The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 24

Neither did any woman, gifted with Mrs. Jordan's or Miss Kelly's sensibilities, ever take upon herself to shine as a fine lady, the very essence of this character consisting in the entire repression of all genius and all feeling. To sustain a part of this kind to the life, a performer must be haunted by a perpetual self-reference: she must be always thinking of herself, and how she looks, and how she deports herself in the eyes of the spectators; whereas the delight of actresses of true feeling, and their chief power, is to elude the personal notice of an audience, to escape into their parts, and hide themselves under the hood of their a.s.sumed character. Their most graceful self-possession is in fact a self-forgetfulness; an oblivion alike of self and of spectators. For this reason your most approved epilogue-speakers have been always ladies who have possessed least of this self-forgetting quality; and I think I have seen the amiable actress in question suffering some embarra.s.sment, when she has had an address of this sort to deliver; when she found the modest veil of personation, which had half hid her from the audience, suddenly withdrawn, and herself brought without any such qualifying intervention before the public.

[36] The word here omitted by the Bristol Editor, we suppose, is _methodistical_ (Leigh Hunt in _The Examiner_).

I should apologise for the length of this letter, if I did not remember the lively interest you used to take in theatrical performances.--I am, &c. &c.,

III.--RICHARD BROME'S "JOVIAL CREW"

(1819)

The _Jovial Crew_ or the _Merry Beggars_ has been revived here [the English Opera] after an interval, as the bills tell us, of seven years.

Can it be so long (it seems but yesterday) since we saw poor LOVEGROVE in _Justice Clack_? his childish treble still pipes in our ears: "Whip 'em, whip 'em, whip 'em." DOWTON was the representative of the Justice the other night, and shook our ribs most incontinently. He was in "excellent foolery," and our lungs crowed chanticleer. Yet it appears to us, that there was a still higher strain of fatuity in his predecessor--that his eyes distilled a richer dotage. Perhaps after all it was an error of the memory. Defunct merit comes out upon us strangely.

Easy natural WRENCH was the _Springlove_; too comfortable a personage perhaps to personify _Springlove_, in whom the voice of the bird awakens a restless instinct of roaming that had slept during the winter. Miss STEVENSON certainly leaves us nothing to regret for the absence of the Lady, however agreeable, who formerly performed the part of _Meriel_.

Miss STEVENSON is a fine open-countenanced la.s.s, with glorious girlish manners. But the _Princess of Mumpers_, and _Lady Paramount_, of beggarly counterfeit accents, was _she_ that played _Rachel_. Her gabbling lachrymose pet.i.tions; her tones, such as we have heard by the side of old woods, when an irresistible face has come peeping on one on a sudden; with her full black locks, and a _voice_--how shall we describe it?--a voice that was by nature meant to convey nothing but truth and goodness, but warped by circ.u.mstance into an a.s.surance that she is telling us a lie--that catching twitch of the thievish irreproveable finger--those ballad-singers' notes, so vulgar, yet so unvulgar--that a.s.surance, so like impudence, and yet so many countless leagues removed from it--her jeers, which we had rather stand, than be caressed with other ladies' compliments, a summer's day long--her face, with a wild out-of-door's grace upon it--

Altogether, a brace of more romantic she-beggars it was never our fortune to meet in this supplicatory world. The youngest might have sate for "pretty Bessy," whose father was an Earl, and whose legend still adorns the front of mine Hostess's doors at Bethnal-Green; and the other could be no less than the "Beggar Maid" whom "King Cophetua wooed."

"What a la.s.s that were," said a stranger who sate beside us, speaking of Miss KELLY in _Rachel_, "to go a gipseying through the world with." We confess we longed to drop a tester in her lap, she begged so masterly.

By the way, this is the true _Beggar's Opera_. The other should have been called the _Mirror for Highwaymen_. We wonder the Societies for the Suppression of Mendicity (and other good things) do not club for the putting down of this infamous protest in favour of air, and clear liberty, and honest license, and blameless a.s.sertion of man's original blest charter of blue skies, and vagrancy, and nothing-to-do.

