University of Virginia Library

Virg. Ecl. X.

This is not a random rhyme. I exceedingly lament the foolim and indecent style of oratory, which so often makes the sacred chair, the “tinsel throne of glittering nonsense;” the serious disposition of thought which our admirable church-service is so calculated to inspire, is either put to shame or to flight, by the wild and feigned declamation which, as a critic, I despise, and as a Christian detest. I would recommend it to those reverend young Poets, to indulge their taste for the Muses, in reading Cowper's description of a petit-maitre clergyman, and to recollect the advice of Boileau:

To some Readers this note would require an apology; such Readers I have no desire to please, and shall make none.

Since the days of the universal Garrick, every stroller thinks he can play every thing; tragedy, comedy, farce, and pantomime.—Actors seem now to think it quite disgraceful to be excellent in one line alone:

In this respect the Audience frequently imitates them—I have seldom seen more merry faces, than at a German tragedy—a German tragedy, is a kind of “Tragedy for warm weather,” and a German comedy also approaches so nearly to the standard of that celebrated piece, that there is no longer any distinction between the species of the drama: to the modern we may apply what Tacitus says of the ancient Germans “Genus spectaculorum unum et in omni cœtu idem.”—I can easily imagine, that many a German Dramatist has completed his piece, before he resolved whether it should be a Tragedy or a Comedy. Those gentlemen seem to possess the power, that Mercury, in Plautus, humourously ascribes to himself, when he observed the Spectators vexed (as modern Audiences often are) at finding their comedy was in truth a tragedy:—

Prol. in Amphitruorum.

“Audiences are now drawn together by the translated trash of some foreign novelty—they wait the appearance of a ghost or a goblin; they hope to be roused from their weary lethargy, into hysterical laughter, or hysterical tears, by the farcical or the horrid—they swallow with gaping wonder, the eccentric flights, the profane rants, the illuminated morality, the bombastic diction of imported patchwork from their German favourites.” Preston's Reflec. on the Germ. Style, p. 59. Every one who is acquainted with German literature, well knows that not one of their dramas (Germania quos horrida parturit Fœtus) deserves to be excepted from this general censure. The English reader I refer to all the plays of Schiller and Kotzebue, which have been translated into our language. He will not find one piece undisgraced by vice or folly: some indeed excel in folly, others in vice, but in general “they are as like one another as half-pence, each seeming monstrous 'till its fellow come to match it.” As you like it.

What would Longinus have thought of such passion and sublimity, as the following passages (taken at random from Schiller) exhibit: “Now let the storm rage, tho' it should swell me up to the throat” Robbers. “O. Moor. I am no spirit—but living as thou art—oh! life of wretchedness. “Y. Moor. What, wast thou not buried? “O. Moor. That is, a dead hound lies in the grave of my father.” Robbers. “What, talk you of nobility in Genoa? (indignantly) let them all throw their ancestry and honors into the scale, and one hair from the white beard of my old uncle, shall make it kick the beam.” Fiesco. Schiller. Of these effusion, for the faithful translation of the two first of which I am accountable, Longinus would say, as he does of those of the water-poet of his day, ποιητου τινος τω οντι ουχι νηφοντος εστι. Sec. XXXII. or he would have referred them βακχεια τινι των λογων. to a certain drunkenness of expression, which was sometimes objected to Plato.

“The public appetite began to be sated with non-sense, which now required to be reinforced with practical jokes, and corporal activity.” Preston's Reflec. p. 65.

These are specimens of the phraseology of our new comic school, taken from “a Cure for the Heart-ache,” and some other farrago of folly, of which I, happily, forget every thing but the cant word that I have quoted.

On the important incidents of a tailor's mending his own coat, and a sharper breaking a cracked china figure, two modern pieces entirely turn.

