Another voice:--"Nonsense! His wife has turned the stuff into a
petticoat."
"How little you understand me, ladies and gentlemen. In the first place,
it is but decent that our stage should lament the death of the Iron
Duke"--
Interruption:--"No first place! Don't you try to be funny, old
feller!"--Blasphemy--groans.
"Ladies and gentlemen, pray listen to me. Let all be serene between us.
I have nothing to conceal. Ladies and gentlemen, the overture is about
to commence!"
The speaker vanishes through a trap-door, through which two fellows
presently ascend. One is dressed up to represent an Irishman; the other
wears the characteristic habiliments of a Scotch Highlander. They play
some national airs, and while thus engaged strip themselves of every
particle of their outer clothing, and appear as American planters. Some
one from below, hands up a couple of straw hats, which they clap on
their heads, and the metamorphosis is complete. They then go to the back
of the stage and return with an unfortunate "African." The part is acted
by no less distinguished a person than the director himself. His face is
blackened, he has a woolly wig on his head, and heavy chains on his
wrists and ancles; and to prevent all misunderstandings, there is pinned
to his waistcoat an enormous placard, with the magic words of "UNCLE
TOM."
The planters produce meanwhile a couple of stout whips, which
instruments of torture they use in a very unceremonious manner, in
belabouring the back of the sable _protegé_ of the Duchess of Sutherland
and the women of England generally, when all of a sudden, that
illustrious negro, exclaiming, "LI-BER-R-R-TY! LIBER-R-R-TY!" breaks his
fetters, and turning round with great deliberation, descends into the
pit. Exeunt the two planters, each with a somerset.
Transformation:--Three forms issue from the back door; a colossal
female, with a trident and a diadem of gilt paper, bearing the legend of
"BRITANNIA"; after her, a pot-bellied old gentleman, with a red nose and
a spoon in his right hand, while his left holds an enormous soup-plate,
with a turtle painted on the back of it.
Britannia, heaving a deep sigh, sits down on a stool, adjusts a
telescope, which is very long and very dirty, and looks out upon the
ocean. The gentleman with the red nose, who, of course, represents the
Lord Mayor of the good City of London, kneels down at her feet, and
indulges in a fit of very significant howlings and gnashings of teeth.
The third person is a sailor-boy complete, with a south-wester, blue
jacket, and wide trousers, who dances a hornpipe while Britannia sighs
and the Lord Mayor howls.
Now comes the great scene of the evening! Somebody or something, diving
up from the very midst of the pit, makes a rush against the stage. It is
the Uncle Tom of the last scene; but surely even Her Grace of Sutherland
would not know him again. His face is as black and his hair as woolly as
ever; but a cocked hat, a pair of red trousers and top boots, and an
enormous sword, brings it home even to the dullest understanding, that
this is a very dangerous person! Besides, on his back there is a
placard, with the inscription: "_Solouque_--NAPOLEON--EMPEROR"!!
The monster bawls out "INVASION!" while, to the great delight of the
ladies and gentlemen, he bumps his head several times against the chalky
cliffs of Britain, which, on the present emergency, are represented by
the wooden planks of the stage. The very sailor-boy, still dancing his
hornpipe, shows his contempt for so much ferocity and dulness. He greets
the invader with a scornful--"_Parli-vow Frenchi?_"
At this juncture, the conqueror becomes aware of the presence of the
short ladder, and mounts it forthwith. The boy vents his feelings of
horror and disgust in an expressive pantomime, the Lord Mayor howls
louder than ever, and the gnashing of his teeth is awful to behold; but
just as the invader has gained the edge of the stage, he is attacked by
the sailor, who, applying his foot to a part of the Frenchman's body
which shall be nameless, kicks that warrior back into the pit. The
public cheer, Britannia and the Lord Mayor dance a polka, and the sailor
sings "God save the Queen!"
