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castle, in the prosecution of some chemical experi→ ment to extinguish fires. The beautiful orphan saves, of course, the life of the beautiful damsel, and penetrating into the fatal chamber, brings forth a knife and some bloody rags, the tokens of a murder. The travelling father, who is quite a tragic personage, confesses that he once killed his own brother, who turns out to be the father of the orphan!true it is that this brother gave him provocation enough, for he took his mistress from him and got her with child, which child is the very orphan! Amidst all this uproar, an unknown person, wrapped in a great cloak, steps in,-the very murdered brother, who, however, is plainly not dead, and had amused himself, it seems, in following, step by step, his supposed murderer, for twenty years, winning his money at play, without ever discovering himself, but returning it afterwards out of friendship, and to make amends for the unlucky accident of the child; yet allowing him to die by inches of remorse for the murder. Towards the end of the play, there is another brace of lovers introduced, and at last two marriages made, and one unmade; for old Handy, who has made the fatal experiment of marrying a maid-servant, a perfect shrew, gets rid of her by means of a first marriage, luckily discovered. And all this is to bring in some very trite and poor jokes on marriage, and likewise some superfine and sentimental morality from peasants, in a provincial dialect.

The crude trash of these popular plays affords a fair sample of the whole modern British stage, which is rather below the level of the exhibitions at fairs, which I recollect having seen in France twenty or thirty years ago. They made me laugh sometimes, and might do so still; and, far from an

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LONDON-ENGLISH THEATRE.

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unwillingness to yield to risibility, it is always a great comfort to me when I happen to find that I am not quite a stranger to that most valuable faculty of our species. But really if it was ever wise to be ashamed of having laughed at any thing, there might be some reason here. Voltaire said, that the language of English comedy is the language of debauchery, not of politeness. Muralt ascribes the corruption of manners in London to comedy as its chief cause he says it is like that of no other country; the school in which the youth of both sexes familiarize themselves with vice, never represented there as vice, but as gaiety. As for comedies, says Diderot, they have none, they have instead satires, full indeed of gaiety and strength, but without morals, and without delicacy. We have, finally, the opinion of Lord Kaimes, who observes, that if the comedies of Congreve did not rack him with remorse in his last moments, he must have been lost to all sense of virtue.

For myself, however, I must confess, that I have hitherto seen no very bad morals on the stage,but a great deal of very bad taste. There is, on the contrary, in most modern plays, fine speeches about virtue and patriotism, brought in head and shoulders, and always vigorously applauded.This does credit to the moral sense of the public;-but I own I should like to see, on the stage, something of these satires, so full of strength and gaiety, of which Diderot speaks, and to be introduced to that reprobate Congreve. "The bad taste which precedes good taste," said Horace Walpole, "is preferable to that which follows." The dramatic genius of the English franchit les distances: from the first bad taste it came at once to the last, without intermediate degrees. The

English do not indeed defend their comedy, they acknowledge that the best are coarse and indelicate, and that for many years nothing has appeared that is not below mediocrity. The theatre, they say, is almost entirely abandoned by the upper ranks of society, the taste for the stage is lost. It seems to me a misfortune; for good comedy is a pastime more rational and amusing, than the insipid evenings of which I have given an account before.

Mrs. Siddons has at last made her appearance, yesterday, (the 25th April) in the Grecian Daughter. She appears about fifty,-her voice is a little broken,—and F— was at first disagreeably affected at the change twenty years had produced. With fewer natural advantages, her talents remain the same, and she is certainly a very great actress. The house was quite full. Her younger brother, C. Kemble, acted; he has very dramatic features, and a great command of countenance.

April 29.-We have seen Mrs. Siddons again in the Gamester, and she was much greater than on the first day. Perfect simplicity, deep sensibility, her despair in the last scene, mute and calm, had a prodigious effect. There was not a dry eye in the house, the most profound silence pervaded an assembly of people of all sorts, in the gallery as well as every where else. Mrs. Siddons had touched a chord which vibrates in all hearts. We were placed farther from the stage than the first day, (in the pit, unmindful of consequences) and Mrs. Siddons appeared still young and handsome. Cooke played Stukely con amore. He is an excellent actor, who delights (a strange taste) in these parts of scoundrels. This one This one (Stukely) is an amateur of baseness, he glories in it, and boasts of

LONDON-SIR FRANCIS BURDETT.

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it, which is not in nature. There is still a sort of modesty in vice which shrinks from a naked exhibition, and dreads even to see the secret image reflected from its own bosom.

The pit of Covent-Garden is nearly square, about fifty feet by fifty-twenty-four benches for thirty people, give seven hundred and twenty spectators at 3s. 6d.; twenty-four lower boxes, twelve persons in each, is three hundred and twelve at 7s.; certain back boxes, called the basket, may hold one hundred and eighty people at 7s.; the second, third, and fourth rows, at least six hundred people at an average price of 4s. total eighteen hundred spectators, supposing the house full in all parts, L. 418 Sterling.

The eye of the spectator, in the front boxes, is at least sixty feet from the foremost edge of the stage, much too far to perceive the fine and transient shades of expression; equally so to hear what is not vociferated. With the dimensions of the theatres of antiquity, they should adopt likewise the masque, and the contrivances to augment the voice.

Sir Francis Burdett is still the town talk; and the question of privilege is debated at every dinner. They all agree that the House of Commons is merely legislative, and not at all executive or judicatory; but that it has certain natural and necessary rights of self-protection, for the maintenance of peace and good order within its walls, as an individual has a right to check his children if they are noisy, to turn out a troublesome intruder, or fire upon a house-breaker; but, if this individual leaves his house in pursuit of the intruder, or not only repulses or arrests the house-breaker, but inflicts punishment himself, he encroaches on the province of the law; and this is precisely what the

House of Commons is accused of having first done about a month ago. An obscure man, named Gale Jones, who kept a debating club, a sort of gymnasium where young men meet to learn the art of speaking, called the British Forum, announced, by means of printed hand-bills, the following question as the subject of debate. " Who most outraged public opinion, Mr. Yorke in calling for the standing order of the House, which excludes the public from the gallery? or Mr. Windham by his recent attack on the liberty of the press?" This Gale Jones was denounced in Parliament by Mr. Yorke, one of the members named in his hand-bill, brought to the bar, and imprisoned in Newgate. The object of the hand-bill was evidently to throw odium on the question of privilege, and to intimidate the members by a personal attack; and it might be factious and criminal, although worse things are said and published every day. But the prevalent opinion is now, that it was not a crime of which the House could take the punishment into its own hands. Sir Francis Burdett next came forward with a letter in defence of this same Gale Jones, addressed to his constituents, but in fact to the public; undertaking to prove not only the illegality of his punishment, but the innocence of the publication itself, and accusing the House of usurping the powers of the other branches of government. A member might say all this in his place, but the publication was an offence against the House; and, after imprisoning Gale Jones, a private citizen, the House could not do less for Sir Francis, one of its own members; although it was obvious that a simple reprimand, without either martyrdom or triumph, would have been better. A first error has led to another; and, after disturbing

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