424 



Monthly Theatrical Report. 



[OcT. 



geny for the market, with no more com- 

 punction than the dealer in sheep, and as 

 little delicacy as the Jew who hangs up 

 suits for all shapes outside his door? 

 Have we not the moustached guardsman, 

 fuller of snuff than sense, and thinking all 

 the world contained in the mess, the card- 

 club, and the billiard-table? Have we no 

 King's aides-de-camp, covered over with 

 lace and servility, no lords of. the bed- 

 chamber, who would lacquer shoes, or 

 turn shirts, or lick the dust for the honour 

 and profit of being menials? Have we no 

 women of rank proud and mean, methodis- 

 tical and profligate, old, with the affecta- 

 tions of youth, and young, with the ava- 

 rice, venality, and heartlessness of age ? 

 We need never despair of our stock, let 

 but the true comedian arise, and we will 

 furnish him with character from a treasury 

 as inexhaustible as the ocean. 



In addition to Kenney's comedy, we are 

 told that he has a farce or two, in whose 

 success we may have hope an opera, on 

 which it will behove Mr. Bishop to exert 

 something more than his late energies 

 and, of course, a bundle of melo-dramas. 

 Poole, whose seizure of the French farces 

 is in general so rapid, but who was super- 

 seded in the Bride at Fifty" by the more 

 rapid grasp of Kenny (such are among 

 the hazards of plundering from the same 

 store, without confidence between the 

 plunderers), brings forward his transla- 

 tion in three acts. If he should be at a 

 loss for a title, we suggest that of " Ho- 

 nour among Thieves." 



Macready is bringing with him a regu- 

 lar Illinois tragedy, in which all the cha- 

 racters are backwoodsmen ; and the interest 

 is to arise from the scalping an European 

 party, and the roasting an Indian alive. 

 Mr. Knowles is supposed to have three 

 tragedies, on the subjects of Coriolanus, 

 Csesar, and Antony: we suspect that these 

 subjects have been tolerably well handled 

 before ; but the genius of the author and 

 the actor will doubtless throw new lights 

 on the matter. Mr. Walker, the author of 

 " Wallace," is said to be busy with a sub- 

 ject from the history of Hayti ; and a lady 

 author, vibrating between Charles Kem- 

 ble's established charms, and fifacready's 

 popularity, refreshed, of course, by his 

 marine washings, is said to have prepared 

 the same tragedy for both houses : the 

 treatment of the story, and the nature of 

 the characters differing so considerably, 

 as to inspire the fair authoress with a 

 hope, and by no means an ill grounded 

 one, that no one will supect the identity. 



Covent Garden is again under a single 

 sceptre. The republic gave way two 

 years ago, and Messrs. Wiliett and Forbes 

 are now as much extricated from the cares 

 of ambition as M. Tallien and the Abbe 

 Sieyes. Then came the triple consulate of 



Messrs. Fawcett, Smart, and Kemble ; but 

 the actor carries the day, and Charles is 

 now first consul the Napoleon of Covent 

 Garden. Kean, Young, and Kemble, are 

 more than the Percy and Douglas joined 

 in arms, and Victory is already fresh pain- 

 ting to be perched on their banners. 

 Shakspeare is to be revived, more Shak- 

 speai ian than ever ; one of his plays, so 

 unlike all the rest that it has not been 

 heard of these hundred years, but that 

 throws " Hamlet" and " Macbeth" into 

 eclipse, is to be produced; and the world 

 are, for the nine months ensuing, to be 

 held in a state of perpetual agony. Mira- 

 cles are expected from Kean, who has the 

 double stimulant of playing for fifty 

 pounds a night (the yearly income of a 

 curate !), and of playing for the remnant of 

 his fame, against the unnatural young 

 Roscius who is to tear the laurel from the 

 brow of the unnatural old one j Kean 

 against Kean, Norval against Sir Giles. 

 Young will be, as he always is, clear ol'all 

 war on the occasion neither in dread of 

 parricide, nor trembling for his diadem, 

 but gathering money in quiet, and helping 

 out the deficiencies of authorship on the 

 stage, by tremendous blank verse of his 

 own. 



The Haymarket closes in a few nights, 

 after a busy, pleasant, and, we should sup- 

 pose, a productive season. Poole has been 

 unlucky. His only French play, " Gud- 

 geons and Sharks," fell a victim to as 

 rapid an explosion of public wrath as we 

 can remember. It perished at a blow, 

 and never shewed sign of life again. His 

 next piece has lived only in preparation 

 the failure of his former had left a gap, 

 which it was expedient to fill. Kenny 

 stepped in, with a two act farce upon the 

 subject, which his brother translator had 

 been tardily fabricating into three. The- 

 atres are like time and tide, and wait for 

 no man. The two acts in the baud were 

 to the manager worth two thousand in the 

 brain, and Kenny 1 !* was performed. The 

 title, the " Bride at Fifty," was presumed 

 to be a hit at Mrs. Coutts, who, it is to be 

 observed, is graceless enough to have no 

 box at this pleasantest of all theatres. If 

 she had, of course she would have, in deli- 

 cacy to her nerves, escaped the title, 

 which, whatever may be her passion for 

 titles, we should conceive not much to her 

 taste. We advise her Grace's securing a 

 box for next season. Kenny's farce is a 

 very spirited and amusing melange. A 

 coaxing, jealous, tyrannical bore of a wife; 

 a young husband, who marries to escape a 

 juil ; a dozing old squire, roaming on a ma- 

 trimonial expedition ; and a rattling widow 

 of a general, full of the brawling manners, 

 the bustling self-importance, and the love 

 of man and money, engendered between 

 mercenary soldiership, and the natural 