"If the French ambassador could but know of this!" said Mr. Baxter, as
the two friends were pushing their way out through a crowd of new
comers. "That one kick would give rise to half a dozen diplomatic notes.
Alas, for the liberties of Old England! Now I am sure the Lord
Chamberlain's deputy would never have permitted this scene in a
Drury-lane pantomime."
"I'm glad of it," said Dr. Keif, testily, "since it seems to hurt you,
who are a moderate Tory. But why did we go away?"
"It was so hot. But what do you say to this sort of thing? Here you have
the low and the uneducated in raptures with a histrionic representation.
Are you still of opinion, that the people of England are without
dramatic affinities and theatrical instincts?"
"I never expressed such an opinion. Just now we were talking of tragic
acting; but as for your comic actors, they are exquisite. No one can
equal Matthews at the Lyceum or Mrs. Keeley. There you have natural
freshness, energy, lightness, and refinement. Our German comic plays and
actors are nothing to it. You see I can be impartial, and I will
plainly tell you what my impressions are. When I saw 'Romeo and Juliet'
at Sadler's-wells, I had to bite my lips to keep myself from laughing.
Juliet, instead of proceeding from an Italian nunnery, appeared fresh
from a finishing school at Brompton; the orthopedical stays and the
back-board were not to be mistaken. And as for Romeo, so great was my
confidence in him, that I would, without the least hesitation, have
handed an express-train over to his care; he was so cool, sharp, and
collected. It was just the same with Mercutio, Tybalt, and Friar
Lawrence. Not that they were deficient in mimic and vocal power--no such
thing! but because they conducted themselves in a frantic manner, and
because they got up and down the scale of human sounds from a whisper to
a roar. For the very reason that they did all this, I came to the
conclusion that there is no tragic passion in these gentlemen. I saw
them afterwards in comedies, and they delighted me. The broader the
comedy, the nearer it approaches to the farce, the more natural does the
acting appear to me. Dont laugh at me; but I never enjoyed anything so
much as I did the last year's Christmas pantomime at Drury-lane. There
you have plastic jokes, madness with method, edifying nonsense--a
kaleidoscope for aged children."
"How you go on!" said Mr. Baxter. "Don't you know that those pantomimes,
for the most part, are nothing but a tissue of stale jokes taken at
random from the last volume of _Punch_?"
"No matter! The jokes, however stale, strike one as new by dint of a
clever arrangement and a judicious intermixture of all the follies of
the season. It is not an easy matter, let me tell you, to translate a
printed witticism into an intelligible and striking _tableau_. Quick and
dreamlike as the scenic changes are, not a single allusion can escape
the audience: they are all executed in a lapidary style. Life in London
garrets and streets, shops and cellars, shown up in a sort of carnival
procession--surely there is a good deal of art in that! Hogarth might
have sketched this sort of thing with a drop or so more of gall; but I
doubt whether he could have surpassed it in striking truthfulness.
Besides I prefer seeing such scenes acted to seeing them engraved. These
are the plays to bring out the mechanical excellence of your
countrymen. Your young gentleman appears stiff and awkward enough in the
drawing-room. But your clown on the stage is the _beau ideal_ of
mercurial agility. The fellow has patent steel springs in every one of
his joints. Our own misnamed 'English riders' are mere lay-figures if
compared to the clowns which overleap one another in your Christmas
pantomimes. There is but one dark spot in their representations, namely,
the ballet. To see twenty or thirty female Englishmen of full
regulation-size dancing a ballet, is an overpowering luxury. To this day
I protest that nothing was farther from the thoughts of those worthy
virgins than the performance of a dance, but that their elongated legs
were so many geometrical instruments moving about with a view to the
practical demonstration of the various problems in Euclid. English
ladies, as all the world knows, are madly fond of the higher branches of
abstract science."
