1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



315 



friend, Mr. Alfred Milton, his cousin, has 

 a deep game to play. By degrees he gets 

 into the secret, not only of his cousin's in- 

 clinations, but of the lady's birth ; and his 

 purpose is to push Herbert to a marriage, 

 in defiance of the father, and before his 

 return knowing the father to be of a tem- 

 perament to feel no remorse about disin- 

 heriting his son for disobedience, and in 

 that case the property must be his not less 

 than 20,000 a year. He communicates 

 clandestinely with the father, and misrepre- 

 sents poor Herbert in all manner of ways, 

 till at last the father comes home, filled with 

 a belief of his son's profligacy, and utter 

 worthlessness. 



On his arrival, no time is lost by the son 

 in communicating his wishes to marry Miss 

 Manby ; but by the contrivances of the 

 cousin, every thing between the father and 

 son is done through him, and the union is 

 peremptorily forbidden. Herbert is equally 

 resolute ; he flies to the lady, and the mar- 

 riage is consummated. Within a few days 

 he is recalled by the intelligence of his 

 father's alarming illness he has broken a 

 blood vessel ; and in his first interview he 

 confesses the marriage, when to his horror 

 he learns he had married his sister. The 

 old man all along knew Miss Manby was 

 his illegitimate daughter, but his pride was 

 too great to allow him to acknowledge the 

 fact, and he contented himself, in the height 

 of his greatness, with forbidding the mar- 

 riage, without accounting for the forbid- 

 dance. The shock was terrible to all par- 

 ties ; the sick man died on the instant ; the 

 young lady lost her reason; and Herbert 



rushed to the continent, to lose memory, and 

 find an honourable death on the field, which 

 he soon found, and thus left his triumphant 

 cousin for a time to the undisturbed enjoy- 

 ment of his 20,000 a year. 



Scarcely was Herbert dead, when one of 

 his friends, by the merest accident in the 

 world, discovers that, after all, Miss Manby 

 was not the daughter even of Sir Herbert, 

 but of one Mr. Mowbray, who with his 

 family was on board the vessel at the time 

 of its wreck. He knew Sir Herbert's child 

 was drowned, and had supposed his own 

 was also. The two children were nearly 

 of the same age. Mr. Mowbray is of 

 course delighted to recover his child ; and 

 she by this time recovers her reason ; and 

 having been left enceinte by her hapless 

 husband the result is, she is safely de- 

 livered of a son, who is undoubted heir to 

 the title and estate of the grandfather ; and 

 Mr. Alfred Milton meets with his deserts 

 by tumbling down a cataract, in missing a 

 blow struck at one of Milton's friends, who 

 came to announce these new and surprising 

 events. 



We felt strongly disposed but we have 

 no space to remark upon some sentiments 

 of the author, scattered here and there, and 

 particularly the loathsome language of his 

 loyalty the vile and crawling sycophancy 

 of which is only to be equalled by the 

 author of the "Guards," of which it is in- 

 deed the counterpart. Do these persons 

 mean to insinuate they are the associates of 

 the sovereign ? for none but associates can 

 estimate the private qualities of the man. 



MONTHLY THEATRICAL REPORT. 



THE stage has been busy, during the 

 month, but barren. This, however, is no 

 source of sorrow to managers for the houses 

 have been unusually well attended; and, 

 if that grand object be secured, the less no- 

 velty the better for the less there is, the 

 cheaper is the gain. Yet this policy, which 

 to the treasurer seems the consummation of 

 human wisdom, is but bad policy after all. 

 Little is to be gained by penury on or off 

 the stage ; and the manager who labours 

 and expends, to obtain performances of the 

 first class of ability, and to obtain them as 

 often as he can, will be the foremost ere 

 long. 



Covent Garden has produced but one 

 drama, and even that one an adaptation 

 the " Merchant's Wedding ;" a compound 

 of several old plays, and suffering under the 

 native faults of the old school. But the ori- 

 ginal comedians of England, whatever might 

 be then: fooleries, their want of elegance, 

 and their more serious disqualifications, 

 arising from want of decency, were yet a 

 vigorous generation. They had a strong 



grasp of mind, which makes their absurdities 

 at least like the absurdities of no other men. 

 Their characters were impressed with their 

 own vigour ; there was the stamp of nature, 

 and that English nature, upon them in all 

 their members. Even their ribaldry, humi- 

 liating as it was to their taste, and offensive 

 to the more delicate and well-ordered mind, 

 was national, empassioned, and witty. 

 Among their performances, now become ob- 

 solete by the change of men and manners, 

 there are incomparable scenes, and frag- 

 ments of scenes, that none can read but with 

 wonder at the naked intellectual gladiatorship 

 that they display. Those scenes, compiled and 

 skilfully wrought together by a more intelli- 

 gible plot than our forefathers loved, might 

 make many a fine drama still. But this 

 dove-tailing demands adroitness, and more 

 than adroitness it demands the power of a 

 dramatist ; and the desperate question left 

 to us is how many men in England, or in 

 Europe, at this day, have any faculty worth 

 honouring with the name ? 



Bijt, in the mean time, we would not be 



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