day-mare--'a whoreson lethargy,' Falstaff call it--an
indisposition to do any thing--a total deadness and distaste--a
suspension of vitality--an indifference to locality--a numb,
soporifical, good-for-nothingness--an ossification all over--an
oyster-like insensibility to the passing events--a mind
stupor--a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in
conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold, with a total
irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been
for many weeks my lot, and my excuse; my fingers drag heavily
over this paper, and to my thinking it's three-and-twenty
furlongs from hence to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a
thing to say; nothing is of more importance than another; I am
flatter than a denial or a pancake; emptier than Judge ----'s
wig when the head is in it; duller than a country stage when
the actors are off it; a cipher, an 0! I acknowledge life at
all, only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent
phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world, and
the world is weary of me. My day is gone into twilight, and I
don't think it worth the expense of candles. My wick hath a
thief in it, but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale
suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from mutton; nothing
interests me. 'Tis twelve o'clock, and Thurtell is just now
coming out upon the New Drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up
his greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality, yet
cannot I elicit a groan or a moral reflection. If you told
me the world will be at an end to-morrow, I should just say,
'will it?' I have not volition enough left to dot my i's,
much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my head; my
brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and
they did not say when they'd come back again; my skull is a
Grub-street attic to let--not so much as a joint-stool left
in it; my hand writes, not I; just as chickens run about a
little, when their heads are off. O for a vigorous fit of gout,
of cholic, tooth-ache--an earwig in my auditory, a fly in my
visual organs; pain is life--the sharper, the more evidence
of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an
obstinate cold--a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill, and
suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and every thing? Yet do I
try all I can to cure it; I try wine, and spirits, and smoking,
and snuff in unsparing quantities, but they all only seem to
make me worse instead of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it
does me no good; I come home late o' nights, but do not find
any visible amendment!
"It is just fifteen minutes after twelve; Thurtell is by this
time a good way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion perhaps;
Ketch is bargaining for his cast coat and waistcoat; the Jew
demurs at first at three half-crowns, but, on consideration
that he may get somewhat by showing 'em in the town, finally
closes."
In the same vein is the following, written under similar
circumstances:
"I have had my head and ears stuffed up with the east winds.
A continual ringing in my brain of bells jangled, or the
spheres touched by some raw angel. Is it not George the Third
tuning the Hundredth Psalm? I get my music for nothing. But
the weather seems to be softening, and will thaw my stunnings.
Coleridge, writing to me a week or two since, began his note:
'_Summer has set in with his usual severity._' A cold summer
is all I know disagreeable in cold. I do not mind the utmost
rigour of real winter, but these smiling hypocritical Mays
wither me to death. My head has been ringing chaos, like
the day the winds were made, before they submitted to the
discipline of a weather-cock, before the quarters were made.
In the street, with the blended noises of life about me, I
hear, and my head is lightened; but in a room, the hubbub comes
back, and I am deaf as a sinner. Did I tell you of a pleasant
sketch Hood has done, which he calls, '_Very deaf indeed?_'
It is of a good-natured, stupid-looking old gentleman, whom a
foot-pad has stopped, but for his extreme deafness cannot make
him understand what he wants. The unconscious old gentleman is
extending his ear-trumpet very complacently, and the fellow is
firing a pistol into it to make him hear, but the ball will
pierce his skull sooner than the report reach his sensorium.
I choose a very little bit of paper, for my ear hisses when I
bend down to write. I can hardly read a book, for _I miss that
small soft voice which the idea of articulated words raises_
(almost imperceptibly to you) _in a silent reader_. _I seem too
deaf to see what I read._ But with a touch of returning zephyr,
my head will melt."
It is in a letter to the same staid correspondent, that we find the
following reflections on the fate of Fauntleroy, who was executed
many years since in London. It is 'a strange mingling of humor and
solemn truth:'
"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe
of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the
unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast
reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity
of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My
very style seems to myself to become more impressive than
usual, with the charge of them. Who that standeth, knoweth
but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to
believe, have never deviated into other's property. You think
it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence;
but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many beside
him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as
yet upright; but you are a banker, or at least the next thing
to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass
through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If in an
unguarded hour----but I will hope better. Consider the scandal
it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would
go to see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the
fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect
it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention
higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when
I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of
their life, made as sure of never being hanged, as I, in my
own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are
we better than they? Do we come into the world with different
necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are
we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am
shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their
resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for
the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking,
fingering, etc."