IV.--ISAAC BICKERSTAFF'S "HYPOCRITE"

(1819)

By one of those strange perversities which actuate poor mortals in the place of motives (to persuade us into the notion that we are free agents, we presume), we had never till the other evening seen DOWTON in _Doctor Cantwell_. By a pious fraud of Mr. ARNOLD'S, who, by a process as simple as some of those by which MATHEWS metamorphoses his person, has converted the play into an opera,--a conversion, by the way, for which we are highly indebted to him,--we have been favoured with this rich novelty at our favourite theatre. It seems a little unreasonable to come lagging in with a posthumous testimony to the merits of a performance of which the town has long rung, but we cannot help remarking in Mr. DOWTON'S acting, the subtil _gradations_ of the hypocrisy; the length to which it runs in proportion as the recipient is capable of taking it in; the gross palpable way in which he adminsters the dose in wholesale to old _Lady Lambert_, that rich fanatic; the somewhat more guarded manner in which he retails it out, only so much at a time as he can bear, to the somewhat less bitten fool her son; and the almost absence of it, before the younger members of the family, when n.o.body else is by: how the cloven foot peeps out a little and a little more, till the diabolical nature is stung out at last into full manifestation of its horrid self. What a grand insolence in the tone which he a.s.sumes, when he commands _Sir John_ to quit _his_ house! and then the tortures and agonies when he is finally baffled! It is in these last perhaps that he is greatest, and we should be doing injustice not to compare this part of the performance with, and in some respects to give it the preference above, the acting of Mr. KEAN in a situation nearly a.n.a.logous, at the conclusion of the _City Madam_. _Cantwell_ reveals his pangs with quite as much force, and without the a.s.sistance of those contortions which transform the detected _Luke_ into the similitude of a mad tiger, or a foaming demon. DOWTON plays it neither like beast nor demon, but simply as it should be, a bold bad man pushed to extremity. Humanity is never once overstepped. Has it ever been noticed, the exquisite modulation with which he drawls out the word CHARLES, when he calls his secretary, so humble, so seraphic, so resigned. The most diabolical of her s.e.x that we ever knew accented all her honey devil words in just such a hymn-like smoothness. The spirit of WHITFIELD seems hovering in the air, to suck in the blessed tones, so much like his own upon earth: Lady HUNTINGDON claps her neat white wings, and gives it out again in heaven to the sainted ones, in approbation.

Miss KELLY is not quite at home in _Charlotte_; she is too good for such parts. Her cue is to be natural; she cannot put on the modes of artificial life, and play the coquet as it is expected to be played.

There is a frankness in her tones which defeats her purposes: we could not help wondering why her lover (Mr. PEARMAN) looked so rueful; we forgot that she was acting airs and graces, as she seemed to forget it herself, turning them into a playfulness which could breed no doubt for a moment which way her inclinations ran. She is in truth not framed to tease or torment even in jest, but to utter a hearty _Yes_ or _No_; to yield or refuse a.s.sent with a n.o.ble sincerity. We have not the pleasure of being acquainted with her, but we have been told that she carries the same cordial manners into private life. We have heard, too, of some virtues which she is in the practice of; but they are of a description which repay themselves, and with them neither we nor the public have any thing to do.

One word about WRENCH, who played the Colonel:--Was this man never unhappy? It seems as if care never came near him, as if the black ox could never tread upon his foot; we want something calamitous to befal him, to bring him down to us. It is a shame he should be suffered to go about with his well-looking happy face and tones, insulting us thin race of irritable and irritable-making critics.

V.--NEW PIECES AT THE LYCEUM

(1819)

A plot has broke out at this theatre. Some quarrel has been breeding between the male and female performers, and the women have determined to set up for themselves. Seven of them, _Belles without Beaux_ they call themselves, have undertaken to get up a piece without any a.s.sistance from the men, and in our opinion have established their point most successfully. There is Miss CAREW with her silvery tones, and Miss STEVENSON with her delicious mixture of the school-girl and the waiting-maid, and Miss KELLY sure to be first in any mischief, and Mrs.

CHATTERLY with some of the best acting we have ever witnessed, and Miss LOVE, worthy of the _name_, and Mrs. GROVE that rhymes to her, and Mrs.

RICHARDSON who might in charity have been allowed somewhat a larger portion of the dialogue. The effect was enchanting. We mean, for once.

We do not want to encourage these Amazonian vanities. Once or twice we longed to have WRENCH bustling among them. A lady who sate near us was observed to gape for want of variety. To us it was delicate quintessence, an apple-pye made all of quinces. We remember poor HOLCROFT'S last Comedy, which positively died from the opposite excess; it was choked up with men, and perished from a redundancy of male population. It had nine princ.i.p.al men characters in it, and but one woman, and she of no very ambiguous character. Mrs. HARLOW, to do the part justice, chose to play it in scarlet.

