, though in a greater degree,
with Barnes. Custom has so reconciled us to his
ways, that we can at present sit and see the manoeuvres
with which he intersperses his part, played
off, scarcely conscious that they are the same which
formerly excited our unmingled astonishment; and
if asked to speak of him as we now see him, we
should say, that he is one of the most amusing,
extravagant, and extraordinary actors we have
ever beheld. In the main, he is undoubtedly a
not of the most polished kind. He has all the spirit,
drollery, and coarseness of one of Cruickshank's caricatures.
His buffooneries (if for the lack of another
term, so harsh a word may be applied,) are
the best species of that bad genus, inimitable of
their kind, and less offensive than those of any
other actor; and he has so intermixed them with
every thing he does, that there is no separating the
good from the bad, the wheat from the tares, so
that his best efforts are sprinkled with defects, and
his worst marked with many redeeming qualities.
No man takes a liberty with his audience so frequently
as Barnes, and no man does it so well,
Others stop half way, as if conscious that they were
doing wrong, and fail; Barnes, on the contrary,
treats the audience like an old friend—places unlimited
confidence in their good nature, and succeeds;
for they seem to feel that it would be unkind
to repay this confidence with any thing else
than a laugh at his good, bad, or indifferent jokes.
It would be folly to say that Mr. Barnes was any
thing like a faultless performer, but he is a great
deal better than many who approach nearer that
character. He is an original, and one whom you
like sometimes, even in spite of your judgment:
always welcome.
There are two classes of persons who form an
undue estimate of Barnes. First, the vulgar, who
admire prodigiously and applaud vociferously, the
contortions and distortions of his visage, and are,
for the most part, incapable of admiring any thing
else; and, secondly, the over fastidious, who, pretending
to an extraordinary purity of taste, judge
him by his defects rather than by his merits, and,
for a few unseemly excrescences, condemn a man
of first-rate talents as merely a low actor. This is
injustice in the highest degree. In nearly the
whole of the extensive range of characters he sustains,
the sterling ore is in the proportion of ten to
one to the alloy; and in all the shades of old men,
he may be pronounced uniformly good. There is
a truth in his conception, and even a minute delicacy
of finish in his representation of the lowest
and most degraded stages of humanity—of extreme
dotage and drivelling imbecility, that are superlatively
fine. In old misers too,—rascals clinging
with desperate inveteracy to this world and its concerns,
yet fearful and anxious about the future—
trembling at eternity and grasping at a guinea—
such as Nicholas, in Secrets Worth Knowing, or
tottering step—the greedy, ghastly,
and suspicious look—and the sharp, broken, and
querulous voice, form an impressive and pitiable
picture of human nature; and yet Mr. Barnes's
reputation is founded less on these than on far
inferior efforts, such as Mawworm, &c. There
is another class of old men, of a vigorous, passionate,
and self-willed temperament, such as Restive
in Turn Out, and Col. Hardy, in Paul Pry,
in which he is nearly if not equally happy.
Upon the whole there is a very great deal to admire
in Barnes, with scarcely any thing, when
once familiar with him, that is really offensive.
And his faults too are not altogether his own, but
are in some measure continued, if not created, by
the public. For instance, when, as Sir Peter Teazle,
in the screen scene, he relates the unkindness
of his wife, and is moved to tears, the audience
invariably catch at the application of the
handkerchief to his eyes as an infallible one for
them to laugh, thinking that the griefs of Barnes
must of necessity be ludicrous; and, do all he can,
he cannot make them comprehend that it is possible
for him to enact a part where it is necessary to
go through a little decorous sorrow, and affect to
to have his griefs laughed at, Barnes in turn
laughs at grief; and a dose of him in the evening,
taken the last thing before going to bed, is as
good an antidote for the spleen as Colman's “Broad
Grins.”
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