Benjamin Backbite was not very successful. Charles Kemble played Charles Surface very delightfully.

1

GUY MANNERING, or the Gipsy's Prophecy, taken from the novel of that name, and brought out at Covent-Garden, is a very pleasing romantic drama. It is, we understand, from the pen of Mr. Terry, and reflects much credit on his taste and talents. The scenes between Miss Stephens, Miss Matthews, and Mr. Abbott, as Lucy Bertram, Julia Mannering, and Colonel Mannering, have a high degree of elegance and interest. Mrs. Egerton's Meg Merrilies was equal in force and nature to her Miller's Wife;' and we cannot pay it a higher compliment. It makes the blood run cold. Mr. Higman played the chief Gipsy3 very well, and nothing could be better represented than the unfeeling, shuffling tricks and knavish impudence of the Gipsy Boy, by Master Williams. Liston's Dominie Sampson was prodigious; his talents are prodigious. The appearance and the interest he gave to the part were quite patriarchal. The unconscious simplicity of the humour was exquisite; it will give us a better opinion of the Scotch Clergy, and almost of the Scotch nation (if that were possible) while we live.

MR. KEAN.

[Drury Lane] March 31, 1816.

A CHASM has been produced in the amusements of DruryLane Theatre by the accident which has happened to Mr. Kean. He was to have played The Duke of Milan on Tues

1 By Daniel Terry, produced March 12.

2 Mrs. Egerton played Ravina in the melodrama of The Miller and his Men, by Isaac Pocock, at its production, October 21, 1813.

3 Higman was Gabriel.

day, but as he had not come to the theatre at the time of the drawing up of the curtain, Mr. Rae came forward to propose another tragedy, Douglas. To this the audience did not assent, and wished to wait. Mr. Kean, however, not appearing, nor any tidings being heard of him, he was at length given up, and two farces substituted in his stead." Conjectures and rumours were afloat; and it was not till the next day that it was discovered that Mr. Kean having dined a few miles in the country, and returning at a very quick pace to keep his engagement at the theatre, was thrown out of his gig, and had his arm dislocated, besides being stunned and very much bruised with the fall. On this accident a grave morning paper is pleased to be facetious. It observes that this is a very serious accident; that actors in general are liable to serious accidents; that the late Mr. Cooke used to meet with serious accidents; that it is a sad thing to be in the way of such accidents; and that it is to be hoped that Mr. Kean will meet with no more serious accidents. It is to be hoped that he will not-nor with any such profound observations upon them, if they should happen. Next to that spirit of bigotry which in a neighbouring country would deny actors christian burial after death, we hate that cant of criticism, which slurs over their characters while living with a half-witted jest. Actors are accused as a profession of being extravagant and intemperate. While they are said to be so as a piece of common cant, they are likely to continue so. But there is a sentence in Shakespeare which should be

1 Kean dined at Woolwich on March 26, and was accidentally thrown out of his gig while driving back to London. Fortune's Frolic, by J. T. Allingham, and Ways and Means; or, A Trip to Dover, by G. Colman the younger, were substituted for the tragedy, and were followed by What Next?

2 This appears to refer to The Times, which said on March 28: "Some persons are what is called unlucky, and subject to untoward accidents; the late Mr. Cooke was one of these: we hope that Mr. Kean was born under a more fortunate star." The playbill for March 28 said "a very serious accident."

stuck as a label in the mouths of the beadles and whippersin of morality: "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues."1

...