We did not know Mrs. CHATTERLY'S merits before; she plays, with downright sterling good acting, a prude who is to be convinced out of her prudery by Miss KELLY'S (we did not catch her stage-name) a.s.sumption of the dress and character of a brother of seventeen, who makes the prettiest unalarming Platonic approaches; and in the shyest mask of moral battery, no one step of which you can detect, or say _this_ is decidedly going too far, vanquishes at last the ice of her scruples, brings her into an infinite sc.r.a.pe, and then with her own infinite good humour sets all to right, and brings her safe out of it again with an explanation. Mrs. CHATTERLY'S embarra.s.sments were masterly. Miss STEVENSON her maid's start, at surprising a youth in her mistress's closet at midnight, was quite as good. Miss KELLY we do not care to say any thing about, because we have been accused of flattering her. The truth is, this lady puts so much intelligence and good sense into every part which she plays, that there is no expressing an honest sense of her merits, without incurring a suspicion of that sort. But what have we to gain by praising Miss KELLY?

Altogether this little feminine republic, this provoking experiment, went off most smoothly. What a nice world it would be, we sometimes think, _all women!_ but then we are afraid we slip in a fallacy unawares into the hypothesis; we somehow edge in the idea of ourselves as spectators or something among them.

We saw WILKINSON after it in _Walk for a Wager_. What a picture of Forlorn Hope! of abject orphan dest.i.tution! he seems to have no friends in the world but his legs, and he plies them accordingly. He goes walking on like a perpetual motion. His continual ambulatory presence performs the part of a Greek chorus. He is the walking Gentleman of the piece; a Peripatetic that would make a Stoic laugh. He made us cry. His _m.u.f.fincap_ in _Amateurs and Actors_ is just such another piece of acting. We have seen charity boys, both of St. Clement's and Farringdon without, looking just as old, ground down out of all semblance of youth, by abject and hopeless neglect--you cannot guess their age between fifteen and fifty. If Mr. PEAK is the author of these pieces, he has no reason to be piqued at their reception.

We must apologize for an oversight in our last week's article. The allusion made to Mr. KEAN'S acting of _Luke_ in the _City Madam_ was totally inapplicable to the part and to the play. We were thinking of his performance of the concluding scenes of the _New Way to Pay Old Debts_. We confounded one of Ma.s.sINGER'S strange heroes with the other.

It was _Sir Giles Overreach_ we meant; nor are we sure that our remark was just, even with this explanation. When we consider the intense tone, in which Mr. KEAN thinks it proper (and he is quite as likely to be in the right as his blundering critic) to pitch the temperament of that monstrous character from the beginning, it follows but logically and naturally, that where the wild uncontrollable man comes to be baffled of his purpose, his pa.s.sions should a.s.sume a frenzied manner, which it was altogether absurd to expect should be the same with the manner of the cautious and self-restraining _Cantwell_, even when he breaks loose from all bonds in the agony of his final exposure. We never felt more strongly the good sense of the saying,--Comparisons are odious. They betray us not seldom into bitter errors of judgment; and sometimes, as in the present instance, into absolute matter of fact blunders. But we have recanted.

FOUR REVIEWS

(1819-1820)

I.--_FALSTAFF'S LETTERS_

(1819)

_Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends; now first made public by a Gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from genuine MSS. which have been in the possession of the Quickly Family near four hundred years_. London: Robinsons, 1796

A copy of this work sold at the Roxburgh sale for five guineas. We have both before and since that time picked it up at stalls for eighteen pence. Reader, if you shall ever light upon a copy in the same way, we counsel you to buy it. We are deceived if there be not in it much of the true Shakspearian stuff. We present you with a few of the Letters, which may speak for themselves:--

FALSTAFF TO THE PRINCE

"I pr'ythee, Hal, lend me thy 'kerchief. An thy unkindness have not started more salt gouts down my poor old cheek, than my good rapier hath of blood from foemen's gashes in five and thirty years' service, then am I a very senseless mummy. I squander away in drinkings monies belonging to the soldiery! I do deny it--they have had part--the surplus is gone in charity--accuse the parish officers--make them restore--the wh.o.r.eson wardens do now put on the cloak of supplication at the church doors, intercepting gentlemen for charity, forsooth!--'Tis a robbery, a villainous robbery! to come upon a gentleman reeking with piety, G.o.d's book in his hand, brimfull of the sacrament! Thou knowest, Hal, as I am but man, I dare in some sort leer at the plate and pa.s.s, but as I have the body and blood of Christ within me, could I do it? An I did not make an oblation of a matter of ten pound after the battle of Shrewsbury, in humble grat.i.tude for thy safety, Hal, then am I the veriest transgressor denounced in G.o.d's code. But I'll see them d.a.m.ned ere I'll be charitable again. Let 'em coin the plate--let them coin the holy chalice...."

THE SAME TO THE SAME

"Ha! ha! ha! And dost thou think I would not offer up ten pound for thee? yea, a hundred--more--but take heed of displeasing in thy sacrifice. Cain did bring a kid, yea, a firstling upon the altar, and the blaze ascended not. Abel did gather simple herbs, penny-royal, Hal, and mustard, a fourpenny matter, and the odour was grateful. I had ten pound for the holy offertory--mine ancient Pistol doth know it--but the angel did arrest my hand. Could I go beyond the word?--the angel which did stretch forth his finger, lest the good patriarch should slay his son.--That Ned Poins hath more colours than a jay, more abuse than a taught pie, and for wit--the cuckow's dam may be Fool of the Court to him. I lie down at Shrewsbury out of base fear! I melt into roods, and acres, and poles! I tell thee what, Hal, there's not a subject in the land hath half my temperance of valour.--Did I not see thee combating the man-queller, Hotspur; yea, in peril of subduement? Was it for me to lose my sweet Hal without a thrust, having my rapier, my habergion, my good self about me? I did lie down in the hope of sherking him in the rib--four drummers and a fifer did help me to the ground:--didst thou not mark how I did leer upon thee from beneath my buckler? That Poins hath more scurrility than is in a whole flock of disquieted geese.

"For the rebels I did conceal, thou should'st give me laud. I did think thou wert already encompa.s.sed with more enemies than the resources of men could prevent overwhelming thee: yea, that thou wert the dove on the waters of Ararat, and didst lack a resting-place. Was it for me to heap to thy manifold disquiets? Was it for me to fret thee with the advice of more enemies than thou didst already know of? I could not take their lives, and therefore did I take their monies. I did fine them, lest they should scape, Hal, thou dost understand me, without chastis.e.m.e.nt; yea, I fined them for a punishment. They did make oath on the point of my sword to be true men:--an the rogues forswore themselves, and joined the Welchman, let them look to it--'tis no 'peachment of my virtue...."

AGAIN

"Oh! I am setting on a nest of the most unfledged cuckows that ever brooded under the wing of hawk. Thou must know, Hal, I had note of a good hale recruit or two in this neighbourhood. In other shape came I not; look to it, Master Shallow, that in other shape I depart not. But I know thou art ever all desire to be admitted a Fellow Commoner in a jest. Robert Shallow, Esq. judgeth the hamlet of Cotswold. Doth not the name of judge horribly chill thee? With Aaron's rod in his hand, he hath the white beard of Moses on his chin. In good sooth his perpetual countenance is not unlike what thou wouldst conceit of the momentary one of the lunatic Jew, when he tumbled G.o.d's tables from the mount. He hath a quick busy gait--more of this upright Judge (perpendicular as a pikeman's weapon, Hal,) anon. I would dispatch with these Bardolph; but the knave's hands--(I cry thee mercy) his mouth is full in preventing desertion among my recruits. An every liver among them haven't stood me in three and forty shilling, then am I a naughty escheator.--I tell thee what, Hal, I'd fight against my conscience for never a Prince in Christendom but thee.--Oh! this is a most d.a.m.nable cause, and the rogues know it--they'll drink nothing but sack of three and twopence a gallon; and I enlist me none but tall puissant fellows that would quaff me up Fleet-ditch, were it filled with sack--picked men, Hal--such as will shake my Lord of York's mitre. I pray thee, sweet lad, make speed--thou shalt see glorious deeds."

How say you, reader, do not these inventions smack of Eastcheap? Are they not nimble, forgetive, evasive? Is not the humour of them elaborate, cogitabund, fanciful? Carry they not the true image and superscription of the father which begat them? Are they not steeped all over in character--subtle, profound, unctuous? Is not here the very effigies of the Knight? Could a counterfeit _Jack Falstaff_ come by these conceits? Or are you, reader, one who delights to drench his mirth in tears? You are, or, peradventure, have been a lover; a "dismissed bachelor," perchance, one that is "la.s.s-lorn." Come, then, and weep over the dying bed of such a one as thyself. Weep with us the death of poor _Abraham Slender_.

DAVY TO SHALLOW