Surely we have a right to expect something better from Oxford than this. The old nurse of learning must bestir herself once more, forswear morphia, and teach her pupils to strike a manlier chord, else men will cease to believe in the ancient magic of her name. What we want is, power, energy, pathos—not mere vapid sentiment, so diligently distilled that scarce a flavour of the original material is left to enable us to discover its origin. If poetry be a copy or a reflex of life, let it show out lifelike and true; if it be the representation of a dream, at all events let us have the vision, as in the mirror of Agrippa, well defined, though around its edges rest the clouds of impenetrable mystery. Above all things, let us have meaning, not vague allegorical phrases—power if not passion—sense if not sublimity. If the classics cannot teach us these, let us go back to the earlier ballads, and see how our fathers wrote without the aid of metaphysical jargon.
Our present purpose is to deal with Scottish writers, and fortunately we have material at hand. Last month we were in London, engaged in divers matters connected with the state of the nation and our own private emolument, which latter pursuit we as seldom as possible neglect. The cares of a railway witness, in which capacity we had the honour to act, are but few. A bountiful table was spread for us, not in the wilderness, but in an excellent hotel in St James's; breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, followed one another with praiseworthy regularity; the matutinal soda-water was only succeeded by the iced hock and champagne of the vespers, and a beneficent Fairy of seventeen stone, in the guise of a Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, was courteous enough not only to defray the whole of the attending expenses, but to furnish us with certain sums of gold, which we disseminated at our own proper pleasure. In return for the attentions of our legal Barmecide, we submitted to ensconce ourselves for a couple of days in a hot room somewhere about the Cloisters, in the course of which sederunt we held an animated conversation with several gentlemen in wigs, for the edification—as we were given to understand—of five other gentlemen in hats, who sat yawning behind a green table. We take this opportunity of tendering our acknowledgments to the eminent and raucous Queen's Counsel who was kind enough to conduct our cross-examination, and who so delicately insinuated his doubts as to the veracity and candour of our replies. As his knowledge of the localities about Braemar—the district then under question—was about equal to his cognizance of the natural history of Kamschatka, we felt the compliment deeply; and should we ever have the pleasure of encountering our beetle-browed acquaintance during a vacation ramble on the skirts of Schehallion, we pledge ourselves that he shall carry back with him to Lincoln's Inn some lasting tokens of our regard. In the mean time we sincerely hope he has recovered from that distressing fit of huskiness which rendered his immediate vicinity by no means a seat of comfort to his solicitor.
As a matter of course, we relieved the monotony of our duties by divers modes of relaxation. Greenwich—in the glory of its whitebait, its undeniable Thames flounders, its dear little ducklings enshrined in their asparagus nest, and its flagons, wherein the cider cup shows sparklingly through the light blue Borage—was not unfrequented by us in the course of the sultry afternoon. At Richmond, likewise, we battened sybaritically; and more than once essayed to resuscitate our appetite, and awake within us the dormant sense of poetry, by a stroll along the breezy heath of Hampstead, preparatory to a dive into the Saracen, where, doubtless, in the days of yore, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt used to make wild work among the eggs and spinach. Our attendance at the theatres, however, was a matter of rarity. We have no fancy to undergo martyrdom by means of a slow stewing, when the sole palm we can win, in exchange for the sudorific pangs, is the enjoyment of some such shabby-genteel comedy as The Beggar on Horseback, or a travestie like that of the Birds of Aristophanes, the only peculiarity of which is its utter want of meaning. As a general rule, we prefer the spectacles on the Surrey side, to those exhibited in the Metropolitan or Westminster districts. There, the nautical drama still flourishes in its pristine force. The old British tar, in ringlets, pumps, and oil-skin castor, still hitches up his trousers with appropriate oath; revolves the unfailing bolus of pigtail in his cheek—swims to shore across a tempestuous sea of canvass, with a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in his teeth, from the wreck of the foundering frigate—and sets foot once more on the British soil, just in time to deliver Pretty Poll of Portsmouth, his affianced bride, (who has a passion for short petticoats and crimson stockings,) from the persecutions of that bebuttoned pirate with the whiskers, who carries more pistols in his girdle than the scalps of an Indian chief, and whose fall, after a terrific combat with basket-hilts and shower of fiery sparkles, brings down the curtain at the close of the third act amidst roars of unmitigated joy. Also we delight to see, at never-failing Astley's, the revived glories of British prowess—Wellington, in the midst of his staff, smiling benignantly upon the facetious pleasantries of a Fitzroy Somerset—Sergeant M'Craw of the Forty-Second, delighting the élite of Brussels by his performance of the reel of Tullochgorum at the Duchess of Richmond's ball—the charge of the Scots Greys—the single combat between Marshal Ney and the infuriated Life-guardsman Shaw—and the final retreat of Napoleon amidst a volley of Roman candles, and the flames of an arseniated Hougomont. Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the shower of saw-dust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the wing, and commanding—with imperious gestures, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment—the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods!—She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm—the deep passion of the huntress sparkles in her lustrous eye! Widdicomb becomes excited—he moves with quicker step around the periphery of his central circle—incessant is the smacking of his whip—not this time directed against Mr Merryman, who at his ease is enjoying a swim upon the saw-dust—and lo! the grooms rush in, six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until, with airy somersets, she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the herculean Master, who—a second Romulus—bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amidst such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been proud to earn!
"So," in the language of Tennyson—
"So we triumph'd, ere our passion sweeping through us left us dry,
Left us with the palsied heart, and left us with the jaundiced eye."
