The Merchant of Bruges; or, The Beggars’ Bush, altered from Beaumont and Fletcher, was brought out at Drury-Lane on Thursday, with great preparation, applause, and effect. Contrary, we believe, to Green-room expectation, it answered completely. This, assuredly, is not a classical drama; but the spirit of poetry constantly peeps out from beneath the rags, and patches, and miserable disguise, in which it is clothed. Where the eye was most offended by the want of costume, songs and music came to its relief. The airs selected by Mr. T. Cooke were admirably adapted to the situations, and we need not remind the critical reader, that the lyrical effusions in Beaumont and Fletcher are master-pieces in their kind. They are exactly fitted to be either ‘said or sung’ under the green-wood tree. One or two of these were sung separately, with a good deal of sweetness and characteristic naiveté, by Miss L. Kelly, who is one of the supposed beggars, but a princess in disguise. Either we mistook certain significant intimations, or she wished to make this appear before the proper time. One of the oddest transformations in the Beggars’ Bush, was, that it inspired Mr. Holland with no small degree of animation and fancy; for he depicted the worthy Clause, who is at the same time the King of the Beggars, the Father of the Merchant of Bruges, and the old Earl of Flanders, inimitably well.
Again, Mr. Oxberry and Harley were most respectable Beggars, and had their cues perfect (which was more than Mr. Pope had in the prologue); Mr. Kean topped his part as the Merchant-Earl, Mr. Munden was not far behind him as the drunken Burgo-master, and Mr. S. Penley, Mr. Rae, and Mr. Raymond, served to fill the stage. The scenes from which this play derived its interest, and which both for sentiment and situation were admirable, are those in which Mr. Kean vindicates his character as a Merchant and his love for Gertrude against the arrogant assumptions of her uncle (Raymond), and disarms the latter in the fight. His retort upon the noble baron, who accuses him of being a barterer of pepper and sugar, ‘that every petty lord lived upon his rents or the sale of his beves, his poultry, his milk and his butter,’ made a forcible appeal to John Bull, nor did the manner in which Munden, who is bottle-holder on the occasion, vociferated, ‘Don’t forget butter,’ take away from the effect. The whole of this scene is (if not in the best) in the most peculiar and striking manner of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is the very petulance of youthful ardour and aspiring self-opinion, defying and taunting the frigid prejudices of age and custom. If Mr. Kean’s voice failed him, his expression and his action did full justice to the heroic spirit and magnanimity of conception of the poet, where he says to his mistress, after depriving his antagonist of his sword, ‘Within these arms thou art safe as in a wall of brass,’ and again, folding her to his breast, exclaims, ‘Come, kiss me, love,’ and afterwards rising in his extravagant importunity, ‘Come, say before all these, say that thou lov’st me.’ We do not think any of the German dramatic paradoxes come up to this in spirit, and in acting as it were up to the feeling of the moment, irritated by a triumph over long-established and insolent pretension. The scene between Mr. Kean and Gertrude (Mrs. Horn), where he is in a manner distracted between his losses and his love, had great force and feeling. We have seen him do much the same thing before. There is a very fine pulsation in the veins of his forehead on these occasions, an expression of nature which we do not remember in any other actor. One of the last scenes, in which Clause brings in the money-bags to the creditors, and Kean bends forward pointing to them, and Munden after him, repeating the same attitude, but caricaturing it, was a perfect coup-de-théatre. The last scene rather disappointed our expectations; but the whole together went off admirably, and every one went away satisfied.
The story of the Merchant of Bruges is founded on the usurped authority of Woolmar, as Earl of Flanders, to the exclusion of Gerald, the rightful heir, and his infant son Floris; the latter of whom, on his father being driven out by the usurper, has been placed with a rich merchant of Bruges; whilst the father, with his infant daughter, takes refuge among a band of Beggars, whose principal resort is in a wood near the town of Bruges. Young Floris is brought up by the merchant as his own son; and on the death of his protector, whom he considers as his real father, succeeds to his property, and becomes the principal merchant in Bruges. Gerald, in the mean time, is elected King of the Beggars; and, by the influence which his authority gives him over the fraternity, he is enabled to assist his son with a large sum of money at a time when he is on the verge of bankruptcy, owing to the non-arrival of several vessels richly laden, and which are detained by contrary winds. This circumstance gives the supposed Beggar considerable influence over the actions of his son, who declares himself ready to pay him the duties of a son, without being at all suspicious that it is indeed his real parent whom he is thus obeying; and Gerald, determining to reveal to his son the mystery of his birth, appoints an interview with him at midnight, near the Beggar’s Bush, in the Forest. In the mean time Woolmar, having learnt that Gerald and Floris, whom he supposes dead, are still living, and that Gerald is concealed amongst the Beggars, goes with a troop of horse at midnight to the Beggar’s Bush, for the purpose of surprising him. His plan is, however, circumvented by Hubert, a nobleman at the court of Woolmar, but who is secretly attached to the right heir. Hubert conveys intelligence of the intended attempt of Woolmar to Gerald, and a strong band of the Beggars are armed, and set in readiness to seize him on his entering a particular part of the forest, to which he is enticed by Hubert, under pretence of leading him to the spot where Gerald is concealed. Here they arrive just at the time Floris, by appointment, meets his father Gerald. Woolmar falls into the trap prepared for him, and is, with his principal confidant, Hemskirk, secured. An explanation takes place, and Gerald resigning his pretensions to his son, Floris, the Merchant is restored to the possession of the earldom of Flanders, and Woolmar, the usurping Earl, is banished for life.
