Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

fire-side is the most amiable point of view in which you can possibly see him; and that family connections are preserved with the utmost tenderness and exalted simplicity. This is said to originate in the females of the family, whose domestic dispositions and cheerful arrangements diffuse gladness.

Matrimony is considered in England with old-fashioned notions. Here people pledge their hearts with their hands. Their marriages are often romantic, seldom founded on the mere principles of convenience; for parents do not constrain the wishes of their children, or seek, by authority, to divert their choice. Still elopements, unequal match es, or such as separate the parties for ever from their parents, continually occur. These mischievous freaks of love may, I fear, be attributed to the rage for novelreading, so fashionable with their young females, and so baneful in tendency that the inflamed fancy mocks all dangers, disregards all sacrifices, and, with romantic heroism, bounds over every obstacle to obtain the object of visionary passion.

In novels love is poetically described as capable of removing all differences in rank or fortune; and some of the most distinguish ed families in the kingdom are remarkable for having had daughters who have played the heroine of a favourite novel on the theatre of life.

The infidelity of husbands is less reprehended in England than that of their wives; and the punishment inflicted on the latter for a single transgression is pursued with excessive severity; not by the law, but by the public.

A married woman who has been detected in an act of infidelity, sinks at once into everlasting contempt. No repentance, no atonement, not even time, can remove the fatal stain: her company is considered contagious. Such a criminal, therefore, must either retire to some distant part of the kingdom, or leave her native land for ever; and although the English have been charged with a disregard to their conjugal vows, it is certain such infidelities are less frequent, though, perhaps, more public when they happen than on the continent; and so rigid is the public opinion in England, that Kotzebue's play of The Stranger,' though otherwise admired, is almost forbidden on account of its immoral tendency.

Jealousy is a weakness little known in England; and that which marks the character of other nations is severely satirized here. Wives in no country enjoy greater liberty; and mutual happiness is preserved by a mutual attention, free from ridiculous rhapsody, and a friendship originating in the heart. Indeed, I feel that I may, without exaggeration, assert, that an accomplished Enghish family affords a more chaste picture of content and happiness than any other objects in exist

ence.

Envy, which appears to dis unite men in other countries, is a vice rare in England. Here the merit of the man is more regarded than his rank. Patents of nobi lity give no personal merit to the possessor, and a very leading cha racter in the House of Commons is a brewer, who lives in habits of intimacy with men of rank, ta lents, and fortune. Yet travellers,

who are only guided by appearances, might easily be led to believe that the nobility of England were slaves to their rank. An ostentatious disp ay of the comouet not only glares on their furniture, plate, and carriages, but even the buttons on their servants liveries wear this symbol of greatness. On the decease of a nobleman all bis houses display large escutcheons of his armorial bearings, in a deep black cloth frame, in the front of the building. At the universities all the young nobility are distinguished from the coinmoners by a gold tassel pendent from their caps. At the rooms at Bath a most tedious and scrupulous attention is paid to rank. All which marks of privilege, in some degree, sanction the severity of French satire on the subject. But when we see the nobles mix freely with other classes of society; that high birth, unsupported by personal merit, is universally despised; that their domestic circles are patterns of all that is amiable; and, finally, when we reflect, that those of fensive exterior forms originated in remote ages, and like other aneient customs are rigidly observed, we shall feel disposed to reprobate this ill-founded prejudice.

Many of the English nobility have rendered eminent services to their country; the flourishing state of agriculture, the inland trade, national industry, are chiefly attributable to their exertions; and the names of the dukes of Bridgewater, of Portland, marquis of Lansdown, marquis Cornwallis, and others, would do honour to any country, on the solid basis of individual and innate worth.

In the present age the nobility have also derived an increase of consequence and splendor, by the elevation of characters whose merits are too well remembered to need a record here. The single name of NELSON is ample testimony of this truth.

Every noble family has a place of residence at the west end of the town, but much of their time is passed on their estates in the country. I have before noticed that their town-houses are simple in their exterior. Palaces, perhaps, might excite jealousy in the bosoms of citizens, and interrupt the harmony of mixed society. They therefore live like citizens in town, like princes in the country.

