Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Acamas.

Enter ACAMAS, Speaking from without. Guards, c.

Where, where is this King?

Who with a mock command prefumes t'affront

A brother. Hah! Macaria here a victim!

He dies! by heaven, he dies, whofe touch profanes her!
Well may your eyes with guilty terror glare
On fuch a King! whofe favagenefs would flay,
Even in a mother's fight, her dearest child.
Some god hold back my arm from brother's blood!

Demophon. Hah! dread'st thou not the thunder's vengeful bolt!
-It is not me-not me, prefumptuous youth!
The goddeís thou affront'it !-thy impious fword,
It rages against heaven!

Alcander.

Acamas.

Demophon.

Better fubmit, [Afide to Demophon
Without contention; he fhall foon repent.
Truft to Alcander, Sir; on his own head
I'll turn the tempeft.

Say't thou, mifcreant!
Hence, while my wrath forbears thee.

-

Horrible!

-But I will not profane with thefe loud brawls This holy place. More than thy frantic menace Doth that religious apprehenfion check Our waked refentment.-Reverend feers, lead on. [Exeunt Demophon, Priefts, &c. Macaria. My full heart muft not-oh, it cannot speak This tumult of emotion!

[blocks in formation]

--

Guardian god

Great occafion

Hurries me hence; elfe much haft thou to hear
Of Hyllus; but this King! this brother! oh,
His perfidy fits near me !-Had he eyes,
Inhuman! to behold? and yet a heart,
A favage heart, to facrifice fuch charms!

I'll to him inftantly-'fore all his troops
Confront him-and by heaven!-yet not him only→→→
That curft Alcander too!-Villain, beware-
But to the fanctuary of Jove's temple

Let my guards lead you; the bleft hour speeds on;
Macaria ftill fhall triumph; or this sword

To its foundation fhake th' Athenian throne.'

This maternal diftrefs, added to that of Macaria, though not in the drama of Euripides, is far from new to our ftage, and has often, even recently, been exhibited to English fpectators. Lovers also have repeatedly been involved in diftreffes fimilar to those of Acamas. The diction is, for the most part, the hacknied cant of the theatre.

The Prologue is only diftinguished by a laboured mediocrity; and the Epilogue is written in imitation of fome of the later

compofitions

compofitions of Garrick, as well as the celebrated Epilogue of Budgell to the Diftreffed Mother, with the happy addition of a well-timed compliment to an English commander.

ART. VIII. The Lord of the Manor, a Comic Opera, as it is performed at the Theatre Royal Drury-Lane, with a Preface by the Author. 8vo. I s. 6d. Evans. 1781.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

HIS opera the Writer has introduced to the Public with a Preface of twenty-four pages, moft part of which will probably tend to confirm the fufpicion, but feebly combated, concerning the perfon of the fuppofed Author. The Lord of the Manor, though without the humour of Steele and Farquhar, like the pieces of Steele and Farquhar, relishes of the military. Even our Author's favourite, Moll Flagon, has a fifter in the Recruiting Officer or Funeral, we forget which, who, like Moll Flagon, fmells of gunpowder. The recruiting fcenes alfo are drawings in the fame fchool, but should not, we allow, be thought liable to the charge of ill-will to the military service." The reflections, in the Preface, on the ufe of mufic on the ftage, on Opera, and the English Comic Opera in particular, are for the moft part juft. The following paffages will, we doubt not, fall in with the fentiments of the intelligent Reader:

• One branch of Comic Opera which meets with fuccefs on our flage is evidently a graft from the Burletta of the Italians; and little as I may admire it in general, I will venture to fay, refpectively to the writing, it is improved in our foil. Midas, the Golden Pippin, and fome others, confidered as pieces of parody and burlefque, are much better than any Italian Burletta I know. In fact, there is in general in the Italian Drama of this name an infipidity, mixed with a buffoonery too low to be called farcical, which would make the reprefentation infupportable in England, were the language underfood, or attended to in any other view than as the introduction and difplay of exquifite mufic.