"You are a rabid critic, and a rabid critic you will remain to the end
of your days," said Mr. Baxter. "You Germans cannot get on without
classifications and generalisations. For instance, you think proper to
imagine a profound philosophy in the Christmas pantomimes, which, after
all, are acted for the special delight of the infant population. And you
dare to doubt the genius of Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Siddons, merely
because you know that a few bad actors are now and then in the habit of
murdering Shakespeare. However, it is impossible to exhaust the subject
of the difference between English and German taste. Our tragedy is as
strongly pronounced as our comedy, and what you blame in the former, you
like in the latter. I am free to confess that our actors overdo their
parts; but they do not overdo them to such an extent as you fancy,
accustomed as you are to the contemplative, monological pathos of the
German tragedians. Possibly our heroes would be all the better for a
gentler roar, but certainly it cannot be said of them, that their acting
is soporific. But let us leave this wordy theme! There is no denying it,
that the best days of the stage are over, here and in Germany: with you
from the want of substance, air, and elbow-room; with us, from an excess
of overwhelming practical activity. Besides there are many other causes
which it is impossible to enumerate. There is but one point to which I
would call your attention; and I would have you mind it whenever you
make comparisons. With us, dramatic art has never been idolised as in
Germany; we have never considered it as an institution for national
education and an academy of ethics. Within the last few years only this
view has been adopted and enforced by some writers. I can understand
what your stage has been to you since the days of Lessing, and the
losses and wants for which in Germany it was an indemnification. But you
began at the wrong end. The drama is the flower of national life; you
sought to convert it into its seed and root. On some occasions you have
even gone the length of considering it the fruit and the object of
national life. You cared more for the ideal reflection than for the real
action which was to be reflected. It has often made me smile to hear
your æsthetical patriots clamour for a German fleet or a German emperor,
for no other reason but because these two 'properties' would do an
immense deal of good to the drama; and I have also smiled when listening
to their lamentations that Germany can never be great and powerful,
since her national stage is sustained by the leavings of the French
theatres. Our managers import loads of French farces and vaudevilles,
and the papers show them up for it now and then; but no one believes our
nationality in danger. As well might we fear the most serious
consequences to the power of England, from the importation of French
milliners, stays, and _Culs de Paris_."
Mr. Baxter made a short pause, and, since Dr. Keif would not speak, he
continued his oration _pro domo_.
"Let me tell you, that there are thousands of Englishmen in town and
country, who quote Shakespere as they do the Bible, but they know
nothing whatever of the stage; and there are patrons of the stage, to
whom you may demonstrate the decline of that institution, without
eliciting one word of reproval against the Foreign Office. In Germany,
the stage is petted and subsidised by a score or so of royal and
princely personages. English theatres are speculations, as all other
commercial undertakings; they have nothing to rely on but the support of
the public. The Queen takes a box at the Princess's, or at Covent
Garden; no one will ever expect her to do more for the 'national
drama,' or the Italian opera. The very boards which yesterday witnessed
the death struggles of Desdemona and the jealousy of the Moor, are this
evening given up to Franconi or a band of Indian jugglers. If any one
here were to lament this 'desecration of the Temple of the Muses,' he
would simply make himself ridiculous. The dog of Aubrey, which excited
Göthe's and Schiller's indignation, will be a welcome guest on any
London stage, so it pays. But for all that, the public know how to
distinguish between poesy and clap-trap. Our actors take their position
in society as gentlemen, though they have not, as your actors, the
'position of public functionaries.' Our dramatic authors do not indulge
in oraculous preface, because they do not think it absolutely necessary
that they should be prophets, while they do think it absolutely
necessary to be entertaining. A poetical entertainment ennobles; poesy
which is not entertaining falls short of its mark, and remains without
effect. I am free to confess, that Sheridan and Otway remain unsurpassed
in their respective lines. Shelley's Beatrice, though unfit for the
stage, has indication of dramatic genius of a high order; but one
swallow does not make a summer. Our critics regret this; but they do not
lament it as a national misfortune--they do not demonstrate from this
fact the spiritual and moral decline of the nation. They are aware that
dramatic productiveness is not to be had to order, that guano and
artificial tendencies cannot raise a crop; they have been content with
the works of Cumberland, Knowles, Bulwer, D. Jerrold, and Tom Taylor,
without measuring their productions by the standard of the most renowned
precedents, or abusing each individual author because he is not a
Shakespeare. And for all that, Old England flourishes in power and
glory. But stop, we have lost our way, and got into Seven Dials, which
is, after all, but a worse edition of Drury-lane. Let us go back. The
'Witches' Sabbath' must by this time be at its height, and we may as
well look at what is going on."
