+ AMATEURS AND ACTORS: A MUSICAL FARCE, En Two Acts, BY RICHARD BRINSLEY PEAKE, ESQ. Author of The Duel, "Master's Rival," &c. PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS, To which are added, A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME,-CAST OF THE CHARACTERS, As performed at the THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON. EMBELLISHED WITH A FINE ENGRAVING, By Mr. BONNER, from a Drawing taken in the Theatre by LONDON: JOHN CUMBERLAND, 6, BRECKNOCK PLACE, REMARKS. FEW subjects have been productive of greater merriment than the shifts, the tricks, and distresses of that itinerant race, known by the name of strolling players. Hogarth has immortalized them on canvass; and Churchill, in one of his bitterest satires, has held them up to everlasting derision. Nor have they been treated with more ceremony in our own times. Hundreds of merry audiences have been sent laughing to their beds, at the exploits of Messrs. Tag and Daggerwood; and those of the profession, who may be honorably distinguished as regulars, have not scrupled to be maliciously funny at the expense of their poorer brethren. And, as the song says, "Having exhausted each theme you can bring, To laugh at themselves they don't grudge." Nor has the economy of the stage-its thunder and lightning -its ghosts and trap-doors-its mysteries and paraphernaliaescaped violation. The theatrical sanctuary, like the sacred rites of the Bona Dea, has been profaned by the unhallowed eye of vulgar curiosity. Every holiday apprentice can discourse learnedly upon thunder-not rumbling, as heretofore, from the mustard bowl-but from a ponderous machine rolling over his head in the one-shilling gallery. Even a flash of lightning is no longer a conundrum; while all the town knows that a hail-storm rages with more or less violence, in proportion as the peas, or swan shot, rattle upon the stage. These are among the many evidences of the march of intellect; but we may be allowed to question the expedience of acquiring so much knowledge. Divest Punch of his mystery, and what is he but rags and wood? All scenic illusion is destroyed by thus prying into details. We are not for telling the secrets of the prison-house, for stripping the dramatic muse, and exhibiting her in buff. We are content to contemplate her beauty, without inquiring how it is produced. We desire not to follow Swift into Chloe's dressing-room, among her false locks and glass eyes. But this is the age of inquiry, and we bid fair to reverse the homely proverb of honest Sancho, that "If all fools wore white caps, we should look like a flock of geese!" Your wiseacres threaten to prove the geese, in the present day. The shifts and distresses, the mystery and machinery, of which we have been speaking, furnish a great portion of the entertainment that is to be found in the very amusing farce of "Amateurs and Actors." Those who are unacquainted with theatrical technicals, will find many of the jokes too recondite; but those who are in the secret, and know the stuff that monsters are made of, will laugh heartily at their whimsicality. Mr. Wing is a poor-devil actor, who imitates humanity most abominably. Like the far-famed "Dragon of Wantley," in whose capacious maw "Houses and churches, Were but geese and turkeys!" he swallows every thing, but digests nothing-charming, by infinite variety, and leaving no department of the drama untouched, or unadorned, by his genius, whether to provoke laughter, or to draw tears; though, like the sportsman, who aimed at a pigeon, but killed a crow, his tragical shots generally bring down roars of laughter. 66 Ranting, tearing; stamping, staring-Libera nos Domine! And now he courts the comic muse, now ogles at Melpomene ;- Macbeth and Lear are quite as queer as King Artipadiades !" Geoffry Muffincap, the charity-boy, is an original, and therefore entitled to all the credit that belongs to so rare a dramatic commodity. But the feelings that he excites are hardly of a pleasurable nature. The representative of a forlorn and destitute race-one of whom it may be said, "The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law,” we regard him as the victim of that unequal distribution of worldly wealth, which those who themselves are in the enjoyment of the good things of this life, piously preach up as a righteous dispensation. He is placed in comic situations; but, like the frogs in the fable, if it be sport to us, it is death to him. His simplicity and archness, which, like the smile and the tear, are often found in each other's company, are well painted; and his lyrical description of his amour, which ended so prematurely in the mash tub, told with humour, and verifies the old saying "The course of true love never did run smooth." The name of Mr. O. P. Bustle is sufficiently indicative of his calling and temperament. He is the type and shadow of all representatives of ubiquitarian majesty, since the days of Thespis. Mrs. Mary Goneril is not the first lady of high pretensions, who has burlesqued Shakspeare,-and probably without intending it. There is much pleasant equivoque in this farce; there are also innumerable puns, generally smart, but occasionally, like the coat of a would-be dandy, brushed and threadbare. We could have wished that more attention had been paid to the dialogue, and that the humour had depended less on such expressions as "Here's a row!" "Here's a sweater!" "My goodness!" and "Gemini cracks !" To the ingenious author, Mr. Richard Brinsley Peake, the public are indebted for much pleasing amusement. Independent of every other merit, he is fairly entitled to the palm of superior industry. Though a very young man, he has produced no fewer than sixteen dramatic pieces, besides furnishing Mr. Mathews with the larger portion of his facetious entertainments, At Home. But as Voltaire once said, "An author can never reach posterity with such a load at his back,”—Mr. Peake would do wisely to cultivate a higher department of the drama, and produce something that should transmit his name with honour to posterity. Put money in thy purse, but don't put it at the expense of reputation. When Goldsmith was once entreated to leave off writing for the stage, and to return to the Muses, his reply was, that by the latter he might starve, but that the former procured him all the luxuries of life. But Goldsmith had already earned an immortality of fame, and could afford to relax. There has been much nonsensical remark about the legitimate drama being at present out of fashion,--and by whom is it made? By the lowest retainers of Grub-street, to whom the legitimate drama is as a sealed book. David Garrick once observed to Colley Cibber, that the old school would never do in his time. Colley, who remembered Garrick's superior-Betterton-dryly answered, "How do you know? You never tried it!" If association has any charms for Mr. Peake, we would conjure him, by the memory of that great man whose name he in part bears, to set his brother dramatists a good example. If the blockheads have neither the wit, nor the industry, to follow it, the advantage will still be on the side of the exemplar, who will then have the drama to himself, (for Bartholomew Fair mummeries are not the drama,) and share "Without co-rival all her dignities- But out upon this half-faced fellowship!" This appeal is more particularly made to Mr. Peake, from his having free access to managerial ears, which, if they partake of the quality of Midas's, preferring the roarings of Pan to the strains of Apollo, are still the caterers for the public taste. As it would be impossible for Mr. Peake to write any thing too bad for managers to accept, we again conjure him, in the name of Sheridan, to prove himself his godson, not by adoption only, but by genius. The character of Bustle afforded Mr. Harley full scope for his vivacity. No one relishes a joke better than Harley, or gives it with greater point and piquancy. Mr. Wrench, in the lack-linen |