1827.] 



Monthly Theatrical Report. 



423 



certain line, and Mrs. Bunn, are the whole 

 strength. But in this we can scarcely 

 attribute blame to the manager. He has 

 probably done his best ; the dearth of the 

 higher orders of dramatic ability is sin- 

 gular; and if England cannot produce 

 tragedians, the managers cannot engage 

 them. 



But his true strength is in comedy, and 

 here he may congratulate himself on hav- 

 ing succeeded in collecting the ablest 

 corps that has been seen in England for 

 the last twenty years. Liston re-engaged, 

 Mathews restored to the stage, Jones won 

 from the enemy, form a trio which defy 

 all rivalry. Dowtou, Harley, Mrs. Davi- 

 son, Miss Foote, Miss Love, Cooper, Rus- 

 sel, Mrs. Orger, &c., all important, in- 

 crease the strength of this popular depart- 

 ment ; and if our authors are to be iu the 

 good graces of Parnassus, and produce any 

 thing worth acting, they may be assured 

 that justice will be done to them on the 

 stage. 



The note of preparation among the 

 authors, too, is loud. Kenny, whose 

 talent, like wine, improves with age, is 

 pronounced to be unusually prolific this 

 season. He is the reputed procrea'or of a 

 comedy in five acts, that grand difficulty 

 of authorship ; a difficulty which, as we 

 shall probably not live in the next cen- 

 tury, we shall not see surmounted by any 

 of the known play-wrights. We are not 

 surprised at the rareness of success in 

 this pursuit, when we recollect the quali- 

 ties essential to it. The keen observation 

 of life, the quick seizure of the prominent 

 points of character, and the skill in ex- 

 pression, that are the primary requisites : 

 in addition to these, the wit, in itself the 

 rarest thing in the world, the easy plea- 

 santry, which is scarcely attainable but by 

 the habits of accomplished life, and the 

 arrangement of all in story, so as to 

 produce a plot at once clear and compli- 

 cated, simple enough to be intelligible to 

 all, yet sufficiently intricate to stimulate 

 the curiosity of all. Even this inferior 

 part is so peculiar, that to make a clever 

 plot, it is almost absolutely necessary to 

 be a student of the stage; in fact, there is 

 scarcely an instance of decided success in 

 dramatic writing, when the author was 

 not either in personal habits of intercourse 

 with the theatre, or was not himself an 

 actor, the usual case. 



Thus we have no writer of comedy at 

 the present day, nor perhaps would even 

 the favourites of our forefathers be as- 

 sured of popularity, if they were now to 

 appear for the first time. Sheridan always 

 excepted, whose dexterity, force, and 

 point, must make him popular in all ages. 

 But our present taste is so much purer in 

 language and morals, is so much fciore se- 

 vere in stage probabilities, and requires so 



much more dramatic contrast and vigour 

 of character, that even the wit of Congreve, 

 and the subtle plots of Gibber, would run 

 a formidable hazard. The generation im- 

 mediately before, tis true, endured a vast 

 deal of common-place, of dramatic jargon, 

 and feeble and laborious jesting; but even 

 they merely endured it. The miscella- 

 neous mob of the theatres laughed and 

 applauded ; but the intelligent the class 

 which in the days of Anne were called 

 critics, and who then were the represen- 

 tatives of public taste yawned. 



It has been alleged, that the dramatic 

 materiel is burnt out; that life in our 

 country, with its perpetual circulation of 

 opinions, its community of habits, and the 

 general spirit of imitation that pervades 

 an old and civilized people, has lost its 

 earlier peculiarities ; that in the eternal 

 collision, all peculiarities are rubbed 

 smooth, like the corner-stones of a high- 

 way, or the impression of a shilling; that, 

 in short, since the age of bag-wigs and 

 rolled stockings has passed away since 

 the physician is no more tremendous in 

 curled peruke and gold headed cane the 

 parson sips his punch without pudding 

 sleeves the man of fashion flirts without 

 stiff skirts down to his toes and the wo- 

 man of fashion returns his flirtation, di- 

 vested of hoop-petticoat, stomacher, and 

 periwig a foot and a half high the world 

 has gone out of joint, and there is no more 

 variety of character than in a Lincolnshire 

 fen. Human kind is a dead level ; man 

 and woman are but so many painted pip- 

 kins on a mantel-piece; the furniture 

 of an old maid's closet, the shreds and 

 patches of the great workshop of Nature 

 retiring from business. 



Can we believe all this? The bag- wig, 

 it is true, may make an important part of 

 the jEseulapius, just as the fellow of a 

 college would, in nine instances out often, 

 be a very common kind of fellow without 

 his square cap. But there will be quacks 

 and dunces in the world in plenty, even if 

 all wigs and caps were burned in a com- 

 mon conflagration. Have we not still the 

 usurer, the projector, the gambling man 

 of fashion, who lives at the rate of ten 

 thousand a year, without the possession of 

 a legitimate sixpence; the parliament 

 trader, the Yorkshire heir, full of empti- 

 ness, country coxcombry, and the money 

 of his grandfathers and grandmothers burn- 

 ing for transference to the midnight banks 

 of St. James's ? Have we not the insolence 

 of office, the prostitute placeman, the bo- 

 roughmongering patriot, the roarer against 

 abuses, while he is longing for a share in 

 them ? Have we not, in general society, 

 all the specimens of puppyism, puritan- 

 ism, cant, conceit, covetousness ? Have 

 we not the fortune-hunter, the fortune- 

 huntress, the mother bringing up her pro- 



