1824.] 



Btlly -bands for Ccrpulent Personr. 



27 



tyrdom to wliich her sons were doomed, ral disquisition relative to the present 



and the ejaculation, 



But I would not help it. 

 To see them othenvise, anJ other men, 



ought to have been accompanied with 

 more of that almost supernatural ele- 

 vation of soul and scntimcnl, which 

 occasionally lifted the Roman nialron 

 above the ordinary feelin2,s of huma- 

 nity, than this actress infused into it ; 

 yet was it, upon Ihc whole, a more cor- 

 rect and more etlective piece of actinjj 

 than is frequently witnessed in the 

 present state of the tragic corps of our 

 respective theatres; A ciitical re- 

 mark or two, of the same kind, may 

 perhaps be applied to Mr. Macready's 

 Caius Gracchus. Fine piece of act- 

 ing, upon the whole, as it must be 

 adtvitted to have been, tlierc were 

 parts assuredly where he was not suf- 

 ficiently Roman. The colloquial style 

 of this actor's delivery is altogether, 

 perhaps, (except in familiar passages, 

 and the mere domestic scene,) carried 

 rather too near the verge of common- 

 place conversational negligence ; but 

 surely in the Forum and the Campus 

 Martius, in addressing the senate or 

 the assemblies of the people, it should 

 not be forgotten that the Romans were 

 an oratorical nation ; and the passage, 

 especially, in which Caius vindicates 

 liimself before the censors against the 

 accusations of Opimius, should have 

 reniiudLd us, in some degree, of that 

 dignified lone of oratory by which it is 

 so notorious that the Gracchi were 

 distinguished. Perhaps, also, in the 

 scene towards the latter end of the 

 fourth act, the manner in which he 

 bent beneath the taunting indignities 

 licaped upon him by the consul, had 

 not all those proud struggles of sup- 

 pressed emoxion, — those cyc-flashes of 

 the indignant spirit, — which might be 

 expected from " (hat nobility of com- 

 manding nature" which even Opimius, 

 in previous soliloquy, had ascribed to 

 liim. But, after all possible objections 

 and abatements, the Caius Gracchus 

 of Mr. Maeready must be set down 

 among the very best performances of 

 that popular actor ; and certainly it was 

 not for want of any exertions on his 

 part that the tragedy in (pieslion had 

 so short a run upon the stage. 



If neither the author nor tiic actor 

 be then to blame, how comes it that 

 the tragedy of " Caius (Jracchus" has 

 been so .short-lived ? 'Ibis is a ques- 

 tiojti tiiat would lead into more geue- 



statApf theatrical politics than would 

 be consistent with the necessary limits 

 of the present article. One answer, 

 however, may be made very hrietly : 

 it is a play in which there is but oi},e 

 prominent character. It is not, as ,a 

 tragedy ought to be, a living historical 

 picture; but merely an accompanied 

 historical portrait, a monotonous spe- 

 cies of Roscius vaunting egotism, of 

 which the public appear to be growing, 

 not very unreasonably, somewhat sick. 

 An observation for the illustration of 

 which, as well as of several other qf 

 the causes of the still declining and 

 already degraded state of the serious 

 dram:., there arc strong symptoms of 

 the likeliiiood of other occasions ; 

 which perhaps we may hereafter 

 notice. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Blagazine. 



SIK, 



I BEG leave, through the medium 

 of your Magazine, to ofl'er a few 

 remarks on belly-bands for corpulent 

 persons. It is astonishing that, amid 

 the various inventions for the relief of 

 sufferers, nothing has heretofore ap- 

 peared calculated to an agreeable sup- 

 port of abdominal protuberance, the 

 dependent weight of which, by re- 

 straining the free action of the lungs, 

 so frequently tenders respiration diffi- 

 cult, and the healthful exercise of 

 walking nearly impracticable. A 

 friend of mine had been toilins under 

 a burthen of this kind for some months 

 past ; he could scarcely proceed fifty 

 yards before he experienced violent 

 pain, arising in the back of the neck, 

 and passing over the shoulders in the 

 course of tlie pectoral muscles, with a 

 sense of constriction in the chest, 

 which altogether interrupted his 

 breathing, obliging him to seize on the 

 first means of support that oft'ered, to 

 save himself from falling, while pro- 

 fuse perspiration, in consequence of 

 his exertions, subjected him to the 

 danger of taking cold. 



These attacks were at first attri- 

 buted to various visceral derange- 

 ments, and numerous remedies were 

 taken without ellect. A belt was then 

 reconunended ; but the ordinary one, 

 • — a modification of tin; huntiog-bclt, 

 merely coni|)ressiiig the abdomon, — 

 was found oidy to increase tlu; malady. 

 He was then advised to get one made 

 that \^ ould adapt itself to the convexity 



of 



