To elucidate and confirm our opinions on this subject, we beg leave to ask, what is that play in which there is such a mass of virtue and simplicity, and such a number of amiable personages, opposed to such a mass of villany, subtlety, fraudful avarice, and sensual vice, as in Pizarro? Not one. The lofty moral sentiments of Rolla, his exquisite feelings and exalted notions as the patriot, the friend, the lover, are unequalled. He exists out of himself, and lives but for others: for his country, his king, his friend, and the dearest object of his love, of whom being bereft by that very friend, he becomes their brother—their protector—devotes his life to death to save the man—escaping that, devotes it again to save their offspring. How much worse, if worse could be, than a satanic soul must that man have, who could be insensible to such a character! Who is there whose heart beats in harmony with heroic virtue and humanity, that would not accept such a death, to have lived such a life? Need we say more then of Pizarro than to contrast him with such a character. The only gleam of light that breaks in upon that black Erebus, his heart, is his conduct to Rolla when the latter throws aside his dagger; and this the poet (Sheridan) has artfully contrived for the purpose of heightening the lustre of such virtue, by showing that even that monster could not be insensible to it.
Let us add that in the true liberal spirit of Christian piety, tolerance and humanity displayed by Las Casas, a popish Spanish priest; in the noble indignation, the inflexible fortitude, and the intrepid patriotism and virtue of Orozimbo; in the valour, the beneficent wisdom, and the, ardent connubial fidelity and affection of the young Alonzo, in the tenderness, the simplicity, the conjugal and maternal virtues of Cora, and in the artless display of vivid patriotism in the old blind man and his boy—there is, exclusive of Rolla’s glorious qualities, a mass of excellence sufficient to make the character of any two plays, and put each out of the reach of competition with any other that we can immediately think of.
Such as we have described are the emotions which are always produced by the play now under consideration, when it happens to be properly represented. Fortunately or unfortunately as it may happen, the play is so constructed that almost every part in it contributes largely, according to its kind, to the interest of the piece. Every person of the oppressed—the Peruvians, even down to the blind man and the little boy, are made by the poet to produce a large share of the general effect. For this reason it is a piece which taxes a manager highly, calling for a variety of excellent talents in the actors. It is not one of those plays which satisfy the mind and from which we come home contented, if two or three characters are well done. The play of Pizarro is a lifeless body when compared with what it ought to be, if all the high Peruvians at least, are not well performed. In the movement of a watch every small wheel and every little rivet is as necessary to the general effect as the mainspring. So Las Casas, Orozimbo, the blind man, and the blind man’s boy, are as necessary not perhaps to the mean progress of the fable (but to that effect, that necromantic influence upon the feelings, that penetrating moral which alone can render a play useful as well as delightful) as is the character of Rolla.
It may appear a singular avowal, yet being truth we will not withhold it, that having witnessed the performance of this play many times in England and America, we have never yet seen it performed to our perfect satisfaction. Kemble was great in Rolla, but the feebleness of his voice was severely felt by the audience in the celebrated speech of the Peruvian to his soldiers. That speech has been the stumbling block of most actors we have seen. Hodgkinson, who in other respects was unexceptionable, rather failed in it. Throughout the whole character, Mr. Wood preserved a very equable tenor of acting. He had neither the rich beauties nor the striking defects of others. He evinced considerable judgment, but at times powers were evidently wanting.
Mr. M‘Kenzie supported Pizarro well, and showed that he possesses abilities to support it better. It appears to us that this gentleman’s physical powers are sometimes subdued by an over-scrupulous chasteness. In his answers to Elvira’s solicitations on behalf of the unhappy Alonzo, he did not, we think, sufficiently mark all the feeling and emotions of the tyrant. Pizarro is stung with jealousy as well as rage; not so much the jealousy of love as of infernal pride; but both rage and jealousy are mastered by triumphant insolence and contempt. The utterance therefore of his laconic decisive sentence, “He dies,” should be marked with a triumphant sneer as well as malice.
Mr. Warren did ample justice to the venerable Las Casas.
Mr. Cone who, though labouring under the disadvantages of a voice radically, and we fear, incurably monotonous, gives promise of being a useful actor, displayed considerable spirit in Alonzo. To the praise of diligence and attention to his business Mr. C. is entitled, and those rarely fail in any department to insure respectability and success. Mr. Cone’s personal appearance is very much in his favour.
The only part in the play on which we can justly bestow unqualified applause was Mr. Jefferson’s Orozimbo. It is seldom that criticism has such a repast, a repast in which there was no fault but that of the poet in making it too short.
Elvira is not one of the characters in which Mrs. Barret appears to advantage.
Had Mrs. Wood the requisite talent of singing, we should have been much pleased with her Cora. Certainly so far as that lady was able to go, we know no person on this stage who could be substituted in her place with advantage to the character. But the omission of Cora’s exquisitely beautiful, wild, and pathetic song, was a great drawback from the effect of the part.