1827] 



[ 205 ]- 

 MONTHLY THEATRICAL REVIEW. 





AMONG the memorabilia of the month, 

 has been the return of Kean to Drury Lane. 

 What would our forefathers, those stubborn 

 independents, who went out an hundred years 

 ago, with scrip and staff, to drain the swamps 

 of Pensylvania, or shiver on the banks of 

 the St. Lawrence, have said, if some news- 

 paper, prophetic of the wonders of their chil- 

 dren, had announced, that the freightage of 

 every sloop should have its proportion of the 

 profane, even the men of the drama; that 

 if the good ship contained nothing else, it 

 was as sure to have actors as pickled beef, 

 and that the cargo should be passed through 

 the Custom-house without a rebellion, and 

 distributed through the country, without 

 bringing a pestilence packed up along with it. 

 America will, in spite of fate, and the me- 

 mory of Oliver Cromwell and George Fox, 

 be in course of commerce, a singing, and 

 dancing, and dramatizing country, as by the 

 help of cheap gin, and maple sugar, it has 

 become a drinking and a toothless one. The 

 vices of Europe will clothe savages in silk 

 stockings, and send squaws to the school 

 of copper-coloured D'Equilles. The toma- 

 hawk will degenerate into the foil, and 

 Signor Angelo will " teach the young ideas 

 of the tribes how to shoot." Gymnastics 

 will thicken from Pittsburg to Pensacola : 

 and the bargeman floating down the Mis- 

 sissippi, will be heard cheering his solitary 

 hours, with " Di tanti palpiti;" or some 

 coffee-complexioned sentimentalist, saturated 

 with green tea, and the " Sorrows of Werter," 

 will be seen cultivating melancholy and 

 moonlight in a veranda, to the sound of a 

 triple-action harp, glittering from the ware- 

 house of a transatlantic Erard. Those 

 will be sad doings beyond the Alleghanies ; 

 formidable tidings for the church-yards, 

 where, guiltless of so much as the profane- 

 ness of a head- stone, the forms of the old 

 Republicans sleep, not much stiffer than 

 when they were alive. But the thing is 

 inevitable, and will come to pass, probably 

 before any European reader will have time 

 to get over above half the speech of any 

 American president of the race of Adams. 



Kean's last experiment beyond the Atlantic 

 was better managed than his former. In 

 the original instance, he went out merely to 

 teach the New World what the perfection of 

 actingwas ; he moved forth, bending under his 

 weight of British laurels, merely to show 

 America how he looked in his glory. He tra- 

 velled to play the genius : but his later trip was 

 under other colours. He was driven out to do 

 penance as the exile. The public had set its 

 face against his gross contempt of matters in 

 which the public opinion is still active, and as 

 right as it is active; and Kean's voyage to the 

 colonies was as regularly sentenced, as if 

 Drury Lane had been the Old Bailey, the au- 

 dience any impanelled jury, and the culprit 

 hud been conveyed to the dock by the men 



of the handcuffs, instead of nag-canted round 

 the stage by trumpeter and drummer. 



On all this odious affair too much has 

 been said and unsaid for us to touch it, were 

 the subject even more fitting to be touched. 

 But on the general question of the public 

 right to mulct an actor for personal mis- 

 conduct, what individual in the possession of 

 that quantity of brains, without which a 

 man is not properly qualified to walk the 

 streets, without an escort from St. Luke's, can 

 have the slightest doubt that the right exists 

 in the fullest degree. The public has an 

 interest in the suppression of crime of all 

 kinds. If public disapprobation could reach 

 and suppress the crimes of even the most 

 private society, it would be a benefit so far 

 as the suppression of crime was an advan- 

 tage. And the fear of the public opinion 

 does undoubtedly deter many offences, and 

 particularly those which are most likely to 

 see the light. But in the general case of 

 private life, the advantage of the public 

 supervision would be more than counter- 

 balanced by the evil of the espionage to 

 which it must have recourse. Thus public 

 opinion can be legitimately exercised, only 

 where all espionage is out of the question, 

 and the crime forces itself on the eye. 



The King's Bench Court made no mys- 

 tery of the matter. The crime came before 

 the world in its full proportions ; and if the 

 world would not shut its eyes and ears, it 

 must have known the offence and the offen- 

 der. Men change neither their rights nor 

 their nature by sitting under the roof of a 

 theatre ; and the crime, which under every 

 other roof they would have stigmatized, and 

 the individual whom they would have shun- 

 ned in every other place of assemblage^ is 

 not to pass muster, because the criminal is 

 before them, susceptible of being reached 

 by their contempt, and being taught that 

 offences to public feeling, are perilous to 

 popularity no less than to purse. In these 

 observations, we do not peculiarly allude to 

 the actor on the tapis. His offence is past r 

 and his purgation may be expected to 

 come. But no actor condemned by a court 

 of justice, under the circumstances, should 

 be suffered to believe, that the public are 

 indifferent to the conduct of those who live 

 on its patronage. 



But this supervision is even essential to 

 the respectability of the stage. It is so far 

 from being a severity, that it is a positive 

 boon. The mere evidence that no gross 

 breach of propriety is tolerated by the public, 

 is equivalent to a character of good conduct 

 to all who remain uuaccused. Suppose that 

 swindling or picking pockets were not to be 

 cognizable, provided the artist was proved 

 to belong to the stage. The profession 

 must instantly sink ten thousand fathom 

 deep, and be abandoned by every man ca- 

 pable of honesty, or acquainted with the 