They picked their way through a very narrow and dark lane.
Dr. Keif heaved a deep sigh and said--"I see you have stored up a
lecture for my benefit. Your sallies and innuendoes go right against
the rotten side of our German hot-house life; but--but surely you must
admit, that the stage is an indication of the spirit and taste of
society; and certainly you are the last man whom I could have expected
to deliver this matter-of-fact sermon, to which I have just
had--politeness compels me to call it--the _pleasure_ of listening. My
Germanic opposition has driven you into the ranks of the Manchester men.
But surely you cannot possibly have the face to tell me, that the
one-sided, utilitarian tendencies of England are _beautiful_."
"_Beautiful_," replied Mr. Baxter, with a sigh. "Did I call them
beautiful? Surely not; but _necessity_, my dear Doctor, is a mighty
goddess. We, too, who are _dilettanti_, would be better off for
ourselves and others, if we had learnt something of agriculture,
political economy, or some substantial profession or trade. This remark
applies to nations also. What's the use of going in pursuit of '_the
Beautiful_' and '_the Great_,' when you are at a loss how to clothe
Beauty and shelter Greatness. Pray be candid for this once. Was it not
the case of the German Titans, when a mere chance, an earthquake, flung
the keys of the house within their reach? Were they not, most of them,
wilful dreamers, dabblers in politics and poetry--men who judged the
progress of events after its picturesque or dramatic effect; and who,
though brimful with schemes for the improvement of the '_people_,' and
overflowing with sympathy for the sufferings of the same 'people,' had
not the least idea how to set about gaining an army, improving the
finances, establishing the good cause on a basis of material interests,
saving time, and making the most of the favour of the moment? These
matter-of-fact virtues and abilities were everywhere wanting. And now
what has been the result for _the Beautiful_ and _the Great_?"
"But Sir," said Dr. Keif, "I protest your words make me giddy. Are you
my old friend Baxter? You speak in the spirit of the Quaker Bright, and
Cobden of plausible reputation. Do you really believe that the German
revolution made _fiasco_, because the Germans read Schiller and Göthe;
and that England is great and powerful, only because a sense for art and
good taste is confined to the favoured few, while the life of your
middle classes is spread over the dead level of the flattest
materialism imaginable?"
"You are mistaken. One-sidedness is a sad thing under any circumstances;
but if the choice be left me, I would prefer British one-sidedness to
the German. And as for our materialism, it has been wofully exaggerated
on the continent. England has a large family, many mouths to feed, sir,
and appearances to be kept up, too, namely, the traditional pomp and
splendour of an old aristocracy and of the crown. The nation has doubled
its numbers within the last two hundred years, but our island has not
increased in size, though certainly a large extent of waste land has
been reclaimed. Britannia _must_ rule the waves if she would keep her
own. Rob us of our wealth, and we are utterly lost. But no one can rob
us of our wealth, because that wealth is founded on what you call our
prosaical materialistic character, and what we describe as the
indomitable energy and calm deliberation of the people. The Englishman
understands the necessity of an untiring, practical industry and
devotion to that industry has in him become a second nature. Labour, my
dear Sir, civilizes the masses and ennobles the few. Consider your own
words, and just think how childish it is to hold forth against the 'flat
materialism' of a nation which is in a fair way of fully conquering the
elements and withdrawing the veil from the secrets of nature! That at
the present day utilitarian tendencies are predominant, even in
literature, who can deny? But the brains that labour in the service of
'the useful,' labour also, and knowingly, too, for the benefit of
humanity. Our middle classes, though not such great theatrical critics
as the Germans, are attracted, and surely they are improved by a great
many other sights. Just join the crowd of holyday makers that have come
to see the launch of a gigantic steamer in Southampton, Liverpool,
Glasgow, or Blackwall, and from a thousand sparkling eyes proud thoughts
will flash at you--not mere nabob-thoughts and gold-freight
speculations, as you Germans fancy; but anticipations of a better and
nobler future, hopes of peaceful intercourse among and the progress of
all nations; dreams of civilization in Dahomey and other barbarous
countries--in short, thoughts of which no art-philosopher need be
ashamed. Go to the Polytechnic----."