SMILES AND TEARS
The Examiner.
December 24, 1815.
A new piece in five acts, called Smiles and Tears; or the Widow’s Stratagem, has been produced, with very considerable success, at Covent-Garden Theatre. The Dramatis Personæ are:
| Mr. Fitzharding | Mr. Young. |
| Sir Henry Chomley | Mr. C. Kemble. |
| Colonel O’Donolan | Mr. Jones. |
| Mr. Stanley | Mr. Fawcett. |
| Mr. Delaval | Mr. Abbott. |
| Lady Emily | Mrs. C. Kemble. |
| Mrs. Belmore | Mrs. Faucit. |
| Miss Fitzharding | Miss Foote. |
The plot is as follows: Lady Emily, a young widow supposed to possess every amiable quality of body and mind, has for her intimate friend Mrs. Belmore, who is also a widow, and engaged in a law-suit with Sir Henry Chomley, by which she is likely to lose her whole fortune. Sir Henry has by chance met Lady Emily at a masquerade, where he has become deeply enamoured of her figure, wit, and vivacity, without having ever seen her face; and having at length obtained information who she is, and where she resides, writes to her, soliciting an interview, and declaring the impression which her person and conversation had made on his heart. Lady Emily being herself sincerely attached to Colonel O’Donolan, determines to convert the passion of Sir Henry to the advantage of her friend Mrs. Belmore; and as they have never seen each other, to introduce Mrs. Belmore to Sir Henry as Lady Emily: but, aware that Mrs. Belmore will not receive Sir Henry’s addresses, whom she regards as her enemy, on account of the law-suit between them, she writes to Sir Henry that she will admit his visits, but that it must, for particular reasons, be under the assumed name of Grenville; and as Mr. Grenville, she prevails on Mrs. Belmore to receive him in the name of Lady Emily, assigning as her reason for this request, her fear of seeing him herself, lest the Colonel’s jealousy should be excited. Several interviews take place between Sir Henry and Mrs. Belmore, who conceive so warm an attachment for each other, under their assumed characters, that when the widow’s stratagem is discovered, they gladly agree to put an end to their law-suit by a matrimonial union. The other, and the most afflicting part of the plot, turns on a stratagem conceived by Lady Emily (who it must be allowed is fruitful in stratagems), to restore Fitzharding to his reason, and his daughter to his affections, both of which had been lost by the dishonourable conduct of Delaval, who had first seduced, and then deserted the lovely and unsuspecting Cicely Fitzharding.
All that is particularly good in this play arises from the mistakes and surprises produced by the double confusion of the names of the principal characters concerned in the Widow’s Stratagem. The scene between Charles Kemble and Jones, when the former acquaints him with his success with the supposed Lady Emily, and in which Jones testifies a resentment against his rival as violent as it is in reality groundless, was in the true spirit of comedy. Jones’s scene with the Widow Belmore (Mrs. Faucit), in which the mystery is cleared up to him, is also conceived and executed with great spirit and effect. The character which Jones represents, an Irish Colonel, is one of the most misplaced and absurd we remember to have seen, and the only excuse for whose blunders, rudeness, officiousness, and want of common sense, is (as far as we could learn), that he is a countryman of Lord Wellington. This is but an indifferent compliment to his Grace, and perhaps no great one to Colonel O’Donolan. There were two direct clap-traps aimed directly at the Duke’s popularity, which did not take. The truth, we suspect, is, that his Lordship is not very popular at present in either of his two great characters, as liberator of Ferdinand VII. or as keeper of Louis XVIII. Charles Kemble played the part of Sir Henry Chomley with that gentlemanly ease, gaiety, and good nature, which always gain him the entire favour of the audience in such characters. He indeed did as much for this play as if it had been his own. Mrs. Faucit played Mrs. Belmore exceedingly well. There was something that reminded us of a jointure and a view to a second match in her whole look and air. We cannot speak a word of praise of Mrs. C. Kemble’s Lady Emily. Neither her person nor her manner at all suited the character, nor the description of it which is several times interlarded in the dialogue. Her walk is not the fine lady; she is nearly the worst actress we ever saw in the artificial mimmine-pimmine style of Miss Farren. We hope she will discontinue such characters, and return to nature; or she will make us forget her Lucy Lockitt, or what we should hope never to forget, her acting in Julio in Deaf and Dumb.