ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY. like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual moral questioningthe sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted casuistry-is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to the interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away by law. We dare not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic representation of disorder, and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. THE artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years only, to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is it for a few wild speeches, an occasional licence of dialogue? I think not altogether. The business of their dramatic characters will not stand the moral test. We screw everything up to that. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an evening, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications of profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent or guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic interests left. We see a stage libertine playing his loose pranks of two hours' duration, and of no after consequence, with the severe eyes which inspect real vices with their bearings upon two worlds. We are spectators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to the point of strict morality), and take it all for truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is no appeal to the dramatis persona, his peers. We have been spoiled with-not sentimental comedy -but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of common life; where the moral point is everything; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy), we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, enemies,—the same as in life,-with an interest in what is going on so hearty and substantial, that we I come back to my cage and my restraint cannot afford our moral judgment, in its the fresher and more healthy for it. I wear deepest and most vital results, to compromise my shackles more contentedly for having or slumber for a moment. What is there respired the breath of an imaginary freedom. transacting, by no modification is made to I do not know how it is with others, but I affect us in any other manner than the same feel the better always for the perusal of one events or characters would do in our relation-of Congreve's-nay, why should I not add ships of life. We carry our fire-side concerns even of Wycherley's-comedies. I am the to the theatre with us. We do not go thither gayer at least for it; and I could never I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience,-not to live always in the precincts of the law-courts, but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions-to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot follow me -Secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets, the business of their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; principles which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of things to a connect those sports of a witty fancy in any very indifference for any, that you endure shape with any result to be drawn from the whole. He has spread a privation of them to imitation in real life. They are a moral light, I will call it, rather than by world of themselves almost as much as fairy- the ugly name of palpable darkness, over land. Take one of their characters, male or his creations; and his shadows flit before female (with few exceptions they are alike), you without distinction or preference. and place it in a modern play, and my Had he introduced a good character, a single virtuous indignation shall rise against the gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the profligate wretch as warmly as the Catos of judgment to actual life and actual duties, the pit could desire; because in a modern the impertinent Goshen would have only play I am to judge of the right and the lighted to the discovery of deformities, wrong. The standard of police is the measure which now are none, because we think of political justice. The atmosphere will them none. blight it; it cannot live here. It has got into a moral world, where it has no business, from which it must needs fall headlong; as dizzy, and incapable of making a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has wandered unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or Angels. But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?-The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants chaos. But we do them wrong in so transand the Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact they do not appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They have got out of Christendom into the land-what shall I call it?—of cuckoldry-the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No good person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in these plays-the few exceptions only are mistakes-is alike essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from his scenes-some little generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps excepted-not only anything like a faultless character, but any pretensions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did this designedly, or instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder at the strange power which his Way of the World in particular possesses of lantis, a scheme, out of which our COXinteresting you all along in the pursuits of characters, for whom you absolutely care nothing for you neither hate nor love his personages-and I think it is owing to this lating them. No such effects are produced, in their world. When we are among them, we are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings-for they have none among them. No peace of families is violated-for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained-for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections are disquieted, no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder-for affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. There is neither right nor wrong,— gratitude or its opposite,—claim or duty,— paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to Virtue, or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or