Pickle engages with a Knight of Malta, in a Conversation upon the
English Stage, which is followed by a Dissertation on the Theatres of
the Ancients, by the Doctor.
The rest of the company proceeded to the arsenal, which having viewed,
together with some remarkable churches, they, in their return, went to
the comedy, and saw the Cid of Corneille tolerably well represented. In
consequence of this entertainment, the discourse at supper turned upon
dramatic performances; and all the objections of Monsieur Scudery to
the piece they had seen acted, together with the decision of the French
Academy, were canvassed and discussed. The knight was a man of letters
and taste, and particularly well acquainted with the state of the
English stage; so that when the painter boldly pronounced sentence
against the French manner of acting, on the strength of having
frequented a Covent Garden club of critics, and been often admitted, by
virtue of an order, into the pit; a comparison immediately ensued,
not between the authors, but the actors of both nations, to whom
the chevalier and Peregrine were no strangers. Our hero, like a good
Englishman, made no scruple of giving the preference to the performers
of his own country, who, he alleged, obeyed the genuine impulses of
nature, in exhibiting the passions of the human mind; and entered so
warmly into the spirit of their several parts, that they often fancied
themselves the very heroes they represented; whereas, the action of
the Parisian players, even in their most interesting characters, was
generally such an extravagance in voice and gesture, as is nowhere to
be observed but on the stage. To illustrate this assertion, he availed
himself of his talent, and mimicked the manner and voice of all the
principal performers, male and female, belonging to the French comedy,
to the admiration of the chevalier, who, having complimented him upon
this surprising modulation, begged leave to dissent in some particulars
from the opinion he had avowed.
“That you have good actors in England,” said he, “it would be unjust
and absurd in me to deny; your theatre is adorned by one woman, whose
sensibility and sweetness of voice is such as I have never observed on
any other stage; she has besides, an elegance of person and expression
of features, that wonderfully adapt her for the most engaging characters
of your best plays; and I must freely own that I have been as highly
delighted and as deeply affected by a Monimia and Belvidera at London,
as ever I was by Cornelia and Cleopatra at Paris. Your favourite actor
is a surprising genius. You can, moreover, boast of several comic actors
who are perfect masters of buffoonery and grimace; though, to be free
with you, I think in these qualifications you are excelled by the
players of Amsterdam. Yet one of your graciosos I cannot admire, in all
the characters he assumes. His utterance is a continual sing-song,
like the chanting of vespers; and his action resembles that of heaving
ballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment he seems to
have confounded the ideas of insolence and the dignity of mien; acts the
crafty cool, designing Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector;
in the character of the mild patriot Brutus, loses all temper and
decorum; nay, so ridiculous is the behaviour of him and Cassius at their
interview, that, setting foot to foot, and grinning at each other,
with the aspect of two cobblers engaged, they thrust their left sides
together, with repeated shoots, that the hilts of their swords may clash
for the entertainment of the audience; as if they were a couple of merry
andrews, endeavouring to raise the laugh of the vulgar, on some scaffold
of Bartholomew Fair. The despair of a great man, who falls a victim to
the infernal practices of a subtle traitor who enjoyed his confidence,
this English Aesopus represents, by beating his own forehead, and
beating like a bull; and, indeed, in almost all his most interesting
scenes, performs such strange shakings of the head, and other antic
gesticulations, that when I first saw him act, I imagined the poor man
laboured under the paralytical disorder, which is known by the name
of St. Vitus's dance. In short, he seems to be a stranger to the more
refined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression is of the
vulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet; so that
he has recourse to such violence of affected agitation, as imposes upon
the undiscerning spectator; but to the eye of taste, evinces him a mere
player of that class whom your admired Shakespeare justly compares to
Nature's journeyman tearing a passion to rags. Yet this man, in spite of
all these absurdities, is an admirable Falstaff, exhibits the character
of the eighth Henry to the life, is reasonably applauded in the Plain
Dealer, excels in the part of Sir John Brute, and would be equal to many
humorous situations in low comedy, which his pride will not allow him to
undertake. I should not have been so severe upon this actor, had I not
seen him extolled by his partisans with the most ridiculous and fulsome
manifestations of praise, even in those very circumstances wherein (as I
have observed) he chiefly failed.”
Peregrine, not a little piqued to hear the qualifications of such a
celebrated actor in England treated with such freedom and disrespect,
answered, with some asperity, that the chevalier was a true critic,
more industrious in observing the blemishes than in acknowledging the
excellence of those who fell under his examination.
