London on the 10th of December 1745. 'Till I was six years old,' says Holcroft, 'my father kept a shoemaker's shop in Orange Court; and I have a faint recollection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.' Humble as this condition was, it seems to have been succeeded by greater poverty, and the future dramatist and comedian was employed in the country by his parents to hawk goods as a pedler. He was afterwards engaged as a stable-boy at Newmarket, and was proud of his new livery. A charitable person, who kept a school at Newmarket, taught him to read. He was afterwards a rider on the turf; and when sixteen years of age, he worked for some time with his father as a shoemaker. A passion for books was at this time predominant, and the confinement of the shoemaker's stall not agreeing with him, he attempted to raise a school in the country. He afterwards became a provincial actor, and spent seven years in strolling about England, in every variety of wretchedness, with different companies. In 1780, Holcroft appeared as an author, his first work being a novel, entitled Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian. In the following year his comedy of Duplicity was acted with great success at Covent Garden. Another comedy, The Deserted Daughter, experienced a very favourable reception; but The Road to Ruin is universally acknowledged to be the best of his dramatic works. This comedy,' says Mrs Inchbald, ' ranks amongst the most successful of modern plays. There is merit in the writing, but much more in that dramatic science which disposes character, scenes, and dialogue with minute attention to theatric exhibition. Holcroft wrote a great number of dramatic pieces-more than thirty between the years 1778 and 1806; three other novels (Anna St Ives, Hugh Trevor, and Bryan Perdue); besides A Tour in Germany and France, and numerous translations from the German, French, and Italian. During the period of the French Revolution, he was a zealous reformer, and on hearing that his name was included in the same bill of indictment with Tooke and Hardy, he surrendered himself in open court, but no proof of guilt was ever adduced against him. His busy and remarkable life was terminated on the 23d of March 1809. THE GERMAN DRAMAS. A play by Kotzebue was adapted for the English stage by Mrs Inchbald, and performed under the title of Lovers' Vows. The grand moral was, 'to set forth the miserable consequences which arise from the neglect, and to enforce the watchful care of illegitimate offspring; and surely, as the pulpit has not had eloquence to eradicate the crime of seduction, the stage may be allowed a humble endeavour to prevent its most fatal effects. Lovers' Vows became a popular acting play, for stageeffect was carefully studied, and the scenes and situations skilfully arranged. While filling the theatres, Kotzebue's plays were generally condemned by the critics. They cannot be said to have produced any permanent bad effect on our national morals, but they presented many false and pernicious pictures to the mind. There is an affectation,' as Scott remarks, 'of attributing noble and virtuous sentiments to the persons least qualified by habit or education to entertain them; and of describing the higher and better educated classes as uniformly deficient in those feelings of liberality, generosity, and honour, which may be considered as proper to their situation in life. This contrast may be true in particular instances, and being used sparingly, might afford a good moral lesson; but in spite of truth and probability, it has been assumed, upon all occasions, by those authors as the groundwork of a sort of intellectual Jacobinism.' Scott himself, it will be recollected, was fascinated by the German drama, and translated a play of Goethe. The excesses of Kotzebue were happily ridiculed by Canning and Ellis in their amusing satire, The Rovers. At length, after a run of unexampled success, these plays ceased to attract attention, though one or two are still occasionally performed. With all their absurdities, we cannot but believe that they exercised an inspiring influence on the rising genius of that age. They dealt with passions, not with manners, and awoke the higher feelings and sensibilities of the people. Good plays were also mingled with the bad if Kotzebue was acted, Goethe and Schiller were studied. Coleridge translated Schiller's Wallenstein, and the influence of the German drama was felt by most of the young poets. LEWIS-GODWIN-SOTHEBY-COLERIDGE. One of those who imbibed a taste for the marvellous and the romantic from this source was MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, whose drama, The Castle Spectre, was produced in 1797, and was performed about sixty successive nights. It is full of supernatural horrors, deadly revenge, and assassination, with touches of poetical feeling, and some well-managed scenes. In the same year, Lewis adapted a tragedy from Schiller, entitled The Minister; and this was followed by a succession of dramatic pieces-Rolla, a tragedy, 1799; The East Indian, a comedy, 1800; Adelmorn, or the Outlaw, a drama, 1801; Rugantio, a melodrama, 1805; Adelgitha, a play, 1806; Venoni, a drama, 1809; One o'clock, or the Knight and Wood Demon, 1811; Timour the Tartar, a melodrama, 1812; and Rich and Poor, a