1827.] 



Monthly Theatrical Rtpnrf. 



entirethis heroine, Listen's part, and her 

 Ladyship. Mrs. Davison, Wallack, Cooper, 

 and'Russel were cyphers. The passion for 

 marriage at the close would have terrified 

 Malthus : out of his eleven characters, five 

 couple paired off as man and wife ! 



But there is a general disqualification 

 about this play- The chief characters are 

 unnecessarily taken from vulgar life. The 

 rage of the day is too much in this style. 

 Our leading novelists look for their principal 

 interest in the conversation of clowns, beg- 

 gars, thieves, and gipsies. This taste is in- 

 judicious. There may be occasional force 

 in the headlong language of vulgar life ; 

 and nature may sometimes speak touchingly 

 in the rude simplicity of the peasant : but 

 the true interest is to be found only in the 

 more cultivated ranks. The educated mind 

 is not merely more graceful, but more ac- 

 tivenot merely more remote from the of- 

 fence of rude language, than from the dul- 

 ness, clumsiness, and want of dexterity that 

 characterizes the peasant-understanding. 

 The Scotch novels labour to display the 

 shrewdness of the rustic and the mendicant ; 

 and, undoubtedly, they both possess occa- 

 sional ingenuity. But the true interest, in 

 all instances, depends upon the movements 

 and impressions of the more educated agents 

 of the story. 



Among our permanent plays, there is not 

 one, in which the interest is connected with 

 low life, except the " Beggars Opera;" and 

 there the characters are redeemed by their 

 being the close imitators of the higher life. 

 Macheath \s language is that of a rake, but 

 of the first rank of life in his day : it is 

 dexterouSj pungent, and vigorous. Polly's 

 language is in general as delicate and pa- 

 thetic as probably was to be found in the 

 fancy of Gay a man accustomed to courts. 

 The decidedly vulgar scenes have been long 

 since rejected by the public. 



The introduction of vulgarity into Mor- 

 ton's, Reynolds's, and Colman's comedies, 

 has always so far lowered their value ; and 

 the " push on, keep moving !" and other 

 similar phrases, have actually, instead of 

 sustaining their popularity, almost wholly 

 expelled them from the stage. Their higher 

 manners are humiliated by the connexion, 

 their pleasantries are dulled, and their ge- 

 neral truth of character is made more than 

 questionable by the perpetual labour to raise 

 rabble laughter. 



The most diligently-wrought personage in 

 Mr. Kenny's comedy is undone by this vul- 

 garity. That the author could have well 

 depicted a gentleman, and that Listen could 

 have sustained the character, are equally 

 clear. The error is intentional ; and thus, 

 for the principal character of the play, we 

 have a waiter at a London coffee-house, 

 rambling through the gaming-tables at 

 Paris, and dispensing the triple slang of the 

 kitchen, the stable, and the hell. And yet 

 this is to be the benevolent man of the 

 piece, the detector of crime, the protector of 



JVI.M. New Series. VOL. IV. No, 2-1. 



innocence, the remembrancer and ehastiser 

 of absurdity ! And this is done by one ut- 

 tering the phrases of the gin-shop and the 

 night-cellar the " No go!" the" DOINC- 

 UP!" the " Gammon!" and a whole voca- 

 bulary of the same repulsive kind 



The blue-stocking mother has been a 

 cook-maid, who married a cheesemonger, 

 and whose language is as conformable to 

 her early career, as it is unpleasant to 

 the taste of the audience. The result is 

 failure; for such characters, though they 

 may be tolerated on the stage, can never 

 arrive at favouritism. In fact, 'this play, 

 with a great deal of comic materiel, and 

 with more vigour of dialogue than we have 

 been accustomed to meet in modern comr 

 position, has been undone by the author's 

 misconception of the source of popularity. 

 Let him henceforth keep the vulgar for his 

 footmen, if he will ; but, as he values suc- 

 cess, let him exclude it from the leading 

 characters of his drama. We hope to see 

 the ingenious author exerting himself long 

 and often upon the field, the neglected but 

 most fertile and pleasant field, of Comedy. 



Co VENT GARDEN a theatre to which the 

 public have been indebted, many a year, for 

 some of the finest exhibitions of the stage 

 has at length put forth all its vigour in an 

 Opera, " The Seraglio." The music is 

 Mozart's, and the translation or adaptation 

 is very well done. The plot has the sim- 

 plicity of opera. An Italian fair one has 

 been captured by a galley of Cyprus, and 

 sent to the harem of the Pasha, who falls 

 furiously in love with her. But she had left 

 a lover in Italy, who follows her, disgtiised 

 as a painter. He meets a former valet of 

 his, now a slave in the Pasha's gardens. 

 They form a plan for the lady's escape. The 

 parties are arrested in their flight ; and the 

 Pasha is about to proceed to the height of 

 Turkish indignation, when he discovers, by 

 a bracelet, of which the lady has the coun- 

 terpart, that she is his sister he having 

 been stolen in infancy from Christendom. 



The rest of the characters are made up 

 of Greek dancers, odalisques, an Irish sur- 

 geon of a man-of-war, and Madame Vestris, 

 with whom the Doctor is in love in every 

 shape of blunder. The dialogue in general 

 was pleasant, and some of the Irishman's 

 absurdities were amusing. Warde was the 

 Pasha, and was formidably overloaded with 

 sentiment. This, however, was no fault of 

 his ; and he always plays and looks like a 

 gentleman. 



When the music is declared to be Mo- 

 zart's, criticism is almost silenced ; for 

 what can modern taste dare to question iu 

 the Shakspeare of music ? Yet, even Mozart 

 had his lapses ; and we must think that 

 this is one of them. The history of the 

 composition may account for the failure. It 

 was among his first experiments on any 

 striking scale; it was for the. Gorman taste 

 of a day, when that taste was remarkable for 

 heaviness, and it was before Mozart h'ud 



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