1828.) 
[ 649 4 
MONTHLY THEATRICAL REPORT. 
TuE chief exploit of Drury Lane, during 
the month, has been the production of Mr. 
Knowles’s play of “‘ The Beggar of Bethnal 
Green.”’ It is no pleasure to us to speak of 
the ill success of any man, and it is always 
a matter of regret to speak of the failure of 
an ingenious and industrious writer, who 
must have feelings enough of his own to 
satisfy, at seeing the toil of months undone 
in minutes. 
But even our respect for Mr. Knowles 
_goes far to qualify our regret for his failure. 
He ought not to have produced such a 
Drama as “ The Beggar of Bethnal Green.” 
A writer who had the power of speaking 
the language of our established dramatists, 
ought not to have humiliated himself to the 
vulgar babble of this dull performance. If 
he must be a borrower, he ought to have 
borrowed better ; and, while the hundreds 
and thousands of extinguished plays lay 
before him, if he would but take the trouble 
to dig them from their cemeteries, he 
should not have fixed his affections on a 
subject that no ability could revive: a story 
of the hovel, common-place, tiresome and 
incapable. Under what impulse “ The 
Beggar of Bethnal Green,” vulgarized by 
our street ballads, and intrinsically one of 
the most stupid and foolish attempts at low 
romance, attracted Mr. Knowles’s attention, 
it is difficult to conceive. But we must 
acknowledge, that nothing could have been 
farther from alleviating any of the insipidity 
of the original, than the present mode of its 
transmission to the Drama. The play 
opened with a display of the extravagant 
admiration of three London apprentices for 
the beauty of the Beggar’s daughter, which 
‘succeeded by the appearance of their 
e masters to drive them from the pur- 
suit, which three masters likewise found the 
irresistible nature of her charms, and fell in 
love on the spot, which three again were 
hunted by their wives, jealous of course, and 
_ delivering the general enchantress up to the 
parish beadle, who, in his turn, felt the force 
of Cupid, let drop his official wrath, and 
followed in the train: the matchless 
mendicant following the persuasion of her 
eyes by the persuasion of her voice, an ex- 
periment which was most injudiciously 
urged on that very graceful and popular 
actress, Miss E. Tree, and which for the 
honour of melody, we hope she will be 
advised never to make again. 
_ This specimen of the pleasantries and 
_ probabilities of the play was nearly enough 
for the audience, and disapprobation soon 
began to transpire, gently at first, but intelli- 
gibly. The effect of this intimation on the 
actors was so obvious, that thenceforth it 
might be only fair to discharge the author 
_ of a large portion of his responsibility. In 
the scene in which the dramatic interest 
naturally was to be concentrated, the inter- 
_ M.M. New Series.—Vor..VI. No. 36. 
view of the lovers, one was asleep by the 
author’s will, and the other, the lady, 
seemed to be as completely asleep by her 
own. But in the interval of this somnolency 
on the stage, the audience were fatally 
awoke, and the evidences of their opinion 
were of the most unequivocal order. Mr. 
Mude, to whom, by the ill-omened destiny 
of the piece, the task of explaining the emo- 
tions of the lovers, sleeping and awake, was 
confided, declaimed at such intervals as he 
could, with much more industry than effect, 
and the uproar of the theatre at length put an 
end to one of the most unaccountable scenes 
of loye-making, that was ever presented 
since the invention of slumber. 
Mr. Cooper, then relieved of his passion 
and his age, came forward to propitiate the 
audience, and by his respectful and well 
expressed address, obtained a reprieve for 
the child of his adoption. But the public 
mercy had no more healing effect upon the 
play, than upon other culprits. Scene after 
scene prolonged its existence only to increase 
its sins, and the curtain fell in the midst 
of decided condemnation. Mr. Cooper, on 
his return to announce the next night’s 
performance, certainly rather failed of his 
managerial pledge, which had been, that if 
the audience disapproved of his Beggar, he 
should beg no more at that theatre. After 
standing the helpless mark of every species 
of public opinion, he announced the repeti- 
tion of the fallen drama. But a wiser 
council was held behind the curtain, and 
Bethnal Green no more finds its hero upon 
the stage. 
It gives a curious conception of theatrical 
sagacity, to tell, that this play had been 
actually received at both theatres, honoured 
by the undoubting approbation of the 
arbiters of taste in both, and when with- 
drawn from one theatre on account of some 
financial matters, was welcomed, what is 
moreto the purpose, paid for, by anticipation, 
at the other. Such is the tale. Not that 
we object in the slightest degree to Mr. 
Knowles’s getting as much for his labours 
as he can; nor to the adoption of the per- 
fectly fair custom of securing an author, at 
least in part, against a failure, in which 
others may be alone to blame. But the 
circumstance is curious still, and would lead 
us to think that in some instances the judges 
of stage authorship are too much enamoured 
of the title page, to put themselves to the 
pain of cooling their passion by dipping into 
the work. 
We trust that henceforth Mr. Knowles 
will turn from the treacherous foundation of 
other men’s building, to some substratum of 
his own. He has hitherto laboured wholly 
and. solely upon re-cdification. He has 
never ventured, in his boldest attempts, to go 
beyond the brick and mortar limit of some 
mouldering predecessor. His Virginius, 
40 