Dapperwit steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord Froth's or Sir Paul Pliant's children? The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. But, like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite as impertinently. We dare not contemplate an At combical moral sense is for a little transitory to the painful necessities of shame and blame. now, would not dare to do the part in the We would indict our very dreams. same manner. He would instinctively avoid Amidst the mortifying circumstances at- every turn which might tend to unrealise, tendant upon growing old, it is something to and so to make the character fascinating. He have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. must take his cue from his spectators, who This comedy grew out of Congreve and would expect a bad man and a good man as Wycherley, but gathered some allays of the rigidly opposed to each other as the deathsentimental comedy which followed theirs. beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the It is impossible that it should be now acted, prints, which I am sorry to say have disapthough it continues, at long intervals, to be peared from the windows of my old friend announced in the bills. Its hero, when Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Churchyard Palmer played it at least, was Joseph Sur-memory-(an exhibition as venerable as the face. When I remember the gay boldness, adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the the graceful solemn plausibility, the measured bad and good man at the hour of death; step, the insinuating voice-to express it in where the ghastly apprehensions of the i a word—the downright acted villany of the former,—and truly the grim phantom with part, so different from the pressure of con- his reality of a toasting-fork is not to be scious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical despised,— -so finely contrast with the meek assumption of hypocrisy,-which made Jack complacent kissing of the rod,-taking it in so deservedly a favourite in that character, I like honey and butter,-with which the latter must needs conclude the present generation submits to the scythe of the gentle bleeder of playgoers more virtuous than myself, or Time, who wields his lancet with the appremore dense. I freely confess that he divided hensive finger of a popular young ladies' the palm with me with his better brother; surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would that, in fact, I liked him quite as well. Not not covet to meet half-way the stroke of but there are passages,-like that, for in- such a delicate mower ?-John Palmer was stance, where Joseph is made to refuse a twice an actor in this exquisite part. He pittance to a poor relation,-incongruities was playing to you all the while that he was which Sheridan was forced upon by the playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You attempt to join the artificial with the senti- had the first intimation of a sentiment bemental comedy, either of which must destroy fore it was on his lips. His altered voice the other-but over these obstructions Jack's was meant to you, and you were to suppose manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal that his fictitious co-flutterers on the stage from him no more shocked you, than the perceived nothing at all of it. What was it to easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality you if that half reality, the husband, was overany pleasure; you got over the paltry ques- reached by the puppetry-or the thin thing tion as quickly as you could, to get back into (Lady Teazle's reputation) was persuaded it the regions of pure comedy, where no cold was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of moral reigns. The highly artificial manner Othello and Desdemona were not concerned of Palmer in this character counteracted in it. Poor Jack has passed from the stage every disagreeable impression which you in good time, that he did not live to this our might have received from the contrast, sup- age of seriousness. The pleasant old Teazle posing them real, between the two brothers. King, too, is gone in good time. His manner You did not believe in Joseph with the same would scarce have passed current in our day. faith with which you believed in Charles. We must love or hate-acquit or condemnThe latter was a pleasant reality, the former censure or pity-exert our detestable coxa no less pleasant poetical foil to it. The combry of moral judgment upon everything. comedy, I have said, is incongruous; a Joseph Surface, to go down now, must be a mixture of Congreve with sentimental in- downright revolting villain—no compromise compatibilities; the gaiety upon the whole-his first appearance must shock and give is buoyant; but it required the consummate horror-his specious plausibilities, which the art of Palmer to reconcile the discordant pleasurable faculties of our fathers welcomed elements. with such hearty greetings, knowing that no A player with Jack's talents, if we had one harm (dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to come, of them, must inspire No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely a cold and killing aversion. Charles (the cast in all its parts as this manager's comedy. real canting person of the scene-for the Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abington hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original ends, but his brother's professions of a good Charles, had retired when I first saw it. The heart centre in downright self-satisfaction) rest of the characters, with very slight exmust be loved, and Joseph hated. To balance ceptions, remained. I remember it was then one disagreeable reality with another, Sir the fashion to cry down John Kemble, who Peter Teazle must be no longer the comic took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, thought, very unjustly. Smith, I fancy was whose teasings (while King acted it) were more airy, and took the eye with a certain evidently as much played off at you, as they gaiety of person. He brought with him no were meant to concern anybody on the stage, sombre recollections of tragedy. He had -he must be a real person, capable in law not to expiate the fault of having pleased of sustaining an