My anxiety to get in was redoubled at this information. I had known the French well, as I thought, for several years, and I offered to stake my head that nothing ungenerous, inhospitable, or unmanly, would be seen that night in the theatre. Luckily for me, none of the by-standers took me at my word, or I might have been at this moment

"A headless carcase and a nameless thing ;"

my spirit wandering in the Shades, like the fellow encountered there by Dante with his tête under his arm, lighting him along in place of a lantern. But I must not anticipate. To gain entrance was impossible: hundreds were turned away, after manifold efforts of persuasion and force; carriages, filled with fashionably dressed females, retrograded from their stations; powdered old beaux and perfumed young dandies, whiskered Liberals and curled Aristocrats—all were driven back unsatisfied. The house was chuck full.

A thought struck me. I espied a mud-bespattered tatterdemalion, whose vocation I instantly discovered in his phiz, for there was a deepknit frown upon his brow and a comic twist about his mouth, that spoke the varying shades from tragedy to comedy so natural in a scene-shifter's boy. "Him I approached," as Milton says; and I very soon made him understand my desire of being guided to the private door which served as the actors' entrance. Straightway darting through the crowd, he led me by a narrow entrance, and sundry devious passages, down steps of stairs, up others, through subterranean twinings, where hung an occasional solitary lamp, which, were not the quotation rather hackneyed, I should say, but served to "make darkness visible.” At last we emerged into a narrow street at the back of the theatre, and my conductor brought me full plump against the door in whose hospitable reception all my hopes of admission were centered. A very surly Cerbera (if I may be allowed the term) received me she had been worried to distraction by scores of applications such as she anticipated from me, and "Monsieur c'est impossible," was her growling commencement of the negotiation which I should have begun. Being a man of few words, I simply held up a five franc piece. Her honour was touched; she looked daggers at me, and was on the point of slamming the door in my face, when I begged of her to procure me admission to the English manager. "Quoi? à Monsieur Penley?-Sacre! Peste! Quelle idée-et lui sur la scene? Voir Monsieur Penley Diable!!!" "Mr. Penley!" echoed I; "is that the manager's name? And his daughters-are they here?" "Lisez l'affiche," grumbled she. I turned round and saw a play-bill, which I began incontinent to peruse; and there, to my great delight, I read (skipping hastily over the firm of Barton, Fenton, and Co.)

Desdemona, by Miss Rosina Penley.
Emilia, by Miss Penley.

This is good luck, indeed, thought I; and indeed it was so. I took out a card, and looking round me for a trusty messenger, a little fellow with knowing glance, frizzled pate, a comb behind his ear, and a wig under his arm, caught my attention. I had experience enough of stage trick to know the importance of the hair-dresser, and to divine that this was the powdered personage who filled that station at the Theatre de la Porte St. Martin. "C'est bon," thought I, and it was good. He

took my card and my message; sprang from me, darted up the narrow, spiral, precipitous ascent yclept the actor's stairs, and was out of sight in the twinkling of an eye. It would be vain to tell the rush of recollection which I experienced while he was away :-the number of adventures that I ran over in my memory, in about six minutes, of all that had occurred in a space of as many years :-the numerous friends I brought to mind: their scattered destinies and various fortunes. What a rapid casting up of my long account with Time!

I was roused from my reverie by the rustling of silk. A light step came rapidly patting down the stairs. The little door at the bottom flew open; and Desdemona and Emilia both appeared, to answer the summons of their old acquaintance, and bear him aloft between them, maugre the growling, grumbling, and grinning of the she-fury at the door. I was soon on the boards, in the midst of a crowd of persons belonging to the theatre, mixed with a plentiful sprinkling of gensd'armes, and a few strangers like myself. The noise in front was prodigious. I peeped through a hole in the curtain and saw by far the most crowded house I had ever beheld. The cries of disapprobation and the gestures of the shouters seemed all directed against one of the side-boxes; and the name of Martainville was vociferated, with a running accompaniment of abuse and execration that beggars description. This individual so obnoxious to public disapproval is, I was told, the editor of a journal which advocated strongly the cause of the English players, and was, on that account, mixed with political motives, in any thing but odour with the audience. "This augurs ill," thought I, "for Shakspeare and Othello. But never mind. I stake my head, I do, on French urbanity!"