It was not to be supposed that one actor could shine equally in all
characters; and though his observations were undoubtedly very judicious,
he himself could not help wondering that some of them had always escaped
his notice, though he had been an assiduous frequenter of the
playhouse. “The player in question,” said he, “has, in your own opinion,
considerable share of merit in the characters of comic life; and as to
the manners of the great personages in tragedy, and the operation of
the grand passions of the soul, I apprehend they may be variously
represented, according to the various complexion and cultivation of
different men, A Spaniard, for example, though impelled by the same
passion, will express it very differently from a Frenchman; and what
is looked upon as graceful vivacity and address by the one, would be
considered as impertinence and foppery by the other; nay, so opposite is
your common deportment from that of some other nations, that one of
our own countrymen, in the relation of his travels, observes, that the
Persians even of this age, when they see any man perform unnecessary
gestures, says he is either a fool or Frenchman. The standard of
demeanour being thus unsettled, a Turk, a Moor, an Indian, or inhabitant
of my country whose customs and dress are widely different from ours,
may, in his sentiments, possess all the dignity of the human heart,
and be inspired by the noblest passion that animates the soul, and yet
excite the laughter rather than the respect of an European spectator.
“When I first beheld your famous Parisian stage heroine in one of her
principal parts, her attitudes seemed so violent, and she tossed
her arms around with such extravagance, that she put me in mind of
a windmill under the agitation of a hard gale; while her voice and
features exhibited the lively representation of an English scold. The
action of your favourite male performer was, in my opinion, equally
unnatural: he appeared with the affected airs of a dancing-master; at
the most pathetic junctures of his fate he lifted up his hands above his
head, like a tumbler going to vault, and spoke as if his throat had
been obstructed by a hair-brush: yet, when I compared their manners with
those of the people before whom they performed, and made allowance
for that exaggeration which obtains on all theatres, I was insensibly
reconciled to their method of performance, and I could distinguish
abundance of merit beneath that oddity of appearance.”
The chevalier, perceiving Peregrine a little irritated at what he had
said, asked pardon for the liberty he had taken in censuring the English
players; assuring him that he had an infinite veneration for the British
learning, genius, and taste, which were so justly distinguished in
the world of letters; and that, notwithstanding the severity of his
criticism, he thought the theatre of London much better supplied with
actors than that of Paris. The young gentleman thanked him for his
polite condescension, at which Pallet excited, saying, with a shake of
the head, “I believe so, too, Monsieur;” and the physician, impatient
of the dispute in which he had borne no share, observed, with a
supercilious air, that the modern stage was altogether beneath one who
had an idea of ancient magnificence and execution; that plays ought to
be exhibited at the expense of the state, as those of Sophocles were by
the Athenians; and that proper judges should be appointed for receiving
or rejecting all such performances as are offered to the public.
He then described the theatre at Rome, which contained eighty thousand
spectators; gave them a learned disquisition into the nature of the
persona, or mask, worn by the Roman actors, which, he said, was a
machine that covered the whole head, furnished on the inside with a
brazen concavity, that, by reverberating, the sound, as it issued from
the mouth, raised the voice, so as to render it audible to such an
extended audience. He explained the difference between the saltator and
declamator, one of whom acted, while the other rehearsed the part; and
from thence took occasion to mention the perfection of their pantomimes,
who were so amazingly distinct in the exercise of their art, that a
certain prince of Pontus, being at the court of Nero, and seeing one of
them represent a story, begged him of the emperor, in order to employ
him as an interpreter among barbarous nations, whose language he did
not understand. Nay, divers cynic philosophers, who had condemned this
entertainment unseen, when they chanced to be eye-witnesses of their
admirable dexterity, expressed their sorrow for having so long debarred
themselves of such national enjoyment.
He dissented, however, from the opinion of Peregrine, who, as a proof of
their excellence, had advanced that some of the English actors fancied
themselves the very thing they represented; and recounted a story from
Lucian, of a certain celebrated pantomime, who, in, acting the part of
Ajax in his frenzy, was transported into a real fit of delirium, during
which he tore to pieces the clothes of that actor who stalked before
him, beating the stage with iron shoes, in order to increase the noise;
snatched an instrument from one of the musicians, and broke it over the
head of him who represented Ulysses; and, running to the consular bench,
mistook a couple of senators for the sheep which were to be slain. The
audience applauded him to the skies: but so conscious was the mimic of
his own extravagance when he recovered the use of his reason, that he
actually fell sick with mortification; and being afterwards desired to
re-act the piece, flatly refused to appear in any such character, saying
that the shortest follies were the best, and that it was sufficient for
him to have been a madman once in his life.