196 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



wishing it had been her fate not to love him #o 

 well watching his nr.*t glance when he entered, 

 to see whether the fiery spirit wore at peace ; and 

 knowing that, in the bitterness of her soul, she 

 must ban? upon his glance* still, even if she read 

 in them all that was fearful. How blended with 

 pain was her happiness ! 



S!u> \va like one who walks upon lairy ground 

 in the nil's t of bloom and blossom, and who, 

 pausing to inhale the fragrance, and place the 

 blossom iiext her heart, perceives the sun bury 



his head in darkness; and feels the ground shrink 

 away from the pressure of her foot. 



Here we must part with this novel ; and 

 leaving it to the public success, which its 

 pure morality and intelligent portraiture of 

 the sex so amply deserve, congratulate the 

 writer on the prospect of a career, which 

 has been so spiritedly and eloquently 

 begun. 



MONTHLY THEATRICAL REPORT. 



THE Pantomimes at both houses are as 

 like as two pantomimes can possibly be. 

 They are both showy, both crowded with 

 the practical wit of thumping and tumbling. 

 Pantaloon and the clown are beaten and 

 burlesqued, with equal vigour and severity 

 in both. They contain, perhaps, the same 

 number of scenes, and by both are the 

 audience equally fatigued. The singularity 

 is the determined absence of pleasantry; 

 the spirit of Quakerism has brooded on 

 the heads of the inventors ; or, as a cele- 

 brated humourist of the present day said 

 of a lugubrious comedy, there is nothing 

 in these performances bright, but the 

 lamps ; nothing marked but the canvass, 

 and nothing to disqualify them from turn- 

 ing into general opiates, but the drums of 

 the orchestra. 



Yet Covent Garden, by making the most 

 of its old talent, scenery, has contrived to 

 do without a joke from beginning to end. 

 Navarino, which ought to have made the 

 material of an afterpiece and which, in 

 the days of Harris, conjunct with the twin 

 genius of Reynolds and Dibdin, would 

 have made one, and a popular one, within 

 three days of the intelligence, has sug- 

 gested some striking scenery, by much the 

 most effective portion of the whole. The 

 spectator passes with theatrical rapidity 

 from Brighton to Gibraltar, to Malta, to 

 Navarino, into the centre of the battle, 

 ships battering, blowing up, and sinking. 

 The whole is on the principle of the mov- 

 ing panorama, and with some exception- 

 able fragments, is a very clever display. 



Kean, we regret to say, has been seri- 

 ously indisposed. His late performances 

 had exhibited a failure of bodily strength, 

 which furnished painful presentiments. A 

 c.-reer calculated to try the powers of a 

 gtroug constitution, has had its effects upon 

 a feeble one ; and we fear that his idea of 

 retiring from the stage must, at no distant 

 period, become a matter not of caprice, but 

 of prudence. 



When this actor forced his personal 

 habits before the public eye, we felt it a 

 duty to express our opinion plainly. A 

 man living by the public, makes himself 

 amenable to its tribunal. But the period 

 which has since intervened, has demanded 



none of that censure which we should so 

 reluctantly pass upon a man of genius 

 peculiarly exposed. 



The physical feebleness of his acting 

 has been apparent ; but we are much in- 

 clined to doubt whether that acting has not 

 given a pleasure to those of the audience, 

 capable of relishing the fine touches of 

 dramatic skill, fully equal to the success 

 of his most flourishing days. The theatric 

 evil of our time, is the tendency of every 

 thing on the stage to melodrame. The 

 tragedian looks for his effect in the violent 

 gesture and remorseless vociferation that 

 draw down gallery applause, and storm eye 

 and ear in the midst of rolling oceans, 

 charges of cavalry, and the blowing up of 

 man, woman, and walls. In Kean's acting 

 since the commencement of this season, 

 there has been the full display of his taste 

 and talent, purified from the extravagance 

 of voice and action. His Shylock, Richard, 

 and Othello, are among the master-pieces 

 of the stage : and we never saw them per- 

 formed in a more masterly style by Kean. 

 But the general audience require more 

 forcible efforts than the actor can now 

 make ; the size of our theatres absolutely 

 prohibits three-fourths of the audience 

 from any enjoyment but that of the eye ; 

 and Kean's popularity must perish with the 

 multitude, unless he shall regain his old 

 powers of voice and gesture. 



But we feel too strong an interest in the 

 stage, as both a fine popular enjoyment, and 

 a great province of aenius in action and 

 poetry, not to hope that Kean's secession, 

 if secede he must, may be only temporary. 

 A few months' rest, a more propitious cli- 

 mate than our land of fog and eastwind, a 

 slight interval between his periods of theatri- 

 cal labour, and the anxieties attendant on the 

 profession, to even its most favourite mem- 

 bers, would probably go far to reinstate 

 the health and powers of an actor, whose 

 loss would leave a vast blank on the stage, 

 and deprive the public of a man of as de- 

 cided talent for the highest efforts of the 

 drama, as ever, perhaps, appeared. 



The force of Covent Garden has been 

 thrown into Tragedy ; that of Drury Lane 

 into Comedy and fjpcra, in both of which 

 it has succeeded very considerably. There 