66

Three tremendous thumps, inflicted on the stage by a man with a weapon resembling a paver's mallet, was the signal for the raising of the curtain. Every one around me fled from the stage, and I, carried with the current, was deposited snugly in a most comfortable corner in the side scenes, close to the stage. As the play began, my heart throbbed high. The credit of England and of Shakspeare seemed at stake. But how much more the character of France! On this night's conduct hung all the national claim to pre-eminence in civilization, in courtesy, and candour. The audience soon severed the slender thread by which these pretensions were suspended. The moment the play began, the uproar of the spectators commenced. Interruption, insult, and outrage were volleyed forth. Not a word could be distinguished on the stage; and in the body of the house it was confusion worse confounded." Desdemona at length appeared. "Now, now," cried I, "the interruption is at an end. Now for French gallantry; now for the victory of real politeness over momentary excitement and national prejudice!" And there was an instant's calm; but not the calm of gentle blood or honest shame. The fact was, that the appearance of Rosina Penley, so interesting, so lady-looking, so composed, and yet so resolute withal, struck the observers with astonishment, and produced a brief propriety. "The rabblement hooted, clapped their chopt hands, and uttered a deal of stinking breath ;"-but Coriolanus himself never gave a look of more quiet unconcern upon his ruffian constituents than did the heroine of to-night upon hers. They hearkened; but it was only a momentary gleam of decency. The sweet

tones of the actress's voice were soon drowned in the torrent of brutal interruption; and during the first act every species of base and blackguard indignity was heaped upon the performers,-male and female alike. The second act was a renewal of the pantomime, for not a word could be distinguished. The drinking-scene, when the wine is produced and Cassio fuddled, was received with shouts of laughter. A drunken man in a tragedy! Shades of Racine and Corneille! I confess I made allowance for the violence which this exhibition must have produced on the feelings of a French audience, ignorant of the language and foreign to the manners in which it originated and is explained. But in the midst of all the uproarious turbulence which this drunken bout produced, when Othello entered, and the shocked Cassio shrunk from his rebuke, the effect of this splendid contrast, even in dumb show, was irresistable. The house seemed electrified; and the triumph of Nature and of Shakspeare would have been complete, had Kean been on the stage to finish the formation of the triumvirate. But Othello soon brought the audience to themselves. Unluckily "he wants the nat'ral touch; and elate at what he thought his victory, he outroared

"The roar

Of loud Euroclydon."

His ranting set all the catcalls and whistles, and groans and hisses, into renewed activity, and it was in vain to think of reducing the rioters to the peace-establishment. They hooted.

"Therewith he 'gan full terribly once more,

And chafed at that indignity right sore."

They laughed and here Milton furnishes a quotation as well as Spenser

"At this he inly raged, and as they laugh'd (talk'd)

Smote him into the midriff.”

Seeing the course that matters were likely to take, I turned my at tention towards the players, being a little anxious that they should keep a good countenance. They presented the appearance of a somewhat different group, described by Stillingfleet, "some with piteous moans, others grinning and only showing their teeth, others ranting and hectoring, others scolding and reviling;" and some were brooking it with great complacency, in consideration of the overflowing house, that "salve for any sore that may betide." I recommended them to follow the example of Antonio, in the Merchant of Venice, "patiently to bear their wrath." They liked the quotation, and the play went on. But the opening of the third act gave birth to a new scene. The usual obstructions were repeated, when some half-dozen English in the pit, aided by a few French, who were ashamed of themselves for their countrymen's sakes, manifested some slight opposition. O for the pencil of Hogarth, or the pen of Grimm, (or even of Grimm's Ghost,) to sketch the display of national character which followed! In an instant the ruffian rioters took to flight. Hundreds poured over the orchestra like a torrent. This spot, which should have been sacred to harmony, and a sanctuary against outrage, for it was filled with welldressed females, was violated in the most outrageous manner. The ladies were trampled to the ground as the fugitives scrambled up to the stage. The screams of women, the crash of benches, music

stands, and foot-lights, which last were crumbled to powder, was ap palling. But if so, the appearance of the paltry, pitiful runaways was ludicrous in the extreme, and to me how gratifying! I stood in the middle of the stage, with "the gentle Desdemona" leaning on my arm. I begged of her to stand her ground for the credit of our country, and to shew a lesson to the cowardly rout around us; and she did so with admirable composure. As the recreant groups rushed round us, hid themselves in the side-scenes, or fled in every direction-I remembered a description from one of Ben Jonson's plays; how applicable!

"I do not see a face

Worthy a man, that dares look up and stand

One thunder out; but downward all like beasts
Running away at every flash."

What then, cried I, is this my knowledge of national character?
"Are these the youths that thunder at a playhouse

And fight for bitten apples?"

How would an English pit have stood a row like this! How would every heart have beat, every hand been clenched, and every foot firmrooted for the fight! But I need not press the contrast, nor the moral of this disgraceful and disgusting scene. The gensdarmes poured in upon the stage in force, the curtain was dropped, and all government and order was abandoned. The French manager, however, made his appearance, and requested Othello to cut short the play, and recommence with the fifth act! The Moor unfortunately did not speak French, and the manager did not know a word of Arabic or English. So I offered my services as interpreter, and pleaded strongly against the barbarism of cutting out nearly two acts of the play. I urged the most powerful arguments: the memory of Aristotle the credit of Shakspeare-the reputation of Desdemona-and the verses of Horace,

"Ne ve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu

Fabula quæ posci vult, et spectata reponi." But all was vain. He said the audience would tear down the house if the tragedy were not cut short. I assured him they were not of that kidney. "And then the unities, Monsieur!" cried I. "And then the scenery, Monsieur !" replied he. The retort was unanswerable, so 1 gave up the point-and I wish the French critics would yield it with half my facility. I shall here, too, give up my description. In fact, I saw little more. Desdemona was put into bed, and smothered amidst roars of laughter. Emilia spouted her reproaches like Sappho singing to the raging winds. Othello stabbed himself to prove that suicide was a most mirth-moving catastrophe-and the curtain finally fell down upon a scene of national disgrace, unparalleled, I hope, in the history of the stage.

Some contrition having been expressed in the Newspapers next morning, The School for Scandal was announced for representation on the following evening, Friday the 2d of August. This might have been prefaced by an address to the public from The Taming of the Shrew "Your honour's players, hearing your amendment, are comé to play a pleasant comedy." But the symptoms of amendment were deceitful. The outrage of the former night was renewed, and after the first act the representation was abandoned, and a French farce substituted for the English comedy-which seems thus prohibited from being exhibited in Paris.

E.

ALFIERI'S POLITICAL COMEDIES.

Or all the faults which the panegyrists of good old absolute monarchy (as it was half a century ago) can find with our troublesome times, they can at least allege, with justice, that ridicule, as the source of comedy, is nearly exhausted. The strongly marked distinction of social orders, which afforded the comic poet so many different foibles, peculiarities, and caricatures, has been decaying for these thirty years in the best part of continental Europe.* The barriers between different classes of society had been so long established, and were of so much importance, that both the worshippers and idols of etiquette considered its institutions as almost founded in nature:-hence mutual prejudices were rooted in their minds with a kind of comic conviction, and shone forth in their manners with true comic effect. These barriers have now been dashed to the ground by the shock of revolutions; or, being daily shaken, make it universally apparent, that if the widely different conditions inclosed within them may rise or fall every moment into the situations of each other, the difference has ceased to exist. All distinctions of rank are, at any rate, removed from the general estimation, since such various vicissitudes of fortune have proved the uncertainty of their continuance; and, indeed, all societies seem now to be blended into one-namely, that of politicians, breathing nothing but politics, and aiming at nothing but political ends. Or, if there still remains any variety in them, it is between the few who seek to retain their contested power and the many who endeavour to have it tempered, or taken from them. Society, in these days, consists but of two orders-the ruling and the ruled the only ones which cannot perish in revolutions but to rise again. Social man is become, if we may say it without offence, a kind of general, uniform, monotonous personage-see one and you have seen all he puts on the manners and the habits of the most opposite conditions as a matter of course, and keeps cach of them as long as it suits his convenience. Surely, if the extoller of times gone by can upbraid modern man with being selfish, he cannot with being ridiculous. But this very gravity, both of our thoughts and actions, proves a real misfortune to comedy. The ends commonly pursued by mankind in our days are too serious, and the means employed often too grievously contemptible, to conjure up the genuine spirit of laughter. The comedy of manners and characters being nearly exhausted, we possess but one other vein of ridicule (far less diversified,) which arises from the abortive attempts of mankind when they would grasp at things beyond their mental or personal capacities. But still how melancholy would be the laugh called forth by Don Quixote, if, instead of a vain, chivalrous object, he aspired to a real, interesting,-in other words, a political one! Yet are the political attempts of the people still more melancholy than those of the Spanish knight; for their failure can neither be imputed to a fantastical view of human affairs, nor to a

It may not be unnecessary to remark, once for all, that whatever may be advanced in this or any other essay by the same writer respecting politics and literature is only meant as applicable to the Continent, or rather, in strictness, only to Italy, France, and Spain. The circumstances of England, both political and literary, are peculiar to herself, and the writer, who is a foreigner, presumes not to interfere with them.