comic opera, 1812. The Castle Spectre is still occasionally performed; but the diffusion of a more sound and healthy taste in literature has banished the other dramas of Lewis equally from the stage and the press. To the present generation they are unknown. They were fit companions for the ogres, giants, and Blue-beards of the nursery tales, and they have shared the same oblivion. MR GODWIN, the novelist, attempted the tragic drama in the year 1800, but his powerful genius, which had produced a romance of deep and thrilling interest, became cold and frigid when confined to the rules of the stage. His play was named Antonio, or the Soldier's Return. It turned out 'a miracle of dullness,' as Sergeant Talfourd relates, and at last the actors were hooted from the stage. The author's equanimity under this severe trial is amusingly related by Talfourd. Mr Godwin, he says, 'sat on one of the front benches of the pit, unmoved amidst the storm. When the first act passed off without a hand, he expressed his satisfaction at the good sense of the house; the proper season of applause had not arrived;" all was exactly as it should be. The second act proceeded to its close in the same uninterrupted 66 calm; his friends became uneasy, but still his optimism prevailed; he could afford to wait. And although he did at last admit the great movement was somewhat tardy, and that the audience seemed rather patient than interested, he did not lose his confidence till the tumult arose, and then he submitted with quiet dignity to the fate of genius, too lofty to be understood by a world as yet in its childhood.' The next new play was also by a man of distinguished genius, and it also was unsuccessful. Julian and Agnes, by WILLIAM SOTHEBY, the translator of Oberon, was acted April 25, 1800. 'In the course of its performance, Mrs Siddons, as the heroine, had to make her exit from the scene with an infant in her arms. Having to retire precipitately, she inadvertently struck the baby's head violently against a door-post. Happily, the little thing was made of wood, so that her doll's accident only produced a general laugh, in which the actress herself joined heartily.' This 'untoward event' would have marred the success of any new tragedy; but Mr Sotheby's is deficient in arrangement and dramatic art. The tragedies of Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Procter, and Milman-noticed in our account of these poets-must be considered as poems rather than plays. Coleridge's Remorse was acted with some success in 1813, aided by fine original music, but it has not since been revived. It contains, however, some of Coleridge's most exquisite poetry and wild superstition, with a striking romantic plot. We extract one scene: Incantation Scene from 'Remorse. Scene-A Hall of Armoury, with an altar at the back of the stage. Soft music from an instrument of glass or steel. VALDEZ, ORDONIO, and ALVAR in a Sorcerer's robe, are discovered. Ordonio. This was too melancholy, father. My Alvar loved sad music from a child. Once he was lost, and after weary search His head upon the blind boy's dog. It pleased me Alvar. My tears must not flow! I must not clasp his knees, and cry, 'My father!' Enter TERESA and Attendants. Teresa. Lord Valdez, you have asked my presence here, And I submit; but-Heaven bear witness for meMy heart approves it not! 'tis mockery. Ord. Believe you, then, no preternatural influence? Believe you not that spirits throng around us? Ter. Say rather that I have imagined it That the dead hear the voice of witch or wizard. With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm Soul of Alvar! Who in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow, [Music expressive of the movements and images Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desert sands, [Here, behind the scenes, a voice sings the thres Soul of Alvar! Pass visible before our mortal sense! So shall the church's cleansing rites be thine, Song behind the scenes, accompanied by the same instrument as before. Hear, sweet spirit, hear the spell, In a chapel on the shore, Shall the chanters, sad and saintly, Hark! the cadence dies away On the yellow moonlight sea: The boatmen rest their oars and say, [A long pause. Ord. The innocent obey nor charm nor spell ! My brother is in heaven. Thou sainted spirit, Burst on our sight, a passing visitant! Once more to hear thy voice, once more to see thee, Oh, 'twere a joy to me! Alv. A joy to thee! What if thou heardst him now? What if his spirit Re-entered its cold corse, and came upon thee With many a stab from many a murderer's poniard ? What if his steadfast eye still beaming pity Ord. [Struggling with his feelings.] Yes, my father, He is in heaven! Alv. [Still to Ordonio.] But what if he had a Who had lived even so, that at his dying hour Vald. Idly prating man! Thou hast guessed ill: Don Alvar's only brother Alv. [Still to Ordonio.] What if his very virtues [Music again. Yet Alvar's memory! Hark! I make appeal To bend before a lawful shrine, and seek thus extending over the long period of thirtyeight years. Only one of her dramas has ever been performed on the stage; De Montfort was brought out by Kemble shortly after its appearance, and was acted eleven nights. It was again introduced in 1821, to exhibit the talents of Kean in the character of De