Here is a capital programme for those losel scouts whose 'tales of
the crusades' which are waged against the canine species, generally
fill our newspapers in the dog-days. We have no doubt that similar
suggestions to those here thrown out, have been acted upon by many a
dog-hater, in the fervid summer solstice, what time a worse virus
than the hydrophobic was raging in his brain. Lamb is inquiring after
his adopted dog, 'Dash:'
"Goes he muzzled, or _aperto ore_? Are his intellects sound,
or does he wander a little in _his_ conversation? You cannot
be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The
first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him. All
the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers;
but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected.
But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are
not used to them. Try him with hot water: if he won't lick
it up, it is a sign--he does not like it. Does his tail wag
horizontally, or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate
of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful?
I mean when he is pleased--for otherwise there is no judging.
You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet?
If he has, have them shot, and keep _him_ for curiosity, to see
if it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had
it at one time; but that was in _Hyder_-Ally's time. Do you get
paunch for him? Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull
out his teeth, (if he would let you,) and then you need not
mind if he were as mad as a bedlamite."
There is an adroit satire upon epitaphs--certificates of good
character given to persons on going to a new place, who oftentimes
had none in the places they left--in the annexed fragment from a
letter enclosing an acrostic:
"I am afraid I shall sicken you of acrostics, but this last was
written _to order_. I beg you to have inserted in your country
paper, something like this advertisement: 'To the nobility,
gentry, and others about Bury:--C. Lamb respectfully informs
his friends and the public in general, that he is leaving off
business in the acrostic line, as he is going into an entirely
new line. Rebuses and charades done as usual, and upon the
old terms. Also, epitaphs to suit the memory of any person
deceased.'"
A few original anecdotes of Lamb must close our notice for the
present. The first dry specimen was doubtless suggested by the
closing couplet of a London street-ballad, wherein is set forth the
ultra fickleness of a female 'lovyer:'
'And there I spied that faithless she,
A fryin' sassengers for he!'
"One day, at the exhibition of the Royal Academy, I was sitting
on a form, looking at the catalogue, and answering some young
people about me who had none, or spared themselves the trouble
of consulting it. There was a large picture of Prospero and
Miranda; and I had just said, 'It is by _Shee_;' when a voice
near me said, 'Would it not be more grammatical to say by
_her_?' I looked, it was Mr. Lamb.
"He went with a party down to my brother Charles's ship, in
which the officers gave a ball to their friends. My brother
hired a vessel to take us down to it, and some one of the
company asked its name. On hearing it was the _Antelope_, Mr.
Lamb cried out, 'Don't name it; I have such a respect for
my aunt, I cannot bear to think of her doing such a foolish
action!'
"A widow-friend of Lamb having opened a preparatory school for
children at Camden Town, said to him, 'I live so far from town
I must have a sign, I think you call it, to show that I teach
children.' 'Well,' he replied, 'you can have nothing better
than '_The Murder of the Innocents_!'
"A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling him that eight
people dined at the top of the spire of that edifice; upon
which he remarked, that they must be very '_sharp set_!'
"An old woman, on a cold, bleak day, begged of him for charity:
'Ah! Sir,' said she, 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I,'
said Lamb; meaning literally one not so rainy and overcast as
the one on which she begged.
"Mrs. H---- was sitting on a sofa one day, between Mr. Montague
and Mr. Lamb. The latter spoke to her, but all her attention
was given to the other party. At last they ceased talking, and
turning round to Mr. Lamb, she asked what it was he had been
saying? He replied, 'Ask Mr. Montague, for it went in at one
ear and out at another.'
"Coleridge one day said to him: 'Charles, did you ever hear me
_preach_?' 'I never heard you do any thing else,' said Lamb."