2

With respect to the extravagance of actors, as a traditional character, it is not to be wondered at: they live from hand to mouth; they plunge from want into luxury; they have no means of making money breed, and all professions that do not live by turning money into money, or have not a certainty of accumulating it in the end by parsimony, spend it. Uncertain of the future, they make sure of the present moment. This is not unwise. Chilled with poverty, steeped in contempt, they sometimes pass into the sunshine of fortune, and are lifted to the very pinnacle of public favour, yet even there cannot calculate on the continuance of success, but are, "like the giddy sailor on the mast, ready with every blast to topple down into the fatal bowels of the deep!" Besides, if the young enthusiast who is smitten with the stage, and with the public as a mistress, were naturally a close hunks, he would become or remain a city clerk, instead of turning player. Again, with respect to the habit of convivial indulgence, an actor, to be a good one, must have a great spirit of enjoyment in himself, strong impulses, strong passions, and a strong sense of pleasure; for it is his business to imitate the passions and to communicate pleasure to others. (A man of genius is not a machine. The neglected actor may be excused if he drinks oblivion of his disappointments; the successful one, if he quaffs the applause of the world, and enjoys the friendship of those who are the friends of the favourites of fortune, in draughts of nectar. There is no path so steep as that of fame; no labour so hard as the pursuit of excellence. The intellectual excitement inseparable from those professions which call forth all our 1 All's Well, IV, iii, 83-7.

2 Richard III, III, iv, 101-3, much altered.

sensibility to pleasure and pain, requires some corresponding physical excitement to support our failure, and not a little to allay the ferment of the spirits attendant on success. If there is any tendency to dissipation beyond this in the profession of a player, it is owing to the' state of public opinion, which paragraphs like the one we have alluded to are not calculated to reform; and players are only not so respectable as a profession as they might be, because their profession is not respected as it ought to be.

There is something, we fear, impertinent and uncalled for in these remarks: the more so, as in the present instance the insinuation which they were meant to repel is wholly unfounded. We have it on very good authority, that Mr. Kean, since his engagement at Drury-Lane, and during his arduous and uninterrupted exertions in his profession, has never missed a single rehearsal, nor been absent a minute beyond the time for beginning his part.)

2

MR. KEAN'S SHYLOCK.

[Drury Lane] April 7, 1816.

MR. KEAN's friends felt some unnecessary anxiety with respect to his reception in the part of Shylock, on Monday night at Drury-Lane, being his first appearance after his recovery from his accident, which we are glad to find has not been a very serious one. On his coming on the stage there was a loud burst of applause and welcome; but as this was mixed with some hisses, Mr. Kean came forward, and spoke nearly as follows:

وو

1 This paragraph is quoted as far as these words by Hazlitt in his second article "On Actors and Acting (Round Table, No. 39, pp. 226-7), but he has changed the conclusion.

2 April 1.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in my life I have been the unfortunate cause of disappointing the public amusement.

"That it is the only time, on these boards, I can appeal to your own recollection; and when you take into calculation the 265 times that I have had the honour to appear before you, according to the testimony of the managers' books, you will, perhaps, be able to make some allow

ance.

66

To your favour I owe all the reputation I enjoy.

"I rely on your candour, that prejudice shall not rob me of what your kindness has conferred upon me."

This address was received with cordial cheers, and the play went forward without interruption. As soon as the curtain drew up, some persons had absurdly called out Kean, Kean," though Shylock does not appear in the first scenes. This was construed into a call for "God save the King:" and the Duke of Gloucester's1 being in one of the stageboxes seemed to account for this sudden effusion of loyalty -a sentiment indeed always natural in the hearts of Englishmen, but at present not very noisy, and rather "deep than loud." For our own parts, we love the King according to law, but we cannot sing.

Shylock was the part in which Mr. Kean first sought the favour of the town, and in which perhaps he chose for that reason to be reconciled to it, after the first slight misunderstanding. We were a little curious on this occasion to see the progress he has made in public opinion since that time; and on turning to our theatrical common-place book (there is nothing like a common-place book after all) found the following account of his first reception, copied from the most respectable of the Morning Papers: "Mr. Kean (of whom report has spoken so highly) made his appearance at Drury-Lane in the character of Shylock. For voice, eye, action, and expression, no actor has come out for many years at all equal to him. The applause, from the first

2

The Duke of Gloucester and his sister, Princess Sophia, were present.

2 The Morning Chronicle, January 27, 1814; see ante, pp. 1-2.