1827.] 



[ 321 ] 



MONTHLY THEATRICAL REVIEW. 



COMPETITION is good in all things; and 

 the rivalry of the two great theatres has 

 stirred them up to more activity than we have 

 seen for some years. A farce from the 

 French, a revival from some obsolete writer 

 among ourselves, and a melodrame from 

 Heaven knows where, were the usual spring 

 regimen of a London audience. Times are, 

 however, altered ; and we may congratulate 

 the town on the transatlantic vigour which 

 lias roused up the diligence of Covent Garden. 

 Morton's play still continues in the land of 

 the living, has passed its twentieth night a 

 rare longevity for merriment five acts long; 

 and due perhaps to a little skill in theatrical 

 doctorship. But, let the cause be what it 

 will, we are glad of it for the sake of the in- 

 genious, dexterous, and pleasant writer. We 

 hope to see Morton stimulated by this suc- 

 cess, and that he will give us another Sir 

 Abel Handy and his family before he quits ' 

 the pen, and draws on the treasury of his 

 good-humour no more. 



Mr.Peake, who is rising in reputation, has 

 produced an amusing farce, " The 100 

 Note," founded on the adventures of Mr. 

 James Bradshaw in chase of Miss Tree, arid 

 a little from the French a sin, now so regu- 

 larly practised, as to have become perfectly 

 venial, and therefore not recorded with any 

 hope of putting the author to the blush. The 

 adventure was natural enough, and yet suffi- 

 ciently eccentric for the artist's purpose ; and 

 however Mr. James Bradshaw may relish this 

 public remembrance of his flame, or his 

 bride hear the history of the hundred pounds 

 with which he tried to win his tardy way, 

 the public have had their laugh ; and Mr. 

 Peake, we may suppose, has felt his genius 

 plumed for a new flight into the world of 

 ridicule. 



When we talked of venial plunder, we li- 

 mited ourselves to the foreign stage. There 

 the spoil is from the Egyptians they can af- 

 ford it the thing is prolific; and, whatever 

 might have been thought once about the 

 want of invention which sends men to ex- 

 plore the highways of the continent, pen in 

 hand the art is now perfectly common; is 

 rather to a man's credit, as it implies at once 

 the being able to read French, and to steal 

 dexterously ; and has become even gentle- 

 man-like, if b*ing adopted by all gentlemen 

 who contemplate the honours of farce, can 

 raise it into such distinction. 



But we rather dislike tricking- ; if we 

 might venture on any opinion on this delicate 

 subject, in this delicate age of stock -jobbing, 

 mining companies, and the glories of Greek 

 speculations. It is also not pleasant to us 

 to be reminded that we are sinking into' that 

 time of life when gentlemen are presumed 

 to lose their memories, nnd the act of yes- 

 terday is forgotten before to-morrow. Xor 

 is it altogether grateful to our feelings of the 

 honour duefrom authors to the muse, to see an 

 experienced and well characteredjserson of 



M.M. New Series. -i- VOL. III. No. 15. 



the profession, forced to mount the pillory of 

 all the newspapers, and after a persevering 

 pelting, compelled to a tardy acknowledg- 

 ment of trespass. Yet all this has been 

 inflicted on the feelings of mankind, in the 

 shape of the piece of dexterity, " English- 

 men in India, an Opera." This performance 

 was brought forward, after long preparation, 

 by a concealed author; was to produce a 

 prodigious sensation, and, as those in the 

 secret whispered, such was the manager's 

 rapture, that he had gone the generous and 

 unparalleled length of paying for it before-, 

 hand." The Opera appeared. It was 

 pleasant enough, had some very good scenes, 

 mingled with some which were very suffi- 

 cient foils to them. The music was of that 

 kind, which Bishop, a man who looks with 

 an uncommonly predictive eye through 

 the columns of modern authorship, appro- 

 priates to the short-lived ; it was light, plea- 

 sant, transitory; and, if it could not give 

 immortality to either the composer or the 

 piece, yet did credit to both. The acting 

 was as good as the dialogue could possibly 

 sustain. Miss Kelly was all animation, and 

 shewed a power of pleasant mimicry, which 

 we suppose is inherent in the profession, but 

 which this cleverest of all soubrettes, flirts, 

 and boarding-school misses, had not condes- 

 cended to exhibit before. Mrs. Davidson was 

 vulgarly fashionable and fashionably vulgar 

 to the life. Dowton, the perfection of rich 

 yet easy acting, as he always is ; and Har 

 ley, animated, grotesque, and laughable as 

 ever, was tailor turned gentleman. Gattie's 

 Frenchman had but one fault, but that was 

 large enough to hide all others. His broken 

 French is so completely mumbled into jar- 

 gon, that he might as well have been playing 

 on the Boulevards, or have been spouting 

 Ethiopic. Every syllable is lost to the 

 audience, and the dialogue is restricted to 

 the interval between the actor's mouth and 

 Dote. 



" Englishmen in India" prospered in the 

 smiles of the morning critics, with whom 

 a rather vigorous canvass is supposed ge- 

 nerally to take place on those occasions, 

 and the amateur world was congratulated on 

 the turning up of a new writer, whose jests 

 were not the palpable evisceration of Joe 

 Miller ; and whose plot, persons, and dia- 

 logue, were not the open burglary of the 

 Paris Diligence. Suddenly, however, a light 

 broke in upon the world. A paragraph 

 shewed its ominous face in some morning 

 paper, announcing that the new opera was 

 an old opera, written by Cobb, of the India 

 House, some twenty or thirty years ago; 

 and therefore, as being presumed to be fairly 

 out of the memories of the mature, and 

 never in the memories of the young at all, 

 was taken as fair game for some theatrical 

 hunter after the stray geese of our forefathers. 

 The hint set the angry amateurs on the 

 atert, and in a few days after, the public 

 2 T 



