Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

the instances in which Cumberland has employed unmeaning and unnecessary oaths:

"What a damn'd queer old figure Frampton makes of himself." (Choleric Man, Act I. Sc. I.) "Death and the Devil? how shal! I break pasture without his seeing me!" (Ib. Act IV. Sc.II.) "A rascally scaramouch winds me, a damned blast on his post-horn."-" The cask gave a cursed crack," &c. (Ibid, Act IV. Sc. II.)

“Death and the Devil! a chambermaid!" (Ib. Act V. Sc. II.)

"Hoot! fellows, haud your honds; pack up your damned clarinets," &c. (Fashionable Lover, Act I. Sc. I.)

"There's bonds, and blanks, and bargains, and promissory notes, and a damned sight of rogueries." (Ibid, Act II. Sc. I.)

"Where's your religion and be damned to you?" (The Brothers, Act I. Sc. I.)

"Never put up with an affront damme.""An antiquated goddess of fifty: Damme I'll make up to her."-" Damme if I would not as soon comb out the tower lions," &c.-" That damn'd old quiz of a coat you're dusting."-" Damn'd old quiz of a coat! Damme how you barbers swear!" (Box Lobby Challenge, Act I. Sc. I. and II. the last four uttered in little more than as many lines).

"Damn you for a dunce, what are you think

ing of?"-" Married to your son of a bitch of a bear leader." (Ibid, Act IV. Sc. II.)

"Father is damn'd close in the lockers." (First Love, Act I. Sc. I.)

"Damnation! then there are more repairs on my hands than a broken carriage." (Ibid, Act II. Sc. 11.)

"For damme if you don't tread upon your grave."-" Damnation! does the world contain such villainy?" (Ibid, Act IV. Sc. II.)

"Damn it, do you think I would stand by and hear my master abused?" (Jew, Act IV. Sc. II.) "She's a damn'd slippery jade," &c. (The West Indian, Act II. Sc. IV.)

"Damn them! I would there was not such a bauble in nature."-" Hell and vexation! get out of the room." (Ibid, Act III. Sc. II.)

"Damn it! never while you live draw your sword before a woman." (Ibid, Act IV. Sc. II.)} "There's a damn'd deal of mischief brewing between this hyena and her lawyer." (Ibid, Act IV. Sc. II.)

"He began to blast her at a furious rate." (Observer, No. 88.)

The reader will willingly believe, I trust, that I could have been tempted to this partial enumeration of oaths, employed by Cumberland in his dramatic writings, only as it was calculated to refute a very positive and a very important praise be

stowed upon him by a man, whose praise is too valuable to be lavished with impropriety.

For the following sketch of Cumberland's colloquial talents I am indebted to the obliging kindness of Mr. Hewson Clarke, a gentleman associated with him in the London Review, and to whom, as he has told me, Cumberland intended to confide some private documents and papers for publication after his death. This scheme, however, his sudden decease frustrated.

"The colloquial efforts of Mr. Cumberland were in no degree above the ordinary level. He was not peculiarly distinguished for the profundity of his detached observations, or the brilliancy of his occasional repartees; to warm or extended argument he had an invincible aversion, and nature had denied him the polished fluency of his friend Sir James Bland Burges. He never led the conversation of his social circle, or sustained its vigour by the animation of his influence. Yet, his casual remarks, when they were not distinguished by acuteness or brilliance, were characterised by that terse felicity of expression which constitutes the chief excellence of his Memoirs; if he did not predominate in conversation, he gave relief to the colloquial contests of more ambitious speakers, and if he seldom poured forth the treasures of his own intellectual stores, he displayed peculiar dexterity in the formation of hints, and the

application of questions, that might call into display the natural or acquired endowments of his friends.

"It may account, in some degree, for the extent of his colloquial reputation, that his deportment was in the highest degree impressive and engaging. The smile that played upon his lip embellished many a common-place sentiment, and the graceful, yet dignified elegance of his address, gave weight to opinions that from a less favoured speaker would have been received with contemptuous silence or acquiescent indifference. Though a Johnson might, in the presence of Cumberland, have felt his own superiority, he would not have ventured to display it: even while he unconsciously unveiled the less amiable features of his character, he averted the resentment of his auditors, or softened their dislike by the fascination of his manner, and those who could not but acknowledge his susceptibility to the minor vices, were astonished, on reflection, at the coldness of their dislike, and the reluctance of their condemnation.

"He was so fond of flattery himself that he supposed it to be acceptable to his friends, even in the most disgusting form, or in the most exuberant proportions. He was the easy and delighted dupe of every juvenile parasite, who found it convenient to barter adulation for patronage; and the first number of the London Review bears melancholy

evidence, that his own fame, and the gratification of the public, were not of sufficient importance to outweigh the grateful drivelling, or the fawning meanness of a youthful protegé, who melted the last guinea into a picture-frame for his honoured portrait, to be hung as a reverential monitor above his chimney-piece.'

My opinions upon Cumberland's literary character have been so fully delivered in the course of this work, that any general expression of them is rendered superfluous. His writings were numerous, but unequal, and a very small portion of them will be required by posterity. What he published, however, was only a part of what he actually composed, and we may expect, from his daughter, some of his posthumous pieces. Before he died he solicited, in an humble address on the cover of the European Magazine, the subscriptions of his friends and the public, to a quarto edition of his unpublished dramas, and I have been told that the present Lord Lonsdale and Sir James Graham, generously answered the appeal, by sending, each of them, a hundred pound bank note, as the amount of their subscription, politely expressing, at the same time, their regret that Cumberland should have been compelled to so great a humiliation. This munificence deserves to be recorded, and I feel a pleasure in doing it. Some

« AnteriorContinuar »