CHAP. XXV.

Enumeration of Cumberland's various plays, produced between 1790 and 1808.-Of these only three deserve to be remembered, the JEW, the WHEEL OF FORTUNE, and FIRST LOVE.Examination of each of these dramas.-SHEVA not skilfully drawn. Mrs. INCHBALD's sagacity. PENRUDDOCK an interesting character.A lesson for married people recommended by Mrs. INCHBALD.-Cumberland's great defect as a dramatic writer stated.-The forwardness of his females.

In enumerating the multifarious literary productions of Cumberland it will not be necessary distinctly to examine each. Many of them have quietly passed into oblivion, and it would be frivolous to drag them from their quiet slumbers in forgetfulness, to subject them to an ordeal which they are not calculated to encounter, and from which no benefit could be derived. This is particularly true of his numerous dramas, few of which now keep possession of the stage, though it must be confessed that many which are now laid by, might be performed with greater advantage to public taste and morals than those can which are occasionally brought forward.

These I have noticed with a degree of minuteness in proportion to what I conceived to be their merits, and according to the degree in which I imagined them to be illustrative of Cumberland's talents. In the great mass of his plays, however, written between the years 1790 and 1808, I know but three that can deserve examination: the Wheel of Fortune, the Jew, and First Love. Of these, the first is frequently performed, the second sometimes, and the last never.

Before I pass to the consideration of thesc dramas, I will enumerate the names of all that he produced between the periods already mentioned.

At the Haymarket theatre was acted the comic opera of Wat Tyler, afterwards altered in consequence of some objections by the Lord Chamberlain, and produced under the name of the Armourer. After this the comedies of the Country Attorney, and the Box Lobby Challenge, and the drama of Don Pedro. For the Box Lobby Challenge a humorous epilogue was written by George Colman.

At Drury-Lane were performed the Jew, the Wheel of Fortune, First Love, the Last of the Family, the Word for Nature, the Dependant, the Eccentric Lover, and the Sailor's Daughter. Also, (in 1808) after the publication of his Memoirs, á comic opera called the Jew of Mogadore, which seemed to be intended as another attempt to awaken kindness and good will towards the in

dividuals of that race. The piece failed, however, and deservedly, for it had neither mirth, wit, nor humour to recommend it. The songs, indeed, were somewhat above the ordinary level of such compositions, but the dullness of the whole hurried it into oblivion.

At Covent-Garden were acted, The Days of Yore, False Impressions, A Hint to Husbands, and Joanna of Montfaucon. This last piece I do not find any where mentioned by Cumberland; probably he did not regard it as his own, being only adapted by him for the stage from one of Kotzebue's dramas. It was acted in 1800, and was published with a prologue and a long preface by Cumberland. In the prologue he alludes to the difficulty of working upon the ideas of another man in the following lines:

The scenes that soon will open to your view,
In their first sketch a foreign author drew;
If merely tracing his inventive thought,
We set translation's servile task at nought,
All who can judge our labour must confess,
Originality had made it less.

The difficulty, indeed, must have been greatly increased to Cumberland, because he was unacquainted with the German language, and had to trust therefore to the imperfect conceptions of another. It was a task, however, unworthy of his talents, and the success of the undertaking was equal to its merits.

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The comedy of the Jew was the first new piece exhibited on the stage of the late Drury-Lane theatre, after it had splendidly risen from that ruin to which it has been recently devoted a second time, and from which it is now a second time likely to emerge. Its chief object is distinctly avowed by Cumberland to have been the benevolent one of rescuing a persecuted race of beings from that hereditary contempt and degradation which had for ages belonged to them; and though I do not believe that the notions of my countrymen have been much softened by this comedy, or by the character of Abraham Abrahams in the Observer, yet every praise must be conceded to the author's intention. He has, at least, made three Jews amiable and interesting, which might be deemed an extraordinary effort, did we not remember that Gay has done as much for a highway-man.

Sheva, however, does not exclusively obtain our regard: he is sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes contemptible. When he relieves the distresses of others with a noble disdain of publicity, nay, with a patient endurance of insults as the consequence, we admire his virtues; but, in making him penurious with all the absurd excesses of a miser, he too often excites our laughter without improving our good will. He is still exhibited with some of the presumed attributes of his race, but charity is given to him to counterbalance their obloquy. Would not Cumberland have done

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better, however, as his intention really was to exalt that people, had he pourtrayed him such as, I believe, he might have found him in society, liberal, hospitable, kind, and generous, with no other difference in his conduct than what a difference of religious faith must produce? To make him a miser was to make him despicable: and to make him a miser only that he might have enough to assist others was to make him unnatural. man thinks much of his fellow creatures who has learned to forget himself, and it is in a communion of interests, pleasures, and feelings that one part, and perhaps the greater part, of virtue's delights consists. He who has persuaded himself that he may starve his servants and his own body, to hoard up money for benevolent uses, will soon discover that what he wants himself others may want, and he will keep his gold untouched. By such conduct, too, he fails in the first duty of every man, that towards himself and to those under him, and how can he suppose it more worthy to befriend the stranger or the profligate than these?

In making Sheva, therefore, a penurious miser, that by such self-denial, he might do more good, Cumberland violated nature; and in endeavouring to astonish by a combination of characters hitherto known to be immiscible, he weakened the effect of that union, (the jew and the philanthropist) which every man must wish to be not only probable but common.