The fog has vanished in Drury-lane; for about midnight the London sky is
usually clear; the moon looks out from behind the steeple of St. Mary's
church in the Strand, and at each street-corner stands a policeman, he
being on the look-out. The progress of the two friends is stopped by a
dense crowd, surrounding a couple of Irish women, who are settling a
little "difficulty" of their own. Ragged little boys stand in dangerous
proximity, urging them on, and making very laudable exertions to procure
for the street the gratification of a "real fight," for hitherto the two
Amazons have used their tongues rather than their fists, and indulged in
an interchange of epithets beginning with _b_ and ending with _y_, and
repeated with extreme volubility an incredible number of times.
"You've got no pluck! you daughter of a dog's daughter, that's what you
hasn't!" shouts a little imp of a fellow, jumping right between them,
and splashing all the bystanders. With bursts of laughter and many
curses, the crowd disperses down the street and follows a stretcher,
carried by two policemen, who have just issued from a dark gate-way. On
the stretcher, her head and legs hanging down, is a tall,
consumptive-looking girl, with her hair loosened and sweeping down like
a black veil.
"They're taking her to the station-house," says a woman with a pipe and
a strong Irish accent--"taking her to the station-house, for the blessed
dthrop is such a stranger in her throat--poor Poll! believe me,
gintlemin, it's only hunger has made her drunk--only hunger!"
Through all the various sounds of yells, groans, and curses, we hear at
a distance the unharmonious concert of two barrel-organs, one of which
is grinding out a woful caricature of the Marseillaise, while the other,
addressing itself to the human family generally, informs them, with an
awful screech, that "There's a good time coming, boys," which cheering
intelligence is, in the end, qualified by the growl of "Wait a little
longer." A few yards on, a beggar-boy with naked feet, and with an
almost naked back, has taken up his post where the mud is deepest in the
road, and sings, with a thin, small voice, "Ye banks and braes of
bonnie Doon." Nobody cares for him, for the public are attracted by two
artists who are performing in the next street. They are brothers, by
their looks, and work together. The younger, a tiny boy with an aged
face, taxes the ingenuity of the public by conundrums, whose chief
characteristic is, that they are almost always political and smutty.
"Why is her most gracious Majesty like a notorious pick-pocket?" shouts
he, in a tone which would do honour to a trained school-master. While
the public are trying to find the answer, the elder brother imitates the
songs of birds and the voices of beasts. They all give it up. "Because
she is often confined," says the little boy, with a most indecent wink
at some females. And the songs of birds and voices of beasts are again
imitated, and conundrums of a still grosser description propounded and
explained; and the hat goes round and comes back with a few pence and
half-pence in it.
"And this is classic soil," said Mr. Baxter. "The whole of this ought to
be sacred to the antiquarian, to the adorer of the so-called merry old
England. When I shut my eyes--and mind, if I can manage to shut my ears
and nose too--I see Nell Gwynn, the merry friend of Charles II., with
very thin dress, and not much of it, and with her pet lamb under her
arm, walking out of the great portal; she vanishes through the green
gate in Lord Craven's garden. The rays of the setting sun gild the
curiously-carved gables of the villas in the Strand, but the cavaliers
are already on their way back from the play; and Kynaston, dressed in
the costume which he wore on the stage for the part of Juliet, takes a
drive with some discreet ladies of fashion, rank, and pleasure."
