Or woe for Athens, were it left to such Each other heartily? Yet neither dares To bear his trembling falchion to the sun. How tame they dangle on your coward thighs! Lucul. We are no soldiers, Sir. Alcib.-No, ye are Lords; A lazy, proud, unprofitable crew; The vermin gender'd from the rank corruption &c. &c. This is Cumberland's own; and how it accords with the sentiments and language of Shakspeare, I need not tell. The piece was acted however, but it met with a cold reception, though supported by the talents of Mr. and Mrs. Barry. The opinion of its failure has been uniformly expressed by all who have mentioned the undertaking. "What Mr. Cumberland did to such a play," says Murphy," or how he contrived to mangle it, is now not worth the trouble of enquiring." "Those who have read Shadwell's Timon," observes Davies, in his Life of Garrick, (and his opinion upon a question of theatrical adaptation is entitled to respect), "will not, I believe, scruple to prefer it to Mr. Cumberland's, though both the alterers had better have forborne a task to which they were unequal. It is almost impossible to graft large branches upon the old stock of Shaks peare; none have succeeded in their alterations of that poet, but such as have confined themselves to the lopping off a few superfluous boughs, and adding, where necessary, some small slips of their own, and that too with the utmost caution." "The alterer has, by his management, utterly destroyed all pity for the principal characters of the play. Shadwell gave Timon a mistress, who never forsook him in his distress; but Mr. Cumberland has raised him up a daughter, whose fortune the father profusely spends on flatterers and sycophants; this destroys all probability, as well as extinguishes commiseration. What generous and noble-minded man, as Shakspeare has drawn his Timon, would be guilty of such baseness as to wrong his child, by treating his visitors with the wealth that should be reserved for her portion? "It is, indeed, a miserable alteration of one of Shakspeare's noblest productions. There is not, perhaps, in any work, ancient or modern, more just reflection and admirable satire than in Timon; Cumberland and his original do not, in the least, assimilate, for in their style they are widely dif ferent; some excellent scenes of Shakspeare are entirely omitted, and others grossly mutilated." From these testimonies, and from the present oblivion of the piece, we may conclude, without much fear of violating truth, that had Cumberland duly considered his fame as a writer, he would have abstained from an attempt which can only confer an humble reward, if successful, but will incur much contempt if unsuccessful. The last thing which Cumberland produced on the Drury-lane stage, before the secession of Garrick from its management, was the Note of Hand, or a Trip to Newmarket. This farce was acted with moderate applause; and was the cause, it has been said, as I have already noticed, that Sheridan transplanted the author to his canvass, when he drew the character of Sir Fretful. CHAP. XV. The fecundity of Cumberland's muse.-Produces the BATTLE OF HASTINGS.-Examination of this tragedy.-Its total deficiency in every thing that constitutes a tragedy.-Examples of his plagiarisms from SHAKSPEARE, POPE, and other writers.-Instances of the pure BATHOS.If SHERIDAN laughed at it who could blame him?-Cumberland obtains promotion in his office. THERE was at least as much truth as gaiety in Cumberland's prologue to the Fashionable Lover, when he said of himself, "This bard breeds regularly once a season." His eagerness to produce, indeed, was greater than his caution to produce well; and this eagerness appears somewhat remarkable, if we believe his own declaration to Bickerstaff, that in commencing author he was actuated by motives purely "disinterested." To him who writes for bread, it may sometimes be forgiven, if he writes more than will enlarge his fame; but there is no excuse for a man who sacrifices his reputation to a mere itch of composition which must always be relieved by the scratching of a pen. I have no doubt, how ever, that when Cumberland composed his dramas he thought at least as much of the treasurer of the theatre as he did of the rumours of renown, or the pleasure of beholding himself in print. His were golden dreams; and Fame presented herself to his imagination, with the lucky profits of an author's three nights pleasantly glittering in her hand. The next offspring of his fast-teeming muse was the Battle of Hastings, a tragedy, of which he says but little himself, and of which little can be said by any one in its favour. I have heard that Garrick interested himself in its fate, and recommended it warmly to Sheridan's protection, but that Cumberland did not testify a just sense of his exertions, which greatly hurt the feelings of Garrick, who openly expressed his displeasure at such an unmerited requital. Something, however, is attributed, in this account, perhaps, to a wrong cause; for Cumberland represents himself as having been unjustly treated by Garrick, who empowered him to engage Henderson for Drury Lane, and afterwards annulled the engagement upon the report of his brother George, who saw him perform at Bath, and formed a less exalted notion of his excellence. The acrimony which this proceeding excited, Cumberland was probably not anxious to conceal; and the expression of it was attributed to a motive very distinct, perhaps, from what really existed. Such negligence is too common in the rumours of popu |
