400 Notes, for the Month. [Ocr. 



but such a degree of vulgarity and destitution of those qualities as would 

 hopelessly shut out an actor from that caste of characters in a London 

 theatre, 8 French audience would not be in the slightest degree sensible 

 of. In fact, the native of any country, who looks at a foreign actor, 

 stands giving him every allowance for qualification in the position of 

 a man not conversant with painting, who looks at a picture : he finds 

 out the excellencies, if there are any, but he passes over all the blots. 

 Nine times in ten there is a great deal that such a spectator feels he does 

 not quite understand ; he has never a very entire confidence in any portion 

 of his judgment, and the more ability he has, the more afraid he is of 

 making a mistake ; and a whole crowd of faults will pass over unquestioned, 

 under the single shade of some supposed taste or habit te peculiar to the 

 country to which the actor belongs" to his being " out of his element 

 before a foreign audience" entitled to " allowance under such circum- 

 stances," &c. &c. 



The value of this last admission, in dramatic affairs, is prodigious : actors 

 are constantly applauded very highly and by discerning persons at Minor 

 theatres (where this " consideration" is extended), who fail entirely when 

 they come to the ordeal of a full audience in a national theatre. The great 

 mass of people, however, who attend (and up to a certain point must 

 decide upon) the merit of foreign performances in every country, by no 

 means possess the most elementary qualifications for criticism in such a 

 situation. The English who attend the theatres in France, and who 

 frequent the little French theatre, in London, do not, one in ten of them 

 even those who read French, and even speak it intelligibly understand 

 one word in six that they hear uttered ! and the French confess, without 

 hesitation, that they are in the same difficulty with respect to us. We 

 always hear the " Mon Dieu !" and they always catch the " God damn !" 

 but of every sentence, amounting in length to thirty words, the last two and 

 twenty (even where the speaker means to be particularly intelligible) are 

 invariably lost. The French Globe, which contains the most sensible 

 notice of our Anglo Parisian exhibitions, describes Mr. Abbott, as being 

 " what the English call a nice gentleman" 



The non-payment of the Dividend upon the " Mexican Bonds," this 

 1st of October, of which due notice has been given on the Stock Exchange, 

 and at which Cobbett last week (Saturday the 22d Sept.) is quite rampant 

 with delight, falls rather unluckily as to time, for a u Letter upon the 

 Affairs of Greece," that has appeared in most of the daily papers, in 

 which the unhappy position of that interesting country is very ably 

 described, and a sort of suggestion thrown out, that something in the way 

 of a " further loan" from England might be very sovereign in the removal 

 of its difficulties. The argument used (for Greece) on this occasion, is inge- 

 nious ; it amounts shortly to this that England having already lent a great 

 deal of money to Greece, which (as matters stand) is in a fairway of being 

 lost, the best thing that we can do will be to lend a little more. But still 

 though no doubt there is a great deal in this it has not entirely the effect 

 of satisfying our scruples. We fully agree that all the money which has 

 been sent to Greece -(we beg pardon, we should say, all that has been 

 paid by individuals in England, on account of the Greek loan) is irre- 

 coverably gone ; but we are rather afraid that the most prudent course will 

 still be to let it go, and say no more about it. Our loss being made the 

 measure by which we are to lend, is pleasant as a hypothesis ; but, as there 

 can hardly be a doubt that every fresh loan would, under such circum- 