"A merry life, indeed!" said Dr. Keif. "Keep your eyes, ears, and nose
shut, and go on."
"Not now, dear Doctor. If you are curious on the subject, I will send
you some of the old books and chronicles of the time. You will find that
theatrical doings in those days, however interesting, are rather
instructive than taking. I dare say, you fancy the age was without
prudery, and there you are right; but the natural healthy cheerfulness
which we find in Shakspeare had long since evaporated. The period of
the restoration was insolent but not merry. That the cavaliers were
rude and brutal means nothing; the upper classes generally were rude and
brutal in all countries at that time; but ours added to a barbarous
brutality, a more than French dissoluteness of morals. Strange enough
were the doings of the last Stuarts. Fancy yourself in Great Russell
Street, following the troops of cavaliers and ladies, with long curly
locks _à la Vallière_, on their road to the theatre. As they leave their
chairs or carriages, or dismount from their horses, they draw their
masks over faces heated and bloated with drink. Almost everybody is
masked. The custom comes from the times of the Puritans, when people
went secretly to the theatre. The dissolute second Charles, with his
gloomy gypsy face, comes just in time to stop a brawl between the Duke
of Buckingham and Killigrew the actor. Killigrew has disarmed the duke,
and laid his scabbard about his grace's ears. Buckingham will send a
couple of bravos by and bye, and half kill the actor--a fate which even
poor Dryden could not escape. The play begins amidst the interruptions
and howling of drunken noblemen who occupy the foreground of the stage,
trip up the heroine, and kick the hero into the orchestra. His Majesty,
meanwhile, in the presence of his lieges, ogles one of his numerous
mistresses, or makes smutty speeches to an orange-girl, with a voice so
loud that it is plainly heard on the stage. That is a scene from merry
Old England!"
All of a sudden the lights are put out in the gin-palaces, the
barrel-organs are silent, the howling and cursing shrinks into a hoarse
murmur; and the multitude disperse gradually, like muddy water which
runs through the gutters and is lost under ground. The street is all
silent and lonely; only one tall figure comes with rapid and noiseless
steps out of one of the alleys. It looks round in every direction; but
there is no policeman in sight. It steps up to our two friends, and
looks at them in silence with staring glassy eyes. It is not the spirit
of midnight, nor is it a ghost; but neither is it a form of flesh and
blood, for it is all skin and bones. And the clear light of the
harvest-moon displays a half-starved woman with an infant on her arm, to
whom her bony hand is a hard death-bed. For some minutes she stares at
the strangers. They put some silver into her hand, and she, without any
remark or thanks, turns round and walks slowly away.
"The holy sabbath has commenced," said Dr. Keif, "the puritanical
sabbath, on which misery feels three times more miserable."
"My dear friend," said Mr. Baxter, "twenty-five years ago you might have
found the whole of Oxford Street crowded with figures similar to the one
which has just left us. If you would see them in our days, you must seek
for them in some dark corner of Drury Lane. And Puritanism in 1853 is
mild and gentle compared to the Puritanism of the Round-heads; it is
nothing but a natural reaction against the dissolute Cavalier spirit
which has come down even to the commencement of this century. In the
English character one extreme must be balanced by the other. Either
merry and mad, or sober and prude; we are either drunkards or
teetotallers, brawlers or peace-twaddlers. Of course, if harmonic and
measured dignity, if the instinct for beauty of form, were innate in us,
then, indeed, this nation would not be the persevering, hard-working,
powerful John Bull which it is; or if it were, we should shame your
German proverb, that the trees nowhere grow into the heavens. Good
night, Doctor; and '_au revoir_.'"