"Dryness," however, according to our creed and practice, is not altogether unappeasable, and by the help of Barclay, Perkins, and Company, we succeeded in mitigating its rage. But we confess to the other miseries of the palsied heart and jaundiced eye, so soon as we were informed by the above-mentioned scribe, that our bill had been thrown out upon committee, and that, if we tarried longer in London, it must be upon our own proper charges. We had been so used for the last twelve months to voyage, and to subsist at the expense of joint-stock companies—so habituated to dine with provisional committees, and to hold sweet supper consultations in the society of salaried surveyors—that a reference to our private resources appeared a matter of serious hardship. However, there was no help for it. Some mean and unreasonable share-holders were already growling about a return of some portion of the deposits, and even, to the infinite disgust of the directors, hinted at a taxation of accounts. The murmurs of these slaves of Mammon broke up our little Eden. The Irish egg-merchant, who had been fed for three weeks upon turtle to induce him to give testimony touching the importation of eerocks—the tollman from Strathspey, who nightly meandered to the Coal-hole, in company with the intoxicated distiller—the three clerks who did the dirty work of the committee-room, and were therefore, with wise precaution, stinted in their allowance of beer—the northern bailie, who stuck strenuously to toddy, and the maritime provost, who affected the vintage of the Rhine—the raw uncouth surveyor from Dingwall, who, guiltless of straps, and rejoicing in a superfluity of rig-and-fur over a pair of monstrous brogues, displayed his native symmetry every afternoon in Regent Street, and reciprocated the gaze of the wondering milliners with a coarse guffaw, and the exhibition of his enormous teeth;—All these worthies vanished from the house in a single day, like spirits at the crowing of the cock, and returned to their native hills in a state of comparative demoralization. For our own part, we packed our portmanteau in gloomy silence, and meditated a speedy retreat to the distant solitudes of Loch Awe.
We were eating, as we thought, our last muffin, when our eye was accidentally caught by an advertisement in the Times, purporting that a new play was to be immediately produced at the Princess's theatre, and that its title was The King of the Commons. A spasm of delight shot through us. We were aware, some time before, that a dear friend, and distinguished fellow-labourer of ours, whose contributions have always been of sweetest savour in the nostrils of fastidious Christopher, had turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and was resolved, for once at least, to launch an experimental shallop upon the stage. Nor did we doubt that this was the enunciation of his attempt. We divined it at once from the subject, so akin to his genius and deep national feelings—we knew the fervour of his love to Scotland, and his earnest desire to illustrate some page of her varied annals—and we resolved accordingly to postpone our departure, and be present at the success or discomfiture of our bold and adventurous brother.
The first night of a new play is always attended with some agreeable excitement. If the author is a known man upon the boards—a veteran of some six comedies, all of which have found their way into the provinces, and are usually selected by the leading Star on the occasion of his or her benefit—the general audiences are desirous to ascertain whether his new effort is equal in point of merit to the rest. The critics, most of whom have failed in their own proper persons, are by no means indisposed to detect the occurrence of blemishes—friends hope that it may succeed, and unsuccessful rivals devoutly trust it may be damned. If the author is unknown, and if no very flagrant efforts have been made to pre-puff his performance, he has at all events the chance of an impartial hearing. Let the play go on smoothly to the middle; let no very glaring absurdities appear; let the actors really exert themselves, and display any thing like interest or talent in their business, and young Sophocles is generally sure of a favourable verdict. Our dear friends, the public, are always well disposed towards a winning man. One cheer elicits another, and applause, once commenced, goes on at a multiplied ratio. No doubt, the case may be reversed, and the sound of a solitary catcall from the pit awake the slumbering serpents, and become the signal for universal sibilation.
The danger is, that an unknown author, unpuffed, may be ruined for want of an audience. We have no great faith in the panacea of free tickets, issued by the lessee for the simple purpose of getting up a house. The worth of a production is usually estimated by its current value, and we doubt if a favourable bias can be produced in the minds of any, by means of gratuitous pasteboard. Puffing, again, often defeats its own object. It creates doubt in the anticipations of some, jealousy in those of others and is also apt to create a prestige which the result may not justify. When we are told, on the authority of newspaper paragraphs, that Bianca Franconi, or the Seven Bloody Poignards of Parma, is to take the town by storm,—that nothing equal to it in merit has been produced since the days of Shakspeare,—that the critic who had the privilege of attending the first rehearsal, emerged from the theatre with his blood in a state of congelation, owing to the sepulchral tones and vehement gestures of Mr Charles Kean, who represents the part of Giacomo degli Assassinazioni, the Demon Host of the Abruzzi;—when we listen to this preliminary flourish of trumpets, we are apt to screw our imaginations a peg too high, and may chance to derive less rapture than we had anticipated from the many scenes of murder which garnish the dénouement of the drama.
A greater virtue than fidelity is not in the celestial catalogue. We should at all times be ready to accompany a friend, either in a triumphal ovation or in a melancholy march to the scaffold,—to place the laurel on his head, or the funereal handkerchief in his hand. It was an exuberance of this feeling which determined us to be present at the first representation of The King of the Commons; and being firmly convinced of the truth of the adage, that there is safety in a multitude of councillors, we sent round the fiery cross to such of our fellow-contributors as were then in London, requesting them to favour us with their company to an early dinner at the Parthenon, as a proper preliminary to the more serious business of the evening.