injury-a person towards beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no whom duties are to be acknowledged-the sins of Hamlet or of Richard to atone for. genuine crim. con. antagonist of the villanous His failure in these parts was a passport to seducer Joseph. To realise him more, his success in one of so opposite a tendency. sufferings under his unfortunate match must | But, as far as I could judge, the weighty have the downright pungency of life-must sense of Kemble made up for more personal (or should) make you not mirthful but un- incapacity than he had to answer for. His comfortable, just as the same predicament harshest tones in this part came steeped and would move you in a neighbour or old friend. dulcified in good-humour. He made his The delicious scenes which give the play its defects a grace. His exact declamatory name and zest, must affect you in the same manner, as he managed it, only served to serious manner as if you heard the reputa- convey the points of his dialogue with more tion of a dear female friend attacked in your precision. It seemed to head the shafts to real presence. Crabtree and Sir Benjamin- carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling those poor snakes that live but in the sun- sentences was lost. I remember minutely shine of your mirth-must be ripened by how he delivered each in succession, and this hot-bed process of realisation into asps cannot by any effort imagine how any of or amphisbænas; and Mrs. Candour-O! them could be altered for the better. No frightful!—become a hooded serpent. Oh! man could deliver brilliant dialogue-the who that remembers Parsons and Dodd- dialogue of Congreve or of Wycherley-bethe wasp and butterfly of the School for cause none understood it-half so well as Scandal in those two characters; and John Kemble. His Valentine, in Love for charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect Love, was, to my recollection, faultless. He gentlewoman as distinguished from the fine flagged sometimes in the intervals of tragic lady of comedy, in this latter part-would passion. He would slumber over the level forego the true scenic delight-the escape parts of an heroic character. His Macbeth from life-the oblivion of consequences-the, has been known to nod. But he always holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection seemed to me to be particularly alive to -those Saturnalia of two or three brief pointed and witty dialogue. The relaxing hours, well won from the world-to sit in- levities of tragedy have not been touched by stead at one of our modern plays-to have any since him-the playful court-bred spirit his coward conscience (that forsooth must in which he condescended to the players not be left for a moment) stimulated with in Hamlet-the sportive relief which he perpetual appeals dulled rather, and threw into the darker shades of Richard blunted, as a faculty without repose must be --and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectator's risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? disappeared with him. He had his sluggish moods, his torpors-but they were the halting-stones and resting-place of his tragedy politic savings, and fetches of the breath-husbandry of the lungs, where nature pointed him to be an economist― rather, I think, than errors of the judg- vigilance, the "lidless dragon eyes," of ment. They were, at worst, less painful present fashionable tragedy. than the eternal tormenting unappeasable ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN. Nor many nights ago, I had come home from seeing this extraordinary performer in Cockletop; and when I retired to my pillow, his whimsical image still stuck by me, in a manner as to threaten sleep. In vain I tried to divest myself of it, by conjuring up the most opposite associations. I resolved to be serious. I raised up the gravest topics of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not do : --There the antic sate pin down, and call his. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion; not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, literally makes foces: applied to any other person, the phrase is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. I should not be surprised to see him some day put out the head of a river-horse; or come forth a pewitt, or lapwing, some feathered metamor his queer visnomy-his bewildering costume I have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry-in old Dornton-diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse But I was not to escape so easily. No of a crowded theatre beat like that of one sooner did I fall into slumbers, than the man; when he has come in aid of the pulpit, same image, only more perplexing, assailed doing good to the moral heart of a people. me in the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, I have seen some faint approaches to this but five hundred, were dancing before me, sort of excellence in other players. But in like the faces which, whether you will or no, the grand grotesque of farce, Munden stands come when you have been taking opium-out as single and unaccompanied as Hogarth. all the strange combinations, which this Hogarth, strange to tell, had no followers. strangest of all strange mortals ever shot The school of Munden began, and must end, his proper countenance into, from the day he with himself. came commissioned to dry up the tears of the town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power of the pencil to have fixed them when I awoke! A season or two since, there was exhibited a Hogarth gallery. I do not see why there should not be a Munden gallery. In richness and variety, the latter would not fall far short of the former. There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but what a one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly Can any man wonder, like him? can any man see ghosts, like him? or fight with his own shadow-" SESSA"-as he does in that strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston - where his alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico to the Cobbler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him. Who like him can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over the commonest daily-life objects? A |