644 



Monthly Theatrical Report. 



[JUNE, 



level of human life, and tell him that im- 

 prudent monkeys, as well as ministers, may 

 at length fall to rise no more. Braham has 

 had Miss Fanny Ay ton, as a rempla$ante 

 for Mrs. Glossop. We hope he likes her ; 

 for we find our gallantry severely tasked on 

 the subject. The lady is clever in her pe- 

 culiar way : she has some vivacity, and con- 

 siderable skill. But her voice disdains the 

 charm of sweetness ; and, without it, we can 

 recognize no charm in any singer under the 

 sky. 



Macready's return has exhibited him in 

 the same strength of powers, with a more 

 matured judgment But he plays nothing 

 but Virginius. We are ready to acknow- 

 ledge the merits of the play ; but to see it 

 for years together is an actual affliction. We 

 wish the Roman history burned, if it is to 

 be thus our eternal plague ; and we can 

 wish no longevity to Mr. Knowles, if he ever 

 dips his pen in its fierce republicanism again. 

 Is not the world of Italian, French, German, 

 and English annals open to him ? and why 

 must he be merciless enough to add abhor- 

 rence to the old ennui of our school-, 

 books ? 



Some little performances are announced 

 at both theatres, which will probably appear 

 and disappear at the moment while our pages 

 are under the hands of the printer. But the 

 prettiest little affair of this kind that passed 

 before us during the season was an adapta- 

 tion from the French, entitled the " School 

 for Gallantry." The authorship, on this 

 side of the Channel, was given to Jones 

 one of the liveliest and most intelligent ac- 

 tors that the stage possesses. The plot was 

 simple too simple for the national eager- 

 ness for perpetual bustle. A Prussian colo- 

 nel of cavalry, under arrest for some act of 

 intrepidity beyond orders, meets a cornet of 

 another regiment in the prison, whom he 

 invites to share his supper. The cornet, in 

 the course of the dialogue, acknowledges 

 himself to have fallen in love with a beauty 

 at a ball. The colonel laughs at him, and 

 gives him a " system of gallantry." 



The colonel's wife has followed him to 

 the prison, and, being mistaken at a distance 

 by her husband for a stranger, finds herself 

 .invited to a meeting by the gay colonel. 

 She is indignant, and, with the intention of 

 .upbraiding him, answers his billet, and ap- 

 points the meeting for midnight. The cor- 

 net finds her note, and, conceiving the writer 

 to be the object of his own passion, labours 

 to manoeuvre the colonel out of the room. 

 The colonel goes, and awaits the assignation 

 on the terrace. In the mean time, the lady 

 enters ; the room is dark ; she conceives the 

 .cornet to be her husband, and listens to his 

 love-making with a complacency which sur- 

 prises and delights the timid lover. He 

 forces a ring from her finger. The colonel, 

 impatient of the delay, and pelted by a storm, 

 at last comes in : the lady flies. The cor- 

 .net boasts of his interview, as a specimen 



of his advance in the "School of Gallantry," 

 and shews the ring to his teacher. The 

 colonel opens it, and sees his own name and 

 his wife's in it. It is her wedding ring. He 

 is outrageous. The cornet protests his inno- 

 cence of the relationship ; the wife rushes in, 

 and is horrified at the thought of her having 

 listened to the cornet. The colonel, con- 

 scious of the assignation, dares make no re- 

 proach ; and the three parties, each having 

 something to forget, resolve to forgive. 



The French are fond of these minute 

 developments ; but they are too gossamery 

 for the English taste. We are a people of 

 reality. We cannot conceive the idea of a 

 man's being glad or sorry for every thing or 

 nothing in the world, taking trouble for a 

 motive in the winds, or being perplexed to 

 the last extremity by an entanglement, 

 through which a child might make his way. 

 We have but little sympathy for voluntary 

 blindness and misery that can medicine it- 

 self. But of these things our gay neigh- 

 bours are fond ; and, in the excess of their 

 animal spirits, love, as young Arthur says, 

 to be " sad as night for very wantonness." 

 The little play was found improbable, and 

 too long for an improbability ; and, on the 

 third night, it passed away into that region 

 where the plans of discarded statesmen, the 

 passions of past lovers, and the intellects of 

 aldermen are presumed to reside. 



The King's theatre has been going on 

 from triumph to triumph. Pasta is singing 

 at the rate of hundreds a week, and Sontag 

 of hundreds a night. Madame Pimporini 

 is coming in a chaise and four over the Alps, 

 to catch the noblesse before they can escape 

 with their purses, and help the grand con- 

 spiracy for carrying off the circulating me- 

 dium of England ; and Signor Ganderello, 

 who unites the vigour of Veluti, the ele- 

 gance of Porto, and the dignity of De 

 Begnis, with virtues and majesties that be- 

 long to no mortal but himself, is coming to 

 exhilarate and enchant the peerage down to 

 their last shilling. We are sick of the sub- 

 ject. If these foreigners actually give plea- 

 sure to ear or eye, let them be paid for the 

 indulgence. But when we know that, of all 

 the dull things that ever tasked the patience 

 of man, an Italian Opera is the dullest ; 

 when we see the fact acknowledged, in the 

 interminable yawnings of every soul in the 

 house the boxes not excepted, in which 

 fashion sits with its back to the stage, babble 

 goes on from end to end of the night, and, 

 but for flirtation, the whole titled multi- 

 tude dandies, dowagers, and all would 

 die in layers on the spot, what defence can 

 be made for this vulgar foolery ? And vul- 

 gar it is, though it were the foolery of 

 princes for the miserable heartlessness that 

 thus flings away money and for the thank- 

 less and idle spirit of patronage that pam- 

 pers such people as flourish, and defy the 

 decency of English morals, on this fashion- 

 able stage. 