Here let me say a word or two on the state of our ‘corps d'opera’ (opera inanis!) The three female singers, Misses Howells and Davidson, and Mrs. Stewart, are on every account incapable of playing even secondary parts, and indeed seem to me to be only fit to lengthen the procession in Alphonso, or swell the choruses of the Castle Spectre. We have no professed male singer but Mr. Phillips, and thus the whole of our musical department depends on his slender pipe. Now as it happens that, from some cause or other, this gentleman cannot conveniently play all the parts, both male and female, of an opera on one night, it is evident that it were unreasonable to expect any musical entertainment at the Dublin theatre. But that we should not have to complain of a total want of this species of amusement, recourse has been had to a most brilliant expedient, which for its singular ingenuity, I shall relate in detail: Some one had heard, that a distressed country company had once played Hamlet with the omission of Hamlet's character, and it therefore occurred to them, that a musical entertainment, with the music omitted, would be in the present posture of affairs the most satisfactory extrication which could be devised.—The scheme was, it seems, adopted, and the Battle of Hexham had the honor to be selected for the experiment. The aforesaid Misses H. and D. were to sing all the choruses, and Mr. Phillips's name appeared in the front of the bills as principal in the glees. Night after night did Mr. Phillips's non-appearance disappoint the weary audiences, 'till at last Messrs. Jeffery and Dyke, who usually enact waiters, senators, and such folk, kindly consented to make themselves ridiculous, by singing the first and bass parts in such time and tune, as it should please God. So far all was prosperous. But here another unforeseen accident occurred, for it was by some means or other discovered, that the first and third would be useless without a second. Necessity, says the Proverb, is the mother of invention, and necessity took a violon-cello-teacher, dressed him in a fine brown jerkin, equipped him by the assistance of a burned cork with most terrific moustachios, and finally turned him out upon the stage a finished second, in whom nothing was forgotten or omitted, but a voice to sing—and after this manner the musical drama of the Battle of Hexham was said and sung by his Majesty's servants!!! “ex uno disce omnes.”

I find from the admonitions of the Kitchen-stuff Gazette, that I have been, in the foregoing note, guilty of a most wicked and diabolical mistake, by inserting the name of Mr. Dyke, instead of that of Mr. Denman, who really sung the third, and who, to use Taratalla's own words, “is one of the best and most scientific bass singers living, on or off the stage”—“O Terque quaterque beatus! I am ‘au desespoir’ at the disgrace into which this error has thrown me; Dyke or Denman, Denman or Dyke, I beg pardon of either, of both, or neither of the gentlemen, as they please; I have an equal respect for each, and tho' I have not the happiness of their acquaintance, they are, I am ready to believe

while Mistyllus and Taratalla are the respondere parati.”

Pausanias, in his account of the Cadmean family, (Bœot. c. 5.) says, that Harmony was the daughter of Mars and Venus. Could I suspect any of our composers of being, ‘litterulis græcis imbutus’ I should guess that, from this passage, he derived the elegant notion of accompanying love-songs with horns, triangles, kettle-drums, and other martial instruments—so that now-a-days,

Marant.

Whenever it shall please his great and good friends, the potentates of Germany, to send the excellent Kotzebue to the world of spirits, I make no doubt that Shakespeare will address him, as Menander did Philemon.—The fame of Menander no person is ignorant of, and if we may judge of his works by the imitations which we have of them, his great reputation was not above his merits. Of Philemon, the Kotzebue of his day, we only know, that he was the rival and conqueror of Menander, who, with the amiable frankness and honest confidence of Genius, asked his successful competitor—“Quæso Philemo bona venia dic mihi quum me vinces non crubescis?—” A.G. Noct Att li. 17. c. 4.

The following specimen of a theatrical Lloyd's List, will give a tolerable recapitulation of my opinions of the Crow-street company:

Moor's-head, Jan. 23, 1804.

“Admiral Jones in spite of the very hard weather still continues to keep his station off the Bagnio-slip. If the Peter-street squadron should attempt to put to sea, we are confident the gallant Admiral will give a good account of them. His force is as follows:”

Ships. Guns. Commanders.

• Montague 74 Talbot
• Veteran 50 Hitchcock (Mrs.)
• Charon 44 Vice Ad. Fullam
• Assurance 44 R. Jones
• Gorgon 44 Galindo (Mrs.)
• L'Entreprenante 44 Walstein
• Le Modeste 38 Hargrave
• Alligator 36 Williams
• Tartar 32 Williams (Mrs.)
• Fairy 16 Stewart (Mrs.)
• Bittern 16 Lindsay
• Borer 12 Coyne

“Remains in port, La Musette (en slûte) Phillips.”

“We are sorry to observe, that the Favourite—Cres-well—and the Insolent—Stewart, have parted company in the late breezes”—

Tantâ mole viri turritis puppibus instant!!!

If the foregoing scale be correct, he has none either of the first or second-rates, and but one of the third.

Hamlet.

The anxiety which so many persons exhibited for the discovery of my name, surprized me at first; but I now find, many of them did so out of mere orthodoxy, and in obedience to the “editto del S. offizio” an extract of which I shall add as a specimen of the enlightened liberality of the year 1802:

“Tutte persone così ecclesiastica come secolare debbono revelare e notificare tutti e ciascuno di quelli de' quali sappono e abbiano avieto o avranno notizia—che si siano ingeriti o s'ingeriscano in far experimenti di negromanzia o di qualsivoglia altra sorte di magia!!!”

Dat. dal S. Offizio di Pezaro questo dé 26 Aprile 1802.

Should not one think, that 1802 was put by an error of the Press for 1302.

Sebastian Michaelis was not much madder than “S. Tomaso Francisco Roncalli, maestro di S. Teologia” in the nineteenth century—poor human nature!

The learned Reader will perceive some incongruities in this exorcism, que je me garderai bien d'annoncer aux ignorans.

Macbeth.

Tempest.

Robin Goodfellow. Midsum. Night's Dream.

Midsum. Night's Dream.

A procession of priests chaunting high mass, is sometimes of wonderful efficacy against ghosts and goblins, who, whatever profession they might have followed when alive, have, after their corporeal death, as great an aversion to high mass and all Church ceremonies as any Calvinist in Scotland.

Les exorcistes imposerent silence aux diables, on jetta dans le feu les pactes les uns après les autres. Hist du proces d'Urb. Grand. This liberal and enlightened operation was performed in presence of some of the chief men of the Church and of the Law, in the year 1631, in the now atheist land of France.

Of the supposed effects of lustration no one can be ignorant—I hope ours is conducted dans les formes.

I had rather never see a good actor on our stage than see him only for a few nights, which only serve to throw the rest of the season into a deeper night—

Nor should it be forgotten, that these strangers are birds of prey as well as of passage.

Imperavit (Marcus Antoninus) etiam scenicas donationes, jubens ut quinos aureos scenici acciperent. Jul. Cap. in Vit. M.A. Mr. Jones in this point imitates the Roman Emperor with a scrupulous accuracy, as he never gives a higher salary than 5l. per week. In London they give 10l. 15l. and 20l.—Surely it would be (as the tradesmen say) worth his while to give two or three good Actors here, as much as they can get elsewhere.

I am not one of those rigid fanatics who dislike all kinds of childish gaiety, and therefore, I say nothing about Mr. Jones's Ballets, and the four interesting little girls that try to dance in them. I own I should be better pleased that the stage was not made absolutely a dancing school, and a place of practice for embryo Parisots; but as the children are always neatly dressed, and generally contrive to keep time, in the present state of the scenic art, we have no reason to complain.—Let me add a strange anecdote which I have heard, tho' I can hardly believe:—A person with a very good sounding honest Irish name, something like M'Donough, or M'Swiney, or O'Flanagan, was desirous of setting up in this city as a dancing master, and obtaining an engagement as ballet dancer at the Theatre—“What, with such a name?” impossible! my good friend, go, go and get another.”—The Milesian was wise enough to take the hint, and Signior (I shall not mention his new appellation) afterwaads danced ‘mutato nomine’ with great success at Crow-street, and now teaches, as I am told, in the highest circles in Dublin.

Mr. Jones's liberality is a favourite topic of expatiation amongst his friends, and I believe not unjustly; but I intreat him to exercise it in procuring a few good Players for the Theatre Royal, an expedient of generosity which he has not yet practised to any considerable extent.

Gentle Reader who hast travelled these six heavy stages thro' with me, accept my thanks for the patience, with which you have borne the roughness of the road, and the mistakes and wanderings of our course, “beggar that I am, I'm poor even in thanks,” and have no other reward to offer, than, that I assure you, I shall not again trespass on your kindness and good nature—valete, and if you can plaudite.