We shall discuss anew these teeming volumes, when the American
edition (which it is to be hoped will possess the portraits of the
English) shall have appeared.
BRISTOL ACADEMY, TAUNTON, (MASS.)--A catalogue of the officers,
teachers, and pupils of this institution, now before us, affords
very favorable evidence of the prosperity which it enjoys, under the
supervision of its able preceptor, J. N. BELLOWS, Esq. It already
numbers nearly an hundred pupils, in the male and female departments,
embracing residents in various quarters of the country. The plan
of instruction, set forth in the appendix, is an excellent one;
'uniting, as far as practicable, pleasure with study, yet not to the
neglect of strictness of discipline, and thoroughness in the business
of instruction,' in which the art of teaching, as a profession, is
included, in a separate department.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] The tone and manner of a second communication from 'HONESTUS,'
(perused, it is proper to add, since this article was placed in
type,) induce the opinion, that something of personal feeling and
private pique is mingled with his 'enlarged regard for the progress
of musical science in this country.'
THE DRAMA.
PARK THEATRE--MR. FORREST.--TWO succeeding engagements of Mr.
FORREST, have given us an opportunity of witnessing his efforts in
all of his old, and in some (to him) new characters. Othello, Damon,
Richard III., Metamora, Spartacus, Lear, Carwin, in the 'Orphan of
Geneva,' and even Hamlet, have in turn been presented, through the
impersonations of Mr. Forrest. Among these, there are some characters
which long ago he made his own, and which have not since found any
other representative. Such are Metamora, Spartacus, and perhaps
Damon; Othello and Lear, too, had been previously attempted by Mr.
Forrest, and found among his many friends enthusiastic admirers. This
last engagement, however, has presented this gentleman in two new
characters, Richard and Hamlet. Of the first of these, it shall be
our province to speak in this paper.
Mr. Forrest has challenged criticism upon his conception of the
character of the Duke of Gloster, by his remarks contained in a
published letter to a friend, written during his English visit. In
this letter he boldly affirms, that the ideas which EDMUND KEAN
always held of the personage which he represented as the Duke of
Gloster, were erroneous, in one great particular, and that therefore
_he_ should portray the crook-backed tyrant in a light quite
different from that in which Kean presented him. This error of Kean
consisted, it seems, in supposing the royal cut-throat to have been
a too _serious_ villain; in presenting the early part of his career
in a shade too sombre. According to Mr. Forrest, the wily duke
was rather inclined to be jocose in his butcheries; and he should
therefore, in his personation of the character, make the jester a
sort of _basso-relievo_ to the hard, black surface of his marble
heart.
Now we admire originality, whether it be displayed on the stage,
at the bar, in the pulpit, on the canvass, or in books. Whether
the original be a cobbler, or an architect, we hail his advent
with joy and gratulation. That clever artist, who first conceived
the interesting metamorphosis whereby a sliver of wood could be
converted into a pumpkin-seed, deserves, indeed, more praise for his
singular ingenuity, than for any lasting blessing thereby conferred
upon mankind. Nor can we affirm, that the kindred hand which first
transposed the same material into those cherished condiments of
eastern Ind, y'clept nutmegs, has claim to any higher reward; yet
were both these worthies original thinkers, and thereby entitled
to the respect due to genius. To endeavor to trace back some great
original thought to the impulse which first opened the way to its
creation; to search for the early germ, no bigger perhaps than a
grain of mustard-seed, out of which the towering tree sprang up in
all its original greatness, is a subject which must always engage the
attention, and employ the research, of the admirers of genius. We
have therefore endeavored, by the most patient and diligent study,
both of Shakspeare and his commentators, to discover the ground upon
which Mr. Forrest formed his original reading of the Duke of Gloster,
or the hint, if possible, from which he snatched his conception of
the murdering duke's jocular disposition. The only peg which we can
possibly discover, whereon we suppose Mr. Forrest might hang his
wonderful originality, is comprised in that line wherein the crafty
Gloster, gloating over that devilish hypocrisy with which he is
enabled to cloak his monstrous villanies, exclaims:
'For I can smile, and murder while I smile.'