I cannot eafily bring myfelf to allow the higher branch of our Comic Opera to be of foreign extraction. From the time the Beggar's Opera appeared, we find pieces in profe, with fongs interfperfed, to approaching to regular Comedy in plot, incident, and prefervation of character, as to make them a diftinct fpecies from any thing we find abroad-and is it too much to add, that the fenfe, wit, and humour to be found in fome of them are flerling English marks by which we may claim the fpecies as our own? The mufical pieces at Paris, upon the Theatre called Les Italiens, fprung up from the decline of a fort of Drama where half the perfonages were Italian, as was half the language. When Harlequin and Argentine grew unfashionable, fuch other reprefentations as ferved beft for an hour of mere diffipation fucceeded, and the light and easy mufic with which they were accompanied, made them very popu lar. But the pieces are either parodies, or founded in general upon materials which would be thought in England too fiimfy for any

thing but an after-piece. They are compofed with an amufing playfulness of imagination, which runs love through all its divifions, and ufually contain abundance of very pretty vocal mufic, with a scarcity of incident and little variety of character. It is not intended to degrade or depreciate this ftile of writing as applicable to a Paris audience: it is only meant to ftate it more widely feparate and diftin&t from the force and fpirit of regular comedy than our own. They who are unacquainted with the Paris theatre, are referred for judgment upon this fubject to the Deferter, Zemira and Azor, and other direct translations; and to Daphne and Amintor, and Thomas and Sally, and other after-pieces, very good in their kind, but written after the French manner. The Padlock is above this class in difplay of characters; and the French have nothing upon their Mufical Comic Stage to compare, as refembling Comedy, with Love in a Village, or the Maid of the Mill, or, to take ftill greater credit to our Theatre, the Duenna.'

In a reprefentation which is to hold "a mirror up to nature," and which ought to draw its chief applaufe from reason, vocal mufic fhould be confined to exprefs the feelings of the paffions, but never to exprefs the exercife of them. Song, in any action in which reason tells us it would be unnatural to fing, must be prepofterous. To fight a duel, to cudgel a poltroon in cadence, may be borne in a burletta, upon the fame principle that in the ferious opera we fee heroes fight lions and monsters, and fometimes utter their laft ftruggles for life in fong, and die in ftrict time and tune: but thefe liberties would be totally inadmiffible in the kind of drama which I am recommending. My idea might be further explained by a paffage in the piece of Marmontel before referred to. It appeared to one of the newspaper critics, that I had been guilty of a great error in not introducing a fcene in the Silvain, wherein the Gardes Chaffe of the Seigneur attack the fportfman with guns in their hands, threatening to fhoot him unless he furrenders his gun, which he perfifts in preferving. By the bye, this fort of authority is more natural in France than I hope it would yet be thought to be in England: but that was not my principal objection. This fcene upon the French ftage is all in fong; and even at Paris, where licence of throwing action into fong is fo much more in ufe than it is here, and where I have often feen it excellently performed, the idea of five or fix fellows with fufils prefented at a gentleman's head, and their fingers upon the triggers, threatening his life in bafs notes, he refifting in tenor, and a wife or daughter throwing herself between them in treble, while the fpectator is kept in fufpence, from what in reality must be a momentary event, till the compofer has run his air through all its different branches, and to a great length, always gave me difguft to a great degree.

6

Mufic, therefore, if employed to exprefs action, must be confined to dumb thew. It is the very effence of pantomime; and we have lately feen upon the opera stage how well a whole ftory may be told in dance; but in all thefe inftances mulic ftands in the place of fpeech, and is itfelf the only organ to exprefs the fentiments of the actor.

To return to the application of vocal mufic upon the English theatre: it must not only be reftrained from having part in the exercife or action of the paffions; care must be also taken, that it does not interrupt or delay events for the iffue of which the mind is become eager. It should always be the acceffory and not the principal fubje&t of the drama; but at the fame time fpring out of it in fuch a manner that the difference can hardly be difcerned, and that it fhould feem neither the one nor the other could be spared.

• And notwithstanding all these restrictions vocal music judiciously managed would have many occafions to distinguish its own fpecific charms, at the fame time that it embellished, enriched, and elevated regular dramatic compofitions. In tragedy, I am convinced, the mind would peculiarly feel its powers.

"Not touch'd but rapt, not waken'd but infpir'd.”