English females of high birth add to the most enchanting graces of an accomplished mind, a pure simplicity of manners which exalts nobility. They are exemplary mothers, warm in the welfare of their country, unassuming in acts of boundless charity.

In their morning rambles they condescendingly visit the humblest cottages for miles round their seats, fearlessly encountering the hideous aspect of misery, and benevolently solicitous to administer relief.

By this description I only mean to draw the interesting outlines of those amiable females who mingle with the noisy groups of the metropolis in obedience to fashion, but indulge the milder feelings of their hearts in sweet retirement; for there are ladies in London insensible to every beauty of nature; who cannot live out of a crowd, and are unable to fill up the vacancy in their minds without the aid of card-tables and public places.

1

OBSERVATIONS on the ACTORS on the ENGLISH STAGE, particularly Mr. KEMBLE, and Mr. COOKE.

[From the same.]

ENGLISH actors aim little at generality in their characters; they seek to establish their reputation in a limited way, without ever taking the trouble to attempt surmounting any difficulties in the wide field of their theatrical career. Even the most eminent among them, Kemble and Cooke, merely appear to have aspired to one point, without stimulating their ambition to a superior object. It certainly is very commendable that an actor should display modesty in giving range to his attempts; but it cannot, at the same time, be denied that scarcely any department in the art can be so limited as not to require the perfection of opposite talents, which nature herself but seldom distributes to her favourites in equal measure. This is, perhaps, never so generally the case in any art as in that of acting. An actor, although his principal forte lies in tragedy, will not, however, totally neglect the comic muse; since he must understand the different ways of expressing the human affections. This does not seem to be sufficiently attended to by English performers of the first eminence. They certainly rise to an extraordinary height in such parts as they are peculiarly adapted to fill; but they generally sink as low in other instances wherein they ought to have subdued an adverse nature. I have particularly observed this at three different representations

of Richard the Third,' a favourite play with the English, at Covent Garden, the Little Theatre in the Hay-Market, and on the Dublin Stage. Cooke performed the part, which is unanimously considered his chef d'œuvre; he even surpasses Kemble. It may be said that this actor has entirely adopted the individuality of Richard the Third, and that he delineates that horrid character with a depth of skill which cannot be surpassed in those scenes where Richard is undisguised; but he seldom represented him faithfully, and sometimes failed where the crookbacked tyrant assumes the mask of dissimulation. This happened particularly in the second scene of the first act, where Richard, by means of sweet flattery, `wins the love of Lady Anne. This is the greatest triumph of Richard's dissimulation, which he himself conceives so astonishing that he exults in his unlooked-for success at the end of the scene. Shakspeare has in this excellent speech furnished Richard with the most eloquent expressions of a glowing romantic love. Richard being deformed, and stained by the blackest crimes, the passion which he delineated in his looks, and every word that he pronounces, must render him amiable in the eyes of Lady Anne. His dissimulation should therefore wear the garb of truth, if the scene, by its improbability, is not intended to offend the spectators. In this Cooke did not by any means reach his part: his voice and gesticulation denoted a palpable hypocrite, whom the most common observer must discover, and against whom every feeling, not totally blunted, must revolt. There was, therefore, a striking contradiction between the

actress does not seem to serve as conductor to English performers.

[ocr errors]

Another restraint from which English performers cannot free themselves is their being too much governed by the public, if I may so express myself. It must be allowed that Kemble and Cooke also here possess great merits; but it is at times observable that they dare not wholly follow the bent of their own genius, and that for moments they abjure truth and nature, in order to produce an effect which the prevailing taste of the public expects. Eng

tone of the actor, and the words of the poet. Instead of courting all the aid of melody to grace his endeavours, Cooke had only one tone, and one mien-the slowlydrawn tone of a hypocrite, and the mien of dissimulation; both contrary to the spirit of the part. But how, it may be asked, could so great a performer thus glaringly violate the truth of acting? This can only be explained in the following manner-Cooke has expanded his astonishingly happy talent of representing the savage and ferocious sides of human nature with a kind of partialitylish actors of the second and third which makes him appear unnatural where he is obliged to become a more gentle human being.

This want of harmony renders it difficult for an actor to represent a character with purity; the difficulty, however, decreases in proportion as the character is drawn feebly. But if a great poet has bestowed on a character the individuality of animated nature, the actor can only be enabled to form a just conception of the character by forgetting his own. An actor will easily succeed in the solution of this problem, which is of all others the most difficult, if his own genius be versatile and harmonious. But if any particular quality has gained an ascendant in his fancy this will involuntarily divert him from nature; and he probably will fail altogether. Even the most eminent of English performers are frequently betrayed into these errors. Garrick strained every effort to counteract this kind of partiality in his pupils; and his great example, perhaps, contributed the most. In tragedy Mrs. Siddons might succeed him, but the elevated genius of this great

class evidently study the character of their part merely with a view to theatrical effect; on which account very few of them do justice to the poet. It must, how ever, be admitted, that they evince a more pure and free enthusiasm in tragedy than in comedy: in the latter they sink much be neath the standard prescribed by the poet; but in tragedy the reverse is the case. The stranger who first sees a comedy acted on the English stage cannot but conceive a very mean opinion of the histrionie accomplishments of English actors; and he will there fore feel an extraordinary surprise on the representation of one of Shakspeare's plays. In comed the English actors frequently take the liberty to parody the charac ters; but in tragedy they show more respect for the author.

Hence, perhaps, it arises that English actors less seldom fail in sustaining a tragic than a comic character. To sustain a character requires chiefly steady, uninterrupted, and poetical in spiration, on the part of the ac tor; if this becomes exhausted, his

acting must lose the colour of truth. But it is at the same time necessary that the actor should know how to govern himself, and that he tune himself to the fun damental tone of the character. He must likewise, if I may so express myself, enter into the temperature of the character; but this requires a thorough study of the part, and refined observation. In this eminent actors shine with the greatest advantage: for performers of mediocrity may surpass expectation in delineating single scenes and particular features; but to sustain a character through out with harmonious uniformity can only be done by an actor who combines genius with study.

The liberties which the English performers take in comedy, with the sanction of the public, completely destroy all harmony of representation. Some comic characters, however, are delineated with great truth and nature by Suett and Fawcett; and in tragedy Kemble and Cooke distinguish themselves highly in this respect. The colouring of individual life which the poet breathes into a character does not appear so strong in the representatious of Kemble, although he understands better how to produce picturesque beauties than Cooke. It has also appeared to me that Cooke dis plays in his acting a higher degree of poetical steadiness than Kemble, who, perhaps, at times fails in sustaining the character; Kemble, as has been previously remarked, sometimes yields to the natural impediments of his feeble organs, and fails in the fundamental tone of the character; but he, on the other hand, displays, comparatively, a much superior degree of delicacy through

out his acting than Cooke; and he succeeds in expressing numerous tender traits in characters with a delicacy and grace which Cooke can never attam. I-am ready to allow that in making these and previous observations on these two distinguished performers, it ought to be consi dered that both have superior merit: but who can refrain from wishing that what is truly excellent might attain perfection?

If we compare the London theatres with the German and French the following will be the result: With respect to perfection in the art, a much greater disproportion exists between tragedy and comedy on the English than on the German and French stages. The French maintain the first rank in comedy; they are followed, although at some distance, by the Germans; and the English are still farther behind. But in tragedy the English, even at this period, when their stage is on the decline, maintain a proud preeminence. Mrs. Siddons stands on a summit that cannot be reached; and no French tragie performer can be compared to Kemble and Cooke. Among the Germans Issland alone may pretend to equal rank; and, indeed, he surpasses them in versatility of powers. Owing to the combined excellence of Mrs. Siddons and her brother Kemble, Macbeth, and some other tragedies are performed in a style no German or French theatre can aspire to rival. In tragedy the English display greater regularity and dignity than the Germans, and they are much more unrestrained by conventional forms than the French. But the Germans and French display a much more cordial and

« AnteriorContinuar »