Montfort; but this actor remarked that, though a fine poem, it would never be an acting play. The author who mentions this circumstance, remarks: 'If Joanna Baillie had known the stage practically, she would never have attached the importance which she does to the development of single passions in single tragedies; and she would have invented more stirring incidents to justify the passion of her characters, and to give them that air of fatality which, though peculiarly predominant in the Greek drama, will also be found, to a certain extent, in all successful tragedies. Instead of this, she contrives to make all the passions of her main characters proceed from the wilful natures of the beings themselves. Their feelings are not precipitated by circumstances, like a stream down a declivity, that leaps from rock to rock; but, for want of incident, they seem often like water on a level, without a propelling impulse.'* The design of Miss Baillie in restricting her dramas each to the elucidation of one passion, appears certainly to have been an unnecessary and unwise restraint, as tending to circumscribe the business of the piece, and exclude the interest arising from varied emotions and conflicting passions. It cannot be Isaid to have been successful in her own case, and it has never been copied by any other author. Sir Walter Scott has eulogised 'Basil's love and That voice which whispers, when the still heart listens, Montfort's hate' as something like a revival of the Comfort and faithful hope! Let us retire. JOANNA BAILLIE. The most important addition to the written drama at this time was the first volume of JOANNA BAILLIE'S plays on the Passions, published in 1798 under the title of A Series of Plays: in which it is attempted to delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the Subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy. To the volume was prefixed a long and interesting introductory discourse, in which the authoress discusses the subject of the drama in all its bearings, and asserts the supremacy of simple nature over all decoration and refinement. Let one simple trait of the human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and true to nature, be introduced, and it will stand forth alone in the boldness of reality, whilst the false and unnatural around it fades away upon every side, like the rising exhalations of the morning.' This theory-which anticipated the dissertations and most of the poetry of Wordsworth-the accomplished dramatist illustrated in her plays, the merits of which were instantly recognised, and a second edition called for in a few months. Miss Baillie was then in the thirty; fourth year of her age. In 1802 she published a second volume, and in 1812 a third. In the interval, she had produced a volume of miscellaneous dramas (1804), and The Family Legend (1810), a tragedy founded on a Highland tradition, and brought out with success at the Edinburgh theatre. In 1836 this authoress published three more volumes of plays, her career as a dramatic writer inspired strain of Shakspeare. The tragedies of Count Basil and De Montfort are among the best of Miss Baillie's plays; but they are more like the works of Shirley, or the serious parts of Massinger, than the glorious dramas of Shakspeare, so full of life, of incident, and imagery. Miss Baillie's style is smooth and regular, and her plots are both original and carefully constructed; but she has no poetical luxuriance, and few commanding situations. Her tragic scenes are too much connected with the crime of murder, one of the easiest resources of a tragedian; and partly from the delicacy of her sex, as well as from the restrictions imposed by her theory of composition, she is deficient in that variety and fulness of passion, the form and pressure' of real life, which are so essential on the stage. The design and plot of her dramas are obvious almost from the first act -a circumstance that would be fatal to their success in representation. Scene from De Montfort. De Montfort explains to his sister Jane his hatred of Rezenvelt, which at last hurries him into the crime of murder. The gradual deepening of this malignant passion, and its frightful catastrophe, are powerfully depicted. We may remark, that the character of his settled gloom, and the violence of his passions, seem to have De Montfort, his altered habits and appearance after his travels, been the prototype of Byron's Manfred and Lara. De Montfort. No more, my sister; urge me not My secret troubles cannot be revealed. Jane. What! must I, like a distant humble friend, Observe thy restless eye and gait disturbed In timid silence, whilst with yearning heart I turn aside to weep? O no, De Montfort! A nobler task thy nobler mind will give ; Thy true intrusted friend I still shall be. De Mon. Ah, Jane, forbear! I cannot, e'en to thee. Jane. Then fie upon it! fie upon it, Montfort! There was a time when e'en with murder stained, Had it been possible that such dire deed Could e'er have been the crime of one so piteous, De Mon. So would I now-but ask of this no more. All other troubles but the one I feel I have disclosed to thee. I pray thee, spare me. It is the secret weakness of my nature. Jane. Then secret let it be: I urge no further. The eldest of our valiant father's hopes, So sadly orphaned : side by side we stood, Like two young trees, whose boughs in early strength I have so long, as if by nature's right, Thy bosom's inmate and adviser been, I thought through life I should have so remained, The close attendant of thy wandering steps, De Mon. O Jane, thou dost constrain me with thy love Would I could tell it thee ! Jane. Thou shalt not tell it me. Nay, I'll stop mine ears, Nor from the yearnings of affection wring What shrinks from utterance. Let it pass, my brother. Till thou, with brow unclouded, smil'st again; Jane. Ah! say not so, for I will haunt thee too, That, though I wrestle darkling with the fiend, De Mon. Thou most generous woman! Jane. What say'st thou, Montfort? Oh, what words are these! They have awaked my soul to dreadful thoughts. By the affection thou didst ever bear me; By the dear memory of our infant days; Ha! wilt thou not? More rightful power than crown or sceptre give, I do command thee! De Montfort, do not thus resist my love. Here I entreat thee on my bended knees. Alas, my brother! De Mon. [Raising her, and kneeling.] Thus let him kneel who should the abased be, And at thine honoured feet confession make. I'll tell thee all-but, oh! thou wilt despise me. For in my breast a raging passion burns, To which thy soul no sympathy will ownA passion which hath made my nightly couch A place of torment, and the light of day, With the gay intercourse of social man, Feel like the oppressive, airless pestilence. O Jane! thou wilt despise me. Jane. Say not so: I never can despise thee, gentle brother. De Mon. A lover's, say'st thou ? No, it is hate! black, lasting, deadly hate! Which thus hath driven me forth from kindred peace, From social pleasure, from my native home, Avoiding all men, cursing and accursed! Jane. De Montfort, this is fiend-like, terrible! Could in thy breast such horrid tempest wake, Unknit thy brows, and spread those wrath-clenched hands. Some sprite accursed within thy bosom mates To work thy ruin. Strive with it, my brother! Strive bravely with it; drive it from thy heart; 'Tis the degrader of a noble heart. Curse it, and bid it part. De Mon. It will not part. I've lodged it here too long. With my first cares, I felt its rankling touch. I loathed him when a boy. Jane. Whom didst thou say? De Mon. Detested Rezenvelt! E'en in our early sports, like two young whelps It drove me frantic. What, what would I give- Jane. And would thy hatred crush the very man To aim at his? Oh, this is horrible! De Mon. Ha! thou hast heard it, then! From all the world, But most of all from thee, I thought it hid. Didst thou receive my letter? De Mon. I did! I did! 'Twas that which drove me hither. I could not bear to meet thine eye again. Jane. Alas! that, tempted by a sister's tears, I ever left thy house! These few past months, These absent months, have brought us all this woe. Had I remained with thee, it had not been. And yet, methinks, it should not move you thus. You dared him to the field; both bravely fought; He, more adroit, disarmed you; courteously Returned the forfeit sword, which, so returned, You did refuse to use against him more; And then, as says report, you parted friends. De Mon. When he disarmed this cursed, this Of its most worthless weapon, he but spared Until that day, till that accursed day, I knew not half the torment of this hell Which burns within my breast. Heaven's lightnings blast him! Jane. Oh, this is horrible! Forbear, forbear! Lest Heaven's vengeance light upon thy head For this most impious wish. De Mon. Then let it light. Torments more fell than I have known already What all men shrink from; to be dust, be nothing, Jane. Oh, wouldst thou kill me with these dreadful words? De Mon. Let me but once upon his ruin look, Then close mine eyes for ever! Ha! how is this? Thou 'rt ill; thou 'rt very pale; I meant not to distress thee-O my sister! De Mon. I have killed thee. Turn, turn thee not away! Look on me still! Jane. Thou, too, De Montfort, In better days was wont to be my pride. De Mon. I am a wretch, most wretched in myself, And still more wretched in the pain I give. Oh, curse that villain, that detested villain! He has spread misery o'er my fated life; He will undo us all. Jane. I've held my warfare through a troubled world, And borne with steady mind my share of ill; Picture of a Country Life. Even now methinks Each little cottage of my native vale And with green trail-weeds clambering up its walls, The flowers grow not too close; and there within I'll gather round my board And noble travellers, and neighbouring friends, Shall have its suited pastime: even winter Fears of Imagination. Didst thou ne'er see the swallow's veering breast, Or boatmen's oar, as vivid lightning flash One hasty glance in mockery of the night Speech of Prince Edward in his Dungeon. Do the green woods dance to the wind? the lakes Do the flocks bleat, and the wild creatures bound Description of Jane de Montfort. The following has been pronounced to be a perfect picture of Page. Madam, there is a lady in your hall Page. So queenly, so commanding, and so noble, I shrunk at first in awe; but when she smiled, Methought I could have compassed sea and land To do her bidding. Lady. Is she young or old? Page. Neither, if right I guess; but she is fair, Lady. The foolish stripling! She has bewitched thee. Is she large in stature? |