It has been said by a great moral philosopher that fashion supplies the place of reason. On superficial consideration the assertion will appear paradoxical; but there is much truth in it, and much biting satire too, upon the absurdities of the world. Fashion could not supply the place of reason, if reason were not absent; and most irrational and unaccountable indeed are all her ladyship’s ways. Her capriciousness is proverbial, and her agency is generally illustrated by comparison with the most unsteady elements of the physical world. We say “Fashion that fluctuating lady,” alluding to the ebbing and flowing of the tide—and “Fashion that weathercock,” implying that she veers about with every puff of wind. There are some few cases, however, on the other hand, in which she may be compared to a rock, because she stands immovably fixt to her seat; supplying, according to the idea of the philosopher abovementioned, the place of reason, who stands self-exiled forever. It would seem as if fashion never could take repose but in supreme irrationality. There and there alone she is firm. Whoever will take the trouble (or rather the pleasure) to read “Browne’s Vulgar Errors,” will see how much deeper root absurd notions strike in “the brain of this foolish compounded clay man,” than those that belong to sound sense and reason. The insignia of fashion, therefore, may be considered in relation to the human head, as the notification on the door of an empty house, signifying that the family has removed to another tenement. Hence no one of common sense expects any caprice of that lady to be accounted for on rational grounds. There is one of her freaks, however, which we have endeavoured to trace to its source in the wilds of luxuriant absurdity, and have never been able to succeed. Nay, we venture to affirm that if the most sagacious man in America were asked, why it was considered a violation of the laws of fashion for a lady to attend the theatre on the opening night of a season, he would be puzzled for any other reply than that it was permanently fashionable, because it was prodigiously absurd. On the opening of our theatre this season the house was full of MEN. The audience presented one dark tissue of drab and brown, and black and blue woolen drapery, with here and there a solitary exception of cheering female attire. Had there been a heavy fall of snow, the ladies would have been sleighing—had there been a public ball the darkness of the streets would have been broken by multitudes of attractive meteors in muslin, either “hanging on the cheek of night,” or hurried along like gossamer through the air. But fashion has so ordained it: and a good play and after-piece were well represented to a house which, from the little intermixture of the lovely sex, somewhat resembled the auditory of a surgeon’s dissecting theatre.
Mr. Morton’s comedy “A Cure for the Heart Ach,” is by this time so well known that to relate the fable of it here, would be uselessly to encumber the work. Of the quality of this production it would be difficult for criticism to speak candidly, without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present deplorable condition. The body of dramatic writers of the last thirty years first corrupted the public taste, and now thrive by that corruption. By hasty sketches, not of Nature as she appears in all times and places, but of particular and eccentric manners and characters, the excressences of overloaded society, they have made a short cut to the favour of the public, and inundated the stage with a torrent of ephemeral productions, to the depravation of public taste, and in defiance of classical criticism: their highest praise that they do no moral mischief, and that if they possess not the bold outline and faithful colouring of nature which distinguished the productions of their mighty predecessors, they are no less exempt from the obscenity and immoral effects of those authors. As bad writing is infinitely easier than good, the pens of our living dramatic writers in general teem with an inconceivable fertility—and the purlieus of London are beat over in every direction to hunt up game suitable to the genius of their weak-winged muse; in short, to find out new modifications of character, attractive not by its consonance to man’s general nature, but by its eccentricity and departure from the ordinary tracks of human conduct.
Having thus insulated this class of comedies, and put them apart from the old stock, to which, with the exception of the Honey Moon, there is no modern production comparable, criticism may weigh the merits of each piece as compared with its class, and perhaps find something to praise. We consider some of the comedies of Mr. Morton, however, as raised high above the throng. The Cure for the Heart Ach has much in it to commend. The moral tendency of many parts of it is good, while the incidents are exceedingly laughable. Old Rapid continually betraying his trade by stuffing his conversation with the technical terms of the taylor—his son’s distress at it—the honest rusticity of Frank Oatland—the baseness, vanity and folly of Vortex the nabob—the insolence and amorousness of Miss Vortex his daughter, and the whimsical incidents arising from their various designs, mistakes, detections and disappointments, form altogether a melange of pleasantry highly provocative of laughter, yet by no means so low as to reduce the piece to the rank of farce, which some austere critics in London have assigned it.
Of the performance generally, we repeat that it was good. Young Rapid afforded criticism much satisfaction in the person of Mr. Wood, who in many parts persuaded us that he had seen Mr. Lewis in that character, and seen him with profit. Mr. Wood’s walk is not unlike that of the great original in London—a nasal tone of voice too is common to both. These, if they did not create, certainly increased the resemblance between those two gentlemen, which, however remote, was yet discernible. In Sir Hubert Stanley, as in every other character in which we have seen him, Mr. M‘Kenzie deserved warm applause—he was dignified, pathetic and interesting. Mr. Francis gave a strong colouring to Vortex; and to say that Frank Oatland was all that the author could wish, we need only to state that he fell to the share of Mr. Jefferson. After all, we are doubtful whether old Rapid was not as well off in the hands of Mr. Warren as any other character in the play.
We were greatly interested and indeed delighted by Mrs. Wood in Jesse Oatland. Mrs. Francis was abundantly droll in Mrs. Vortex; and Mrs. Seymour was entitled to the marks of approbation she received.
November 22.
Pizarro and the Review composed the bill of fare for this evening. Although in the attack and defence of Pizarro criticism has worn down the edges of its weapons to very dulness, we cannot forbear taking this opportunity of recording our opinions of that extraordinary production.
No play that has appeared during the last century, possesses the power of agitating the passions, and interesting the feelings in an equal degree to Pizarro. From a child of the brain of Kotzebue, trained and corrected by Sheridan, much might be expected. And the piece before us is worthy of the talents of such men.
In any contest between oppressed and oppressors the heart takes in an instant, a decided and a warm part. If the crime of oppression is aggravated by other guilt in the oppressor, and the object of it is rendered more lovely and respectable by the most exalted virtues, pity for the one rises to respect and affection—indignation against the other becomes exasperated to hatred, to abhorrence, and disgust; without the intervention of the will, but merely from the spontaneous movements of the heart, we sympathise, we silently pray for the one—we recoil from, we execrate the other. We are pressed by our very nature into the service of virtue; our souls are up in arms against vice and improbity, and thus we receive lasting impressions, which, when our hearts are not very corrupt, must forever after have a favourable influence on our moral conduct.