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COLMAN ON PROFANE SWEARING.

high treason to say they have.

And were a poet in that kingdom to praise the ankles of his young female sovereign, he would be broken on the wheel.

Tickler. I wonder what old Colman thinks of Madame Vestris's legs?

North. He would not license them

Tickler. But grin like a satyr.

North. He is horrified at the word damme-and it is at the least a silly sound-but then he is asked, "How do you reconcile that opinion with your making use of damme, or any of those small oaths which you say are immoral and improper, to say nothing of the vulgarity, in some of your own compositions?" His answer to that question is a cool curiosity of its kind-" If I had been the examiner, I should have scratched them out, and would do so now; but I was in a different position then I was a careless, immoral author-I am now the examiner of plays. I did my business as an author at that time, and I do my business as an examiner now!"

Tickler. Ha! ha! ha!

North. But George gives us the reason of his dislike of damme. "Sir Simon Rochdale in John Bull says, " Damme, if it isn't the Brazier!' Now, putting a gentleman in that position is wrong in the first instance morally so; if he happened to make a mistake, and it was not the Brazier, HE WOULD BE DAMNED!! Now, if he said, 'hang me, if it isn't the Brazier -would not that do as well?'"'

Tickler. Good.

North. It seems to me very unmerciful religion to hold that Sir Simon Rochdale "would be damned" if it was not the Brazier.

Tickler. Why, if it was a deadly sin to say damme, Sir Simon would be damned, I humbly presume, according to Mr George's creed, whether it was the Brazier or not.

North. And if he said "hang me," then on the same principle he would be hanged, whether the Baronet was a brazier or a butcher, or even a retired tallow-chandler visiting his old establishment on melting-days.

Tickler. Hanged-not the position of a gentleman.

North. It seems in Colman's comedy, John Bull, there is what his examiner in the Select is pleased to call "a very good joke about Eve." One of the characters is said to have

COLMAN ON INCEST AND MURDER.

379

no more idea of something, "than Eve had of pin-money.' This "very good joke" Colman now thinks improper, and would fain it were omitted in representation. It sounds to my ears silly in the extreme--and shows what was the strength of this person's wit in the prime of manhood; but "the audience are always struck with it!"

Tickler. And the pretty mantua-maker in the middle of the pit hangs down her head, and with lily hand hides the burning blushes that kindle beneath the knowing gaze of the gallant man-milliner by her betrothed side.

North. It appears that this once most base and licentious (writer), but now most stanch and strait-laced licenser, had given in a paper to the Committee, stating that a piece had been brought forward in Paris, in which incest, adultery, murder, parricide, &c., formed the groundwork; and he is asked if he considers that he could be justified in refusing to license a piece in which those crimes were introduced. He answers

"No, not precisely that; let me see how the plot thickens. I should not refuse to license the murders of Richard III., and so on; but when it comes to such things as human nature and morality shudder at and revolt against." They do not, it seems, shudder at and revolt against incest, murder, and parricide.

Tickler. He is muddle-headed.

North. Yet his brains are not mere mire; for, when asked if human nature and morality do not shudder at Macbeth, he says, Yes; but it is matter of history."

Tickler. And what does that signify? The tragedy would have been equally great had it not been matter of history.

North. The reason he gives is childish; but he adds rightly, that he would withhold the license from those plays which seem to have justified such acts.

Tickler. Are there any such?

North. None that I ever heard of. Odd notions are always floating about, but I do not remember ever having heard, either in prose or verse, any elaborate eulogy on parricide.

Tickler. He seems to show more indulgence to foul and questionable deeds than a few venial words-such as "angel," "thighs," "damme," and the like; but what could the Committee mean by asking the opinion of such a person on so

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profound a question, as whether the crimes now mentioned are or are not fit subjects for the Tragic Muse?

North. They should have examined the author of the celebrated "Essay on Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts."1 Charles Kemble himself is here very absurd. Speaking of the general noisiness of our theatres, he says, "When you see Macbeth, John Bull is perfectly quiet, as he always is, when the representation of murder is going on." Very natural. But immediately afterwards Charles says to another question, "I am afraid the representation of a murder is very attractive." Why afraid?

Tickler. He may think, since John Bull enjoys the representation so intensely, he may have no great objection to the reality to lending a helping hand in a bona fide flesh and

blood murder.