Mr. Forrest was no doubt struck with this passage. It seemed to him
to contain the germ of a mighty thought, and in his aspirations for
immortality, he has given a liberal meaning to the passage, and
rendered it thus:
'For I can laugh, and murder while I laugh!'
The spirit of originality seized upon his desires and his faculties
at the same moment; and with a determination to wither at a blast
the laurels of Kean, Cook, John Kemble, Booth, and a host of less
distinguished worthies, he has, in the magnitude of his wisdom,
declared them 'sumphs' in their ignorance of Shakspeare, and himself
the only true representative of the most powerful of the bard's
creations!
'Joy fills his soul, joy innocent of thought;
'What power,' he cries, 'what power these wonders wrought!'
Soul! what thou seek'st is in thee; look and find,
Thy monster meets his likeness in thy mind.'
We were truly inclined to give Mr. Forrest credit for too much good
sense, to be tempted into any such absurd extravagance as he has been
guilty of, in attempting to foist his new reading of Richard upon
an intelligent public. He must have discarded all authority, and
taken it upon himself to settle this question with the world; and
he _has_ settled it, in a way most lamentable for his judgment. The
first three acts of Richard were really pitiable. There was a lack of
every thing which we had long supposed belonged to the character. His
sarcasms--those biting sentences which Kean made so withering--were
turned to absolute jests--regular Joe Millers in blank verse!
Gloster murdered in joke, and all his villanies became, as Mr.
Forrest presented them, no more than the peccadilloes of Punch. The
scene with Queen Anne had no propriety whatever. It was not the wily
Gloster, whose tongue could 'wheedle with the devil,' but the gay,
slashing Corinthian, paying his devoirs to a moonlight Cyprian. The
Duke of Gloster was a gentleman, bloody-minded enough, truly, but
with the polish of a court about him, and an air of nobility as
inseparable as his hump; both of which Mr. Forrest discarded long
before the Duke of Gloster gave up the ghost. The last two acts,
and especially the very last, were powerful, so far as physical
effort could render them powerful. The tent-scene was terrific in
this respect; it was like the 'tic doloureux,' deafening and dull.
It was heavy physical force, with very little of genius to thrill
or to startle; a sort of artificial thunder, without the lightning.
Strange that any can be found to uphold such extravagance; but rant
and fustian seem the order of the day; and he whose lungs are the
stoutest, seems the victor among modern tragedians.
'The rabble knows not where our dramas shine,
But when the actor roars, 'By Jove! that's fine!'
* * * * *
ELLEN TREE.--The finest comedies in the language, presented to us, in
their principal characters, through the acting of Miss ELLEN TREE,
have proved, during the last engagement of this lady, that a true
taste for the legitimate drama yet exists in full force in America,
however it may have degenerated on the other side of the water.
'Rosalind,' 'Beatrice,' 'Lady Teazle,' 'Viola,' as well as 'Ion,'
'Jane Shore,' 'Clarisse,' in the _Barrack-Room_, 'Christine,' and
a multitude of other characters, as varied in their kind as these,
have offered a rich intellectual treat to all who can appreciate the
chaste, ungarnished beauties of the drama. It would be superfluous
to speak of Miss Tree's merit in these characters. To us, at least,
she has become identified with them all; and in speaking of her
performances, we must say that the task can only be a repetition of
that even strain of unadulterated praise, which, justly awarded,
belongs only to perfection. We look in vain for some fault, some
discrepancy, some point which might be improved upon. All is so near
the _beau ideal_ of her art, that we must, in omitting all censure,
either confess ourselves wanting in judgment, or at once acknowledge
Miss Ellen Tree a being more perfect on the stage, than any we know
or can conceive of, off of it. Perhaps the greatest of her many
merits is the remarkable purity of her utterance, and the true sound
and meaning with which she clothes the language of the author. In the
classic phrases of 'Ion,' this beauty is prominent; the choice words
which form the finished sentences of this gem of English literature,
are sounded full in every letter. Vowels and consonants receive
their measured justice, and every line is meted out with its just
cadence, imparting to our much-abused English a quality as free from
blemish as it is capable of sustaining. In common or less classical
compositions, the words are endued with a strength and beauty, which
are borrowed from her perfection of utterance. There is a roundness
and a rich purity in her pronunciation, which gives a finish and
fullness to the sound, that is really musical. She is a worthy
mistress of the Queen's English.
* * * * *
MADAME CARADORI ALLAN.--A new star in _our_ musical world has shone
upon us during the past month; not the less dazzlingly, perhaps,
from its foreign lustre. Mde. ALLAN possesses a _soprano_ voice, of
a light quality. She sings with great apparent ease, and there is a
finish to every note, worthy of the highest praise. Her execution is
graceful in the extreme. The most rapid notes glide as distinctly
through her voice as the most slow and measured. There is neither
hesitation in the one, nor hurry in the other. All are in exact time,
and evince in their execution a degree of study seldom effected, and
a taste fully competent to seize upon and display the most exquisite
beauties of the art. Her manner is evidently that of one unaccustomed
to the stage; that of a sensitive and delicate gentlewoman, suddenly
placed in a situation new to her, but embarrassing only from its
novelty. If, as has been asserted, Mde. Allan's first appearance here
was really her _début_ in an opera made up of English words, she
certainly has great reason to congratulate herself on the success
which attended even her acting of the part of 'Rosina.' The execution
of the opening song, the 'Unâ Voce,' first in English, and then,
in obedience to an _encore_, in Italian, was truly as beautiful as
we can fancy it in the power of her peculiar voice to make it. It
was certainly sufficient to merit one of the most rapturous bursts
of applause that was ever listened to. The other music of her part
was equally well executed, if we except those pieces where low
contralto notes were to be sounded. Here, of course, the artiste
could do nothing; and she showed her good sense by attempting
nothing. We particularly noticed this peculiarity in the concerted
piece at the close of the first act. Having no contralto notes in
her voice, it was impossible for her to express the music belonging
to this scene. A repetition of 'The Barber,' on the next night,
gave us an opportunity of witnessing the same beauties, and the
same slight defects. There was, as might have been expected, less
embarrassment than on the previous evening; while the acting, and
the stage-business altogether, was more easy and natural. 'Love in a
Village' displayed the high faculties of Mde. Allan to still greater
advantage, and certainly, with one glorious exception, we never heard
the melodies which belong to 'Rosetta' more exquisitely given. There
were two simple ballads introduced, which, in her way of expressing
them, made perfect gems of the hacknied 'Coming through the Rye,' and
'I'm Over Young to Marry.' It is the peculiar province of genius to
hallow all it breathes upon; and surely, in a musical way, this truth
was never more clearly exemplified. We are sorry to say, however,
that with the exception of Mr. PLACIDE, Mde. Allan has been most
wretchedly supported. Mr. JONES sang worse than ever, and acted no
better. Mr. RICHINGS is not equal to the parts which we honestly
believe he is _obliged_ to sustain in opera. His exertions, however,
as 'Hawthorn,' would, on this particular evening, have been entitled
to less censure, if he had taken the trouble to learn his part. The
minor characters in opera are shamefully executed at this house.
They were bad enough when the WOODS and BROUGH were to be supported,
but infinitely worse now. There are singers enough in the country
to make up this deficiency. Why are they not engaged? There is Mr.
BROUGH for the 'Basils,' Mr. LATHAM for the 'Figaros;' there is Mr.
HORN, who _can sing_, if he cannot _act_ the 'Elvinos'; and surely
an 'Almaviva' and a 'Hawthorn' might be found, to fill the places
of those who now disgrace these characters at the Park. With two
or three exceptions, (and among them, in justice, we must name Mr.
HAYDEN,) the most exquisite music is played by an admirable orchestra
to no better purpose than to show the sad deficiency of the singers.
Of Mde. Caradori Allan's performance of the 'Somnambulist,' we are
not prepared to speak fully; as, in consequence of the early hour
at which this Magazine is put to press, we have, 'at this present
writing,' only seen her first appearance in the character; when,
from over-exertion, perhaps, in the second act, she was unable to go
through with the third as satisfactorily as we may hope practice will
enable her to do hereafter.
* * * * *