1828.] 
C 89 J 
MONTHLY THEATRICAL REPORT. 
THE close of the season at the winter 
theatres has at length arrived, and the world 
are left to find what amusement they can in 
the Haymarket and Lyceum. The season 
has been unusually dull at both the great 
theatres. The companies of both have been 
composed of the best actors that the stage 
possesses in this degenerate age; but the 
general result has proved that actors are but 
the minor ingredients of success. Covent 
Garden in possession of Kean, Young, and 
Charles Kemble, had all that tragedy can 
boast among us; and yet, with the excep- 
tion of some nights of Kean’s engagement, 
in which the unusual combination of the 
whole force of the corps produced strong 
public excitement, the success was by no 
Means adequate to the expenditure. On 
the whole, we fear that the season was an 
uppromising one. The great theatres are 
certainly conducted on a system which no 
excellence of the actors can render produc- 
tive. The outlay is enormous: that of Co- 
vent Garden is scarcely less than £250 
a-night ; and when we consider that it re- 
quires an unusually full house to produce 
£500, and how seldom even a moderately 
full one has occurred, we may at once come 
to the conclusion, and regret the loss that 
must be inevitable—and our regret is sin- 
cere. The exertions of the managers have 
been zealous in every thing that belonged to- 
the theatre. The company has been select 
and able ; the performances have been well 
arranged ; the scenery and equipments ex- 
cellent. “There never was exhibited in Eu- 
rope a stage so free from negligence, or any 
kind of offensive irregularity or deficiency, 
as the English stage of the present day; 
yet the result has been dissatisfaction ; and 
we understand that in Covent Garden the 
old expedient of a change of managers is 
to be tried, as an expedient for a change of 
fortune. We are no panegyrists of Charles 
Kemble, nor are we inclined to publish the 
errors which must arise from the attempt to 
ablest kind. Matthews was drawn from his 
annual and productive labours at the Ly- 
ceum ; Liston was won from his perpetual 
visions of the “ ofiwm cum dignitate,” his 
phantasies about perpetual travel between 
Venice, Vienna, the Caucasus, and Con- 
stantinople; his meditations on houries ; 
pipes seven feet long, and the nurture of a 
beard which was to put Sultan Solyman’s 
to shame ; his pleasant reveries; an eternal 
rumbling in postchaises, and eternal scorch-_ 
ing on the bluest waters of the Mediterra- 
nean, much as they have beguiled himself 
and amused the world of the green-room 
these half dozen years, have been dissolved 
by the potent spell of the manager. This 
freest of the free, among the children of 
Thespis, has suffered himself to be chained 
during the hottest of the hot months, to the 
managerial stool; has played admirably, 
and is, we hope, destined by his cruel fate. 
to be tempted from his natural freedom 
many a year to come, to freeze with the 
winter’s visitation; to be scorched by the 
sun in Leo; to make the worst translations, 
from the worst French palatable, and to 
make pleasantry popular, in defiance of dul- 
ness, methodism, and the dog-days. Jones 
has- exhibited himself to great advantage 
during this season. In mentioning him 
subsequently to Matthews and Liston, we- 
have no idea of placing him a single step, 
below those able performers. But he ap- 
pears constantly, while they, visit us only 
on occasion ; he performs in all things, let 
them be of what merit they may, while they , 
appear only in afew, probably of their own 
choice, in which they have been accustomed 
to exert their powers. But the stage has 
had, for a long period, no actor equal to 
Jones for ready adaptation to all parts, for. 
the animation which he throws into all, even. 
the feeblest ; and for the clearness, dexte- 
rity, and brilliancy of his dialogue. No 
comedy can be efficient in which he has not, 
a prominent part, and no audience can in-, 
volve him in the failure of the drama, be, 
its absurdities all that modern authorship is, 
so perfectly adequate to make them. , 
But the grand defect of the whole system 
_ combine the very different objects of actor 
and manager; but while we take into ac- 
_ count the internal predilection of this ac- 
_ complished performer, for plays, and for 
authors, that conduced to’ this impression on 
the public, we willingly do him the justice 
to say, that his talents have done honour to 
the theatre, and his management will find 
few equals in the grace and urbanity of man- 
ners with which so anxious a charge was 
conducted. It is said that he is going to 
America. We sincerely hope that his ab- 
sence, if he be going, will be of the short- 
est possible duration, and that we shall have 
him among us again, personating what 
none can personate like him—the fine spirit 
of chivalry, of youthful passion, and of he- 
roic beauty. 
The force of Drury Lane was determined 
to comedy, and the company was of the 
M.M. New Series. —Vou.VI. No. 31. 
is the want of able authorship. No excel-_ 
lence of acting can make us endure the, 
eternal repetitions of even the cleverest of. 
our comedies. There is, besides, a period 
which no rank of cleverness can survive, as 
there is a period at which the strongest body . 
of our wine evaporates or turns into vinegar. _ 
The whole race of the comedies, &c., at 
the beginning of the last century, were old 
fifty years ago, and had expired of old age. , 
No attempt at revival was able to keep them 
before the public. A new race then ap- 
peared: the ‘Clandestine Marriage” and. 
the ‘‘ School for Scandal,”’ were at the head. 
of these ; and nothing could be more ad-, 
mirable than the vigorous plot of the one 
N 
