Another very interesting person is Sir L—— M——, who was formerly in high favour with the king, then Prince of Wales, and deserves mention, first, because he is a most agreeable Amphitryon and entertains his friends admirably, and secondly, because he is one of the most original of men, and one of the few truly practical philosophers I have ever met with. The prejudices of the many seem for him to have no existence; and nobody could be more difficult to impose on by mere authority, whether on matters of heaven or earth. Although sixty years old, and a martyr to the most unheard-of tortures with which gout and stone can rack an unhappy mortal, no one ever heard a complaint from him; nor is his cheerful, nay merry humour ever saddened by it for a moment. It must be confessed that there are dispositions and temperaments which are worth a hundred thousand a year.
When I was first introduced to him, a short time since, he had just undergone the terrible operation for the stone. The surgeon refused to undertake it, on the ground that the weakness of the patient rendered it too hazardous, but was at length almost compelled by him to perform it. At that time he kept his bed, and looked like a corpse, and at going in I involuntarily made ‘une mine de doléance,’ upon which he instantly interrupted me, and told me to lay aside all grimaces. “What cannot be cured,” said he, “must be endured; and better gaily, that sadly:” for himself, he said, he had certainly abundant cause to laugh at his physicians, who had given him his passport with the utmost certainty at least ten times, but had almost all gone to the d—l before him. “Besides,” said he, “I have enjoyed life as few have, and must now learn the dark side.” In spite of all his pleasures, and all his pains, the gay-hearted man is still in such good preservation, that, since he is about again, with his artist-like peruque, he does not look much above forty, and exhibits a spirited and ‘rayonnante’ physiognomy, whose features must once have been handsome.
December 3rd.
Kemble gave me a high treat this evening as Falstaff. It is certain that even the greatest dramatic poets stand in need of the actor’s aid to bring out their work. I never so fully understood the character of the mad knight; never was it so manifest to me what his outward deportment must have been, as since I saw him new-born in the person of Charles Kemble. His dress and mask were striking indeed, but by no means such a caricature as on our stages. Still less had he the air of a man of low rank and breeding, visibly a mere ‘farceur,’ as Devrient, for instance, represented him in Berlin. Falstaff, although a man of vulgar soul, is still by habit and inclination a practised courtier; and the coarseness which he often assumes in the prince’s company is at least as much intentional acting, employed by him to amuse the Prince (for princes often love vulgarity from its very contrast with the gloomy elevation of their own station,) as to gratify his own humour. Mr. Kemble caught the finest shades of the character; for, although he never lost sight of the natural, invincible humour, the witty presence of mind, and the diverting drollery which made Falstaff such an agreeable companion,—nay, which rendered him almost a necessary of life to those who had once associated with him,—he is quite another man when he appears at Court in the presence of the king and other dignified persons; or when he plays antics with the Prince and his companions; or, lastly, when he is alone with the latter. In the first case, you see a facetious man, somewhat like the Maréchal de Bassompierre, ludicrously fat, but a man of dignified and gentleman-like air; always a joker, it is true, but in a good ‘ton,’ never forgetting the respect due to the place and the presence in which he is. In the second stage, he allows himself to go much further; takes all sorts of coarse freedoms; but ever with observable care to exalt the Prince, and to assume only the privilege of a Court fool, who, apparently, may say all that comes into his head. In the last stage, we see Falstaff in complete ‘negligé,’ after he has thrown off all regard to appearances. Here he wallows delightfully in the mire, like a swine in a ditch; and yet even here he still remains original, and excites more laughter than disgust. This is the supreme art, the last triumph of the poet: he alone can give, even to the most horrid monsters of sin and shame, something like a divine impress; something which awakens our interest and attracts us, even to our own astonishment. This is the high dramatic truth, the creative power of genius, speaking of which Walter Scott so prettily says, “I can only compare Shakspeare with that man in the Arabian Nights, who has the power of passing into any body at pleasure, and imitating its feelings and actions.”
I must here remark, that there is but one character in this immortal poet’s works which always appeared to me ill-drawn and unnatural, nor does any excite less interest in general. This is the king in Hamlet. To mention only one trait, it appears to me quite psycologically false, when the author makes the king kneel down, and then exclaim, “I cannot pray.” The king is never represented as an irreligious man, a subtle sceptic, but merely as a coarse sensual sinner; now we daily see that a man of this cast cannot only pray regularly and zealously, but even pray that his crimes may prosper: like that woman who was found alone in a robber’s cave, after the capture of the gang, on her knees, praying earnestly to heaven that the expedition in which she believed them then engaged might be successful, and that they might return laden with booty.
Nay even public pre-appointed prayers have often no better aim. What examples of this kind does not history afford! No, the sinful king can pray,—the person in this tragedy who cannot, is Hamlet. For it is only the unbelieving; the man who wants to fathom everything; the spiritual chemist who sees one apparently firm substance after another melt away; this man—till he is enabled by the divine influence to construct one,[30] inward and indestructible, (and this point Hamlet has manifestly not reached) this man alone, I say, cannot pray, for the Object fails him. He cannot deny it to himself,—when he prays, he is only acting a part with himself. This is a melancholy process to pass through, and is imputed to unhappy mortals as a crime by those who first place the poor child on the bed of Procrustes, and by that means often render it impossible for the cramped and shortened limbs ever to extend themselves again to their natural length.
But back to the play. It concluded with a melo-drama, in which a large Newfoundland dog really acted admirably; he defended a banner for a long time, pursued the enemy, and afterwards came on the stage wounded, lame, and bleeding, and died in the most masterly manner, with a last wag of the tail that was really full of genius. You would have sworn that the good beast knew at least as well as any of his human companions what he was about.
I left the theatre in such good humour that I won eight rubbers at whist after it at the Club, for luck at play goes with good spirits and confidence.—But good night.
December 4th.
In consequence of the opening of Parliament, society begins to be more lively, though London ‘en gros’ is still empty.