In the humbler, but not lefs instructive line of comedy, its office would be to convey through the fweetest channel, and to establish by the most powerful impreffions upon the mind, maxim, admonition, fentiment, virtue.'

We do not think that mufic in comedy fhould be entirely confined to the conveyance of maxim, admonition, fentiment, virtue.' It furely may be extended to feftivity and humour: and yet with all these indulgencies, it will not be able, as the writer contends, to carry the comic opera a ftep above reguJar comedy; a new fpecies of drama which, with an arrogant modefty, the Author profeffes himself to have HUMBLY attempted' in the Lord of the Manor; the leading incident of which is avowedly taken from the Silvain of Marmontel.

The fable of the piece is originally fo much coloured after the French manner, that the chief labour of our Author feems to have been bestowed on giving it an English air. Young Contrast appears to be intended as a reprefentative of our modern coxcombs, and might perhaps, with certain theatrical affiftances, affume that fhape on the ftage; but in the closet, he is no more than a faint copy of the fops that fwarmed in our comedies, from the days of Etherege to thofe of Cibber. The females are but infipid perfonages, and the only attempt at novelty of character is in the fkin-merchant, the crimp. The fongs we think fuperior in excellence to the dialogue, though we are not among the refpectable judges' who have attributed them to Mr. Sheridan.

ART. IX. Diffipation. A Comedy, in Five Acts; as it is performed at the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane. By Miles Peter Andrews, Efq. 8vo. 1 s. 6 d. Becket. 1781.

THIS comedy is ufhered in by a Preface, the greater part of

Twhich is filled, according to the cuftom of modern play

writers, with the moft fulfome adulation of the manager, and

actors

actors and actreffes concerned in bringing the piece forward in representation. The Author, indeed, feems half-afhamed of fo bafe an humiliation, and endeavours, like other people who feel they look filly, to turn the matter off with a laugh. The manager and performers are certainly as much indebted to the author of a good play, as the author can poffibly be to them; exertion is their trade, the very compact between the theatre and the author for plays being profeffedly calculated for reprefentation, they ought in juftice, if properly exhibited, to be more entertaining on the ftage than in the clofet.

The only portion of the Preface that relates to the publication of the piece is as follows:

[ocr errors]

This Comedy having abided the decifion of the Public, having undergone the ftrictures of criticifm, and notwithstanding its nume rous errors, having fortunately met with general approbation, the author hopes he may, in conjunction with other difpofers of the drama, be indulged with a few remarks of his own.

The great objection to this play has been the want of plot, an objection which the author will not pretend to difpute; but then he begs it may be confidered, that his chief aim in writing was to draw a lively picture of the manners of high life, characterifed by an easy indifference to the viciffitudes of fortune, and a kind of indolent acceptance of every fashionable enjoyment; he therefore imagined an intricacy of plot would ill accord with the delineation of perfonages, who would not themfelves undergo the fatigue of engaging in a multiplicity of bufinefs, to promote either their dearest interefts, or their fondest pleasures. To fupply this defect, the author has endeavoured to fupport, through five acts, a pleafant laughable dialogue, heightened by stage fituation; an undertaking, in his opinion, full as difficult as the invention of fable. How far he has fucceeded, is now fubmitted to the candid confideration of the reader.'

In the first of these paragraphs the Author acquiefces, with much complacency, in the plaudits of his friends and admirers; and in the fecond, he confeffes and avoids the charges of the critics. Want of plot! Granted: but then the characters, being indolent, should have little or nothing to do.-Such is the apology but we have ever confidered it as one of the first objects in the delineation of characters to involve them in fituations oppofite to their difpofitions. The delicate Lord Foppington difgraced, and dirtied, by Sir Tunbelly Clumfey-the cowardly Falftaff in the field of battle at Shrewsbury-become doubly ridiculous. Thus the lovers of indolence and pleasure might be taught that their paffions lead to fatigue, danger and pain. This is poetical juftice; nor is it eafy, without a fable, happily imagined and well conducted, to fupport, through five acts, a pleasant laughable dialogue, heightened by ftage fituation:' and after all, what is ftage-fituation, or at least what should it be, but the neceffary refult of an intricacy of plot?" To this intricacy, if we may judge from the two laft acts of this Co

6

5

medy,

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »