Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In Kemble, behold all the shadows of learning,
An eye that's expressive, a mind half discerning;
Tho' the sense of the scene in its quickness must center,
Yet a pause must ensue, ere the hero will enter:

Well skill'd in the family secrets of mumming,
'Tis a trick that implies a great actor is coming:
But the time that's prescrib'd for the art being out,
Then on rushes John in an outrageous rout,
With a nice painted face, and a complacent grin,
Like an excellent sign to an ill-manag'd inn;
With the lineal brow, heavy, dismal, and murky,
And shoulders compress'd, like an over-truss'd turkey.

Yet he has his merits, tho' crude and confin'd,
The faint sickly rays of—a half-letter'd mind.

Now excellence fascinates every sense,
Now failings appear which give judgment offence;
In this all the force of the Actor is seen,
In that glares the Pedant, and damns all the scene;
For the faults which from Nature he got in great store,
His pride and presumption have made ten times more.

From the deep springs of Science this Marsyas has sipt,
At a period of life when he could not be whipt;
For the immature, silly, adoption of errors,
As Modesty fled, and the rod had no terrors.

Those parts of short length should be ever his choice,
That his action may never out-distance his voice,
Which loses its tones at the end of a play,
Where rant and exertion by force hold the sway:
He has something too much the mechanical stare,
And saws, without mercy, the ambient air;
And martyrs the drama, and treads on its laws,
By seeming affectedly long in each pause.
When Kemble and Siddons are raving together,
They both meet the sight, like snow-flakes in hard weather,
And lay claim to our praise in the very same tones,
The same ahs, the same ohs, the same starts, the same groans!
It is brother, and sister, and sister, and brother,
As each keeps the shuttle-cock up for each other;
Tho' the family policy glares thro' such art,
It destroys the intent, it assails not the heart.

Stung deep in the mind by the Dæmon of scribbling,
Poor John, like young mice in a cheese, will be nibbling;
And, mounted on stilts, as a true son of Phœbus,
Gives his name to the world—in a rhyme or a rebus:
With tragedies tortur'd the public has cramm'd,
Which read, were but laugh'd at; and, acted, were damn'd.
Like the vile amphisbæna, his verses assail,
For none can discover their head from their tail.

When once in a moon sombrous John condescends,
For an easy earn'd stipend to glad all his friends;
And bustling Sir Giles laughs and flounders by fits,
Like a bedlamite bard, who has outliv'd his wits;
Then the day that succeeds must produce his defence,
And Kemble and Massinger teize Common Sense.

Oh! thrice happy age, when each dramatic elf
Can modestly weave such critiques—on himself;
And tell with kind industry all but what's true,
And sing of conceptions—his mind never knew!

Time was, when the great Public Mind was the cause,
From whence issued aught that gave fame or applause;
But that Public long since have resign'd their opinion,
And insolent Folly assum'd the dominion.
Now Candour lies mould'ring 'mid bibles on shelves,
For Actors, like Indians, make idols themselves:
They forge the base lie, hissing hot from the brain,
And anatomize Truth in the villanous strain.

Then the scouts of the stage with th' intelligence fly,
And the press nightly groans with a—sinister lie;
'Till the morn from its womb calls the monster away,
And the offspring of infamy sullies the day.

Like the sun now each Editor beams on his fool,
Of his follies the object, his passions the tool;
As he writes for his print what in dreams he supposes,
And celebrates Harlequin's—apotheosis.
But his noon-tide of flattery darts forth in rays,
So intense, that Credulity's set in a blaze;
For Truth, Fame, and Honor, they equally perish,
And scorch but the object they issued to cherish:
As the magical force that their pens can inspire,
Will ne'er raise the actor a single inch higher.
All faith we have lost in the arts necromantic,
And the man is the same, tho' the shade is gigantic.

Tho' callow novitiates the part may engage,
No Hamlet remains but his own on the stage:
He paints with discernment the woes of the youth,
And his tints are meek Nature's, corrected by Truth:
In particular scenes, even Garrick, tho vain,
Has fail'd so complete to delineate the Dane.
But he oft gives Thalia a stab in the vitals,
When his labours appear—but judicious recitals.
In his novel Mackbeth there are scenes which delight us,
And some which confound us, and some which affright us:
As he banquetting clenches his muscles material,
To bully poor Banquo who's nought and etherial.

Not content with receiving the debt that's his due,
Still John, in perspective, has others in view;
And thinking his consequence needs some addition,
Endeavours to subjugate all competition;
And nibbles at rivals, and envies the men,
'Till the gall of his heart finds the way to his pen.
With a true Kemble stomach, at all things he grapples,
As boys will steal plumbs while they're chewing their apples:
For Jealousy marks all the tribe with her greenness,
As Merit is labouring to dignify Meanness;
And force that respect by the impulse of Art,
Which Nature's vile seeds have denied to the heart.
—But who can efface what is written so plain
By the pencil of Nature? th' attempt were as vain
To wash off the hue from the dark Ethiopian,
Or realize schemes which are merely Utopian,
As drive from the mind such unworthy desires,
Where Envy and Hatred have kindled their fires!