North. I can't say; but he continues, "I am sorry it is so— it was tried in the case of Thurtell," and was very attractive; but they added to the attraction by introducing the gig that had carried the murderer down to the scene; a most atrocious thing." There is great confusion of ideas in that statement of good Mr Charles. The murder by Macbeth of the gracious Duncan, was, in a moral and religious point of view, far worse than the murder by Thurtell of the black-leg Weare. But, nathless, it was a grand subject for the most dreadful of all dramas. The murder, and the remorse, and the expiation, are all sublime. The murder by Thurtell of Weare, again, though not so wicked, was a mean subject for a drama, but not without the strong interest that belongs to the vulgar horrible; and, therefore, any theatrical representation of it could not fail to administer a strong purge of coarse pity and terror to vulgar minds. The persons who flocked to see it had, for the most part, minds of that nature; but in almost all, say at once in all minds, there is something of this vulgar disposition to get drunk on the worst of common British gin. Now, I ask, was it one whit more disgraceful for a Cockney public to gloat over, on the stage of an illegitimate theatre, "the acting of a dreadful thing," like that murder of a raff by a ruffian, than to

1 For this exquisite melange of wit, humour, and irony, see Miscellanies by Thomas De Quincey. His "Essay on Murder" appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xxi. and vol. xlvi. 2 See vol. i. p. 81.

THURTELL'S GIG ON THE STAGE.

381

do so in the columns of a newspaper? The newspapers for weeks were filled with nothing else but all the details of the throat-cutting and corpse-bundling, and pond-dragging and grave-digging, by the song-singing pork-chop-gormandising assassins of both sexes, who "assisted at the deep damnation of that taking off." The proprietors of the daily press lived on it. The finding of the body was meat and drink to them; and they fared sumptuously on the scattered brains. They got up in Printing-House Square the famous Herefordshire Tragedy before it was enacted across the water—and yet the rich proprietors of the newspapers howled at the enormity of the poor Manager, and the penny-a-liners over that of the farthing-a-speechifiers turned up the whites of their eyes and tipt. Tickler. It was by no means a bad subject for the drama. North. Why, it was not. Such a man as Lillo' would have made rather a fearful thing of it-would have brought it fairly within the range of the lower regular and legitimate drama. He has done so with other murders as bad and more hideous. I daresay the affair over the water was a most miserable one; but Mr Kemble speaks nonsense when he says, that the introduction of the very gig that carried the murderer down, was a most atrocious thing. There can be nothing atrocious in a green gig and an iron-grey horse. It was a "bit of good truth," that struck the imagination through the most powerful of all the senses; and, though there might not be great genius shown in the introduction of such machinery, it showed perfect knowledge of the portion of humanity that constituted that audience of spectators-and the effect, I have been told, was prodigious among the apprentices. Charles seems to have forgotten the crime of the exhibition-to wit, that it was got up before the trial of the murderer, and assumed his guilt. Had he been hanged or condemned, the green gig and iron-grey horse-a fast trotter-might have stood on the boards of the painted Gills-Hill Lane a most blameless set-out; and all that had then needed to be said would have been, that vulgar folks like to sup full of vulgar horrors—and that there are at all times, in London, multitudes of men, women, and children, who have a strong "pawpensity for the bastard dwama."

Tickler. Hush! I hear girls giggling!

1 George Lillo, a dramatic writer, the author of George Barnwell, Fatal Curiosity, and Arden of Faversham-born in 1693, died in 1739.

(Enter LOUISA, HARRIET, and HELEN, each with a silver salver glittering with tiny crystals of various-hued liqueurs. NORTH and TICKLER take each a small celestial caulker in either hand, and drink to the maidens, who curtsy and retire with the salvers, tea-trays, &c.)

North. Silent Syrens!

Tickler. Delightful damsels !

North. I wish they had been but two.

Tickler. Ay, Kit. It would have been impious to have let the third go away with untasted lips; yet worse than impious, indelicate, for both of us to have kissed the same mouth-so, "like considerate gentlemen of the good olden time,” we suffered all three to go as they came. Hush! I hear them giggling! I hope they won't tell. If they do, they shan't go unpunished next time. We shall have our revenge at supper. North. "Och hone aree !"

Tickler. "Savourna deligh! Shighan, oh!"

END OF VOL. III.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGE.