‘With rough strife,

Thorough the iron gates of life.’

We do not think the flutter of hope, the sparkle of joy, in the young or old adventurers, on these occasions of mirth and licence, would be complete, were it not for the sense of general restraint and privation which precedes them, and makes the release from the dead pause, the involuntary self-denial of the past week, a more precious achievement to all parties concerned. At least, this inference is pretty plainly discernible in the smiling looks and uneasy delight of the truant visitors in the boxes, and the noise and uproar of the overflowing galleries. To those who object to the disorderly interruptions of the latter, and consider the being present at an Easter-play as vulgar on that account, it may be proper to observe that there is no part of an audience so quiet and attentive as the galleries after the curtain once draws up, if it is not the fault of the actors or the author, who do not make themselves heard or understood so far; and again, we conceive it might be of service to dramatic writers sometimes to hazard their persons or compromise their dignity in the gallery, to see what impression their scenes make on hearts fresh from nature’s mint, instead of stationing themselves in the dress-boxes, to overhear polite whispers, or moulding their features in the glass of newspaper criticism the next day. The tears shed in silence by these untutored spectators, the breath held in, the convulsive sob, the eager gaze, the glance of delight, would afford better hints and lessons how to revive the spirit and the pathos of the primitive stage, than any instructions derived from drivelling Jerdan or from ranting Croly—nay, than from our own columns, the only ones, as modest Mr. Blackwood would say, worthy of the least attention in such matters. As to the players themselves, we do not know how Passion-week sits upon them. One would think it would be welcome to them as a break in the routine of business, as a pause in the wear-and-tear of life: but there is no saying. For they are so ‘stretched upon the rack of ecstasy,’ that almost any respite from it may be scarcely endurable. The public eye, the public voice, becomes a part of a man’s self, which he can hardly do without, even for an instant. The player out of his part is like the dram-drinker without his dram, the snuff-taker without his box. What organ is so sensitive as that of vanity? What thirst so insatiable, so incessant, as that of praise? The meagre days of Lent, one would argue previously, would be ‘gaudy-days’ to his Majesty’s servants, the drudges of public recreation,—snatched from the town, and given to retirement and oblivion,—brief interval to allay the feverish irritation of popular applause, to soothe the smart of mortification and disappointment. But no! the successful candidate thinks every moment lost in which he is robbed of the need of admiration; the unsuccessful is impatient to retrieve some error, to convince the public of theirs:—the hopeless performer thinks it better to be hissed than not noticed at all. Even the scene-shifters and candle-snuffers (to talk in the old style) fancy themselves, in a full house and busy night, persons of importance; and when left to themselves, must feel like fish out of water:—nothing else but the want of the customary excitement could probably enable actors to repeat their parts night after night: they stagger through them like drunken men. Many of the most fortunate seem uneasy, listless, and dissatisfied, when off the stage, because they do not see a thousand faces beaming with delight, because they do not hear at every step the shouts of Gods and men. Why do they not resort to Bartholomew-fair, where they may act every half-hour during the day, and not get a wink of sleep at night for the noise of cymbals and rattles? This is as if a man could never be easy unless he saw his person reflected in a thousand mirrors, or heard every word he utters repeated by a hundred echoes. Contempt, poverty, pain, want, and ‘all the natural ills that flesh is heir to,’ are preferable to this attainment of all that can be desired, and the craving after more. The lady in Love’s Labour Lost condemns her lover Biron, for his excess of levity, ‘to jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.’ For ourselves, we would impose it as a useful penance on those who are spoiled by the admiration of friends, to take the stage to the Land’s End, and return by themselves, so as to breathe for a few days out of the atmosphere of habitual adulation; and as to actors (who are anything more than walking gentlemen) we think they should be bound over never to sing a song, or tell a story in private. Their theatrical pulse is already at a hundred, without shining in company. Those who have nothing to say but ‘what is set down for them,’ stand the best chance for repose and moderation, and are also likely to make the best actors. An actor has not to study his own part, but somebody else’s, as a painter should not be taken up with himself, but his sitters.

The account of the death of the late Mr. Conway, the actor, came this week—a week of dole. It was melancholy enough, and must have occasioned regret to some who had at any time commented freely on his acting. Yet the original cause of it was not his fault, nor that of the critics—but rather of those who pushed him forward to run the gauntlet of public opinion, and attract a little momentary wonder and curiosity, without his being prepared to stand the trial, or meet the consequences. Popular favourites are too much like the innocent victims of superstition, led out, garlanded with flowers, to slaughter and to sacrifice. This was, we think, the case with Mr. Conway. He was a man of fine personal appearance, of modesty, and merit; but his more than usual height, and the disproportion between the shewiness of his figure and his genius for the drama (though he was by no means devoid of passion or talent) which at first made crowds of idle people run to look at and applaud him, afterwards subjected him to unavoidable, though in one sense (and such he felt it) unjust satire. It cannot be denied that he played Jaffier, for instance, with considerable force and feeling; and had he been of the ordinary stature (which is as necessary on the stage as in a group of statuary) he would have been highly respectable in that and other parts requiring a certain mixture of tenderness and vehemence. As it was, those who had at first extolled him to the skies, now swelled the cry against him; and the honey of adulation was naturally turned into gall and bitterness. Young, enthusiastic, and sincere, he attributed to malice and rooted enmity what was owing to accident, and the caprice and levity of the world, who keep up the sense of self-importance and excitement, by loading their thoughtless favourite with caresses one moment, and treating him with every mark of obloquy the next. Poor Conway was not prepared for this; he thought their admiration of him lasting and invaluable, their desertion wounded him to the quick. He did not know that the town was a hardened jilt, whose fondness or aversion are equally suspicious. He retired from the conflict, but bore with him the sense of ill-treatment which he had not knowingly merited, of disappointed hopes, which only the waters of oblivion could wash out, and which should deter others from encountering the same risk, who are not sure of the victory, or are not armed with fortitude equally proof against the homage or insults of mankind. Mr. Conway in his manners was mild and unaffected, spirited in his conduct, and if not a scholar, was distinguished by a love for reading and study.

CHARLES KEAN

The Examiner.][April 13, 1828.

We went on Monday to see young Mr. Kean in Lovers’ Vows, with the intention of expressing an opinion; but we have nothing to add in the way of criticism to what we have already said. We will however in so delicate a matter venture on two general remarks for our own satisfaction, and we should hope for that of others. The first is, it appears to us clear that Mr. Kean, jun., will never make so great an actor as his father; and if not, he had better rest contented with his father’s fame. The Marquis of Douro does not, we daresay, think of fighting the battle of Waterloo over again: why then should the son of Mr. Kean wish to lay up any hard-earned and doubtful theatrical laurels of his own? The crammed pit of Covent-Garden is his Mount St. Jean: the third act of Othello should be his escutcheon and his hereditary coat-of-arms. A pettifogging, cringing lawyer, a leader of a gang of ruffians, is made a lord, and ennobles a race of ciphers: if this is right, then why should not a man of genius reflect some of his glory on those next to him, and leave the dower of his great name to his immediate posterity? Because the gratitude of the public is insincere, and nobility a mere state-trick. It is not sentiment, but servility, that inclines us to pay respect to a long line of nobles or of princes. Take from the Marquis of Douro his estate of Strathfieldsay, and in a few years he might be in the King’s Bench, and the Times newspaper would not subscribe five pounds to help him out. If Mr. Kean had left a hundred thousand pounds behind him, his son might have sat for a close borough, or have made a ‘vulgar’ Minister of State. We do think there should be some distinctive mark, some ribbon of a Legion of Honour, with the smallest possible reversion of independence, some Tyburn ticket of merit, reserved for the sons of the Muses and the bastards of fortune, to exempt them alike from starving and the office of serving the public (which is much the same thing) for three generations. People talk of birth as necessary to honour and to power: did not the popes, the sons of peasants or of nobody, set their feet upon the necks of monarchs? People talk of the upstart pretensions of authors and men of intellect in modern times: did not the priest (the learned men of their day) come in as the first estate between heaven and the nobles? Why then taunt the flame of genius with being earth-born? It is the dotage of a prejudice to do so. We repeat, the sons of celebrated men are hardly off: the example of their parents (together with necessity) urges them to do something: that very example, from being too near, and almost seeming to save them the trouble of exertion, precludes the possibility of success. Even where the genius might be the same, the imitation and also the habitual idea of doing something extraordinary without knowing what, is prejudicial, if not fatal; and if they wish to turn out anything, they should strike into a path the opposite of what is always before them. Young Kean perhaps would shine as a University-wrangler, or a conveyancer under the bar; and the son of a philosopher should go to court! Again, Mr. Kean is said by his friends to be a promising young actor. We have nothing to say to that; but we will tell him one thing, there is no such person as a promising actor. It is here, as in all similar pursuits, performance or nothing. We do not say no great actor improves, but no actor becomes great by improvement. The sun is seen as soon as it appears above the horizon: there is the same glory round its rising and its setting: so may it always be with the sun of genius, which is the lamp of the world! Garrick fell as it were from the clouds: Mr. Kean’s father rose at once from obscurity. The late Mr. Kemble was the only actor that we remember to have attained to the first rank by gradual advances; and he was sustained in his progress by great stateliness of manner and advantages of person. In general, those who are always improving on themselves, are surpassed by others, and complain that, as they are about to seize the wreath of fame, it is snatched from them by some bolder and more fortunate hand. We do not presume to sit on Mr. Kean’s quantum meruit—we will not—but if he is not likely to become a first-rate actor, his name forbids him to be aught less. If he knows our tone in speaking when we are serious or merely splenetic, he will know that these remarks are dictated by anything but a feeling hostile to him.

A new melo-dramatic entertainment succeeded, called The Dumb Savoyard and his Monkey. The story is in few words, as follows: The Count Maldecini having been condemned to die (we know not why—for these inventions plunge us at once in medias res) his wife accompanied by their little child appears suddenly on the stage with a pardon for him. The ferryman at Ober Wesel, however, refuses to carry her up the river, as the hour is too late; and she is in despair, when the Savoyard, with the assistance of his monkey, undertakes to convey her to the place of destination. They arrive safely at the Falls of the Grenfells, near the salt-mine, in which her husband is confined, when they are attacked by a band of robbers who take a number of valuable ornaments from her, and among the rest the morocco-case, containing her husband’s pardon; but this, at her passionate and distracted entreaty, the chief restores in a fit of generosity, and with an appropriate speech for a German robber. Meantime, the monkey contrives to pick the pardon out of the case, and hide it in a crevice of the rock, on the top of which he sits grinning, the demon of mischief and meddlesomeness. When the Countess arrives at the prison, she accordingly misses what she had built all her hopes upon, but she deceives the jailor and escapes with her husband, also by the aid of the Savoyard and the dextrous Marmozette. They are pursued and overtaken just at the very spot where the precious document had been lost; and as the Count is about to be shot, in conformity to his sentence, which he reads and very sentimentally and loyally approves, the monkey betrays the hiding-place of the pardon, which the frantic Countess eagerly rescues from his grasp, and the whole ends happily. Mrs. W. West played the heroine, and looked forlorn and interesting. Mrs. Barrymore was Pipino, the Dumb Savoyard, and made a very pretty boy. As to the nimble Marmozette (Master Wieland), if it depended on us, we would make him skip. Our old acquaintance Jocko has left a numerous progeny behind him, and we are afraid we shall never see the end of the breed. Why, in the midst of the beautiful and enchanting scenery on the banks of the Rhine (so admirably represented in this piece) must we have an artificial monster staring us in the face like an ugly looking-glass the whole time. We have no patience on this point. We never could bear to see that branch of the species on or off the stage, and would shoot them like the man in Candide, even at a risk of similar consequences. We have no need of a menagerie in a play-house; the money taken at the door on such occasions should be a deodand to the proprietors of Exeter-’Change. We wish the Times, in its gravity, would take up the subject, and with its leaden mace drive these lusus naturæ and nauseous double-entendres from the scene.—We did not recover our equanimity till Miss Foote, as Meggy Macgilpin, and her pretty Highland dress, put us into good humour; and O’Keefe’s song of Twang twang darillo, between Gatty and Russell, scattered every particle of bile in a roar of laughter.

Covent-Garden.

The holiday attraction of the week has been a melodrama called Tuckitomba, said to be founded on a fact which happened in Jamaica fifty years ago. The interest turns on a black sorceress who steals her master’s child out of revenge, on an old pirate (Tuckitomba) who runs away with a mulatto-girl for love, and on the blowing up of the vessel in which they set sail for Africa, by the carelessness of a tailor on board (Blanchard) who sets fire to the powder-magazine with the contents of his tobacco-pipe. There was a great deal of bustle, and a want of interest in this piece. The prominent trait was the acting of Keeley, who is called ‘for shortness’ Goliah. This gentleman really answers to Falstaff’s description of ‘a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.’ He is a shred of comedy; a pocket-Liston. He is great in little parts, and makes an amusing approach to a nonentity.—The Minor Theatres have each had their novelties during the week, and been tolerably successful. The critics are divided on the temper and behaviour of John Bull at this season. Some say he was lumpish and leaden at Drury-Lane on Monday, others, that he was in all his glory at Covent-Garden on the same evening. It is from seeing the confusion and uncertainty that prevail in the most authentic reports that we propose shortly to publish two Examiners a week, to set the town right in these and such-like particulars, and to save them the trouble of consulting the daily papers altogether. As to John’s behaviour, pleased or sulky, drunk or sober, we never could see any difference in it. Where we were, a man stood up on a bench in the pit, and another insisting on his getting down, and on his refusal threatening to call him out the next day, the first made answer—‘Aye, if your master will let you!’—‘Master! what do you mean by that? I have no master: I come and go where I please!’ The women now interfered, and one of them clapped her handkerchief to her husband’s mouth to prevent further disagreeables. All an Englishman’s ideas are modifications of his will; and it is strange that with all his boasted independence and equality, he thinks he has a right to insult every one who is not a better man than himself. The reason is, he has no respect for himself, nor consequently for others, except for some external advantage of wealth or situation; and his ill-humour can only be bribed to keep the peace by his self-interest. ‘Vice to be hated needs but to be seen:‘—we are sure that this at least may be said of ill-manners.