In our first number we made a few observations on this comedy. They were not very favourable to it; and, notwithstanding its great success in representation, we are not at all disposed to retract any of them, because our opinion of the intrinsic value of the piece is not in the least altered. In representation it is all—in the closet nothing. This arises from the conduct of the plot, which indeed constitutes the whole of its merit. In Europe, as in America, the judgment of every critic is at variance with the decision of the multitude upon it, for while at the Lyceum it has been applauded by "the million," it has been lashed by the judicious, in various respectable publications.
The time has been, nor has it long passed by, when that body in the community who decided the fate of every literary performance, far from being contented with effect upon the stage, condemned it, if it were not produced by an adequate cause in nature. To that body the Farrago of Melodrame, written spectacle, and mysterious agency, would have been objects of ridicule or disapprobation, and the just influence of their opinions upon the public would have driven back the German muse with all her paraphernalia of tempests, castles, dungeons, and murderers, to rave on her native ground: except in their proper place (farce or pantomime) they would not have been tolerated. To write only to the passions, to expose human beings to circumstances that cannot in the natural course of life occur, and release them by means which outrage all probability, and to those ends to urge vice and virtue beyond all possible bounds, and fabricate extreme characters such as have rarely or never existed, characters either better than saints, or worse than devils, for the mere purpose of producing horror and astonishment, and hanging up the feelings of the multitude on the tenterhooks of fearful suspense and painful apprehension—to violate all the rules prescribed by nature and experience, and place heroes and heroines in situations so far out of the course of human conduct, that the poet cannot get them out again by rational, feasible means, but is compelled to leave their fate to the guess of the spectators by picturesque grouping and dropping the curtain. What is this but to reverse the very nature of the drama, "Whose end," says its father Shakspeare, "both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the Time his form and pressure."
By such miserable expedients as these, the fascinating effects of the Foundling of the Forest are produced. But in the management of those materials, the author has displayed unparalleled skill. The story in its original outline is certainly interesting, and the plot is not only skilfully developed but artfully contrived as a vehicle for stage effect—for such merely, has the author evidently intended it; his arrangement of the machinery, such as it is, demands warm praise for its perspicuity and just order, and if the alarming and horrific be legitimate objects for a dramatist, Mr. Dimond has succeeded most marvellously.
The sorriest critic, however, knows that horror ought not to be produced on the stage. The boundary that separates terror from horror, is the lawful limit—the line not to be broken—the Rubicon which when the poet passes, he commits treason against the sovereign laws of the drama. The mighty magician of Udolpho, as the author of the pursuits of Literature calls Mrs. Radcliff, with powers almost beyond human, infused into the British public a taste for the horrible which has not yet been palled by the nauseous draughts of it, poured forth by her impotent successors. One would think that, like Macbeth, the novel and play reading world had by this time, supped full of horrors; but not so—every season brings forth a new proof that that taste so far from being extinguished, has grown to an appetite canine and ravenous which devours with indiscriminating greediness the elegant cates of the sumptuous, board and the offal of the shambles; provided only that they have sufficient of the German haut-gout of the marvellous and horrible.
"Plot—plot—plot," says an enlightened British critic, "have been Mr. Dimond's three studies." But what shall be said of the characters. To any one who frequents the theatre, the characters of Longueville, L'Eclair, Gaspard, Rosabelle, and perhaps more, are quite familiar. They are among the worn out slippers of the modern dramatists. The character of Bertrand is a moral novelty on the stage, and not less unnatural than novel. Unnatural, not because he repents with a remorse truly horrible, but because, while filled with that remorse, he submits to be a murderer and a villian rather than violate an oath he had made to perpetrate any crime Longueville should command. This unfortunate wretch is kept in torments through the whole play, and after having by an act of bold and resolute virtue expiated his crimes and brought about the happy catastrophe of the piece, is left to sneak off unrewarded. As to Florian, though obviously intended for the hero of the tale, he is a strange nondescript, in whose language the author has given buffoonery by way of wit, and bombast by way of dignity. The Count De Valmont is a most interesting personage, and so is the countess Eugenia.
Of the acting we can with truth speak more favourably than of the writing. The characters throughout were well supported; but Mr. Wood in De Valmont and Mr. M'Kenzie in Bertrand were so striking and impressive that the critic's attention was chiefly attracted by them. Mr. Wood's performance was exquisitely fine even on the first night, and every repetition disclosed augmented excellence. In the second scene of the second act, where Bertrand prostrates himself before Eugenia, Mr. M'Kenzie presented in his posture of supplication, such a natural yet terrible, picture of the humiliating effects of guilt and consequent remorse, as could not fail to make an awful impression on the most hardened and unfeeling sinner. In Longueville Mr. Warren was, as he always is, correct and respectable, and Mr. Cone made much more of the ticklish part of Florian than we had a right to expect. In L'Eclair Mr. Jefferson was, as he seldom fails to be, diverting: But on a future occasion we propose saying a few words, by way of friendly expostulation with this powerful actor, who, yielding to the baneful itch for gallery applause, is gradually sullying some of the finest talents, once the chastest, too, upon the stage. In his Rosabelle (Mrs. Wilmot) he might see admirable comic powers, and great histrionic skill, which the public applause of years has not yet misled into the vulgar track—"the pitiful ambition of setting on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh" by buffoonery.
Mrs. Wood maintained her long acknowledged claim upon the respect and approbation of her audience, and gained for the lovely sufferer Eugenia, all the sympathy which the author could have hoped to excite. Always highly interesting, one can't tell why—never incorrect or indifferent—often extremely impressive in characters of a serious cast, we think that comedy is her forte. In several parts, some too indeed which verged upon the lower comedy, we have noticed enough to convince us, that by a studious, and as far as might be, exclusive attention to the comic muse, Mrs. W. would soon become one of her most distinguished favourites.
In our next number Mr. Cooper's second series of performances will be attended to—particularly his Orsino, in which it gives us pleasure to observe that we could not discover a fault, but all was uniform excellence. This character we consider as making an era in the history of Mr. Cooper's acting. Alphonso is a tragedy which merits frequent repetition.