also exquisite. We are, however, deep-versed in the sentiment of this last air; and we lost it in the light and fantastic movements of Mons. Drouet's execution. He belongs, we apprehend, to that class of musicians, whose ears are at their fingers' ends; but he is perhaps at the head. We profess, however, to be very ignorant in these matters, and speak under correction.

[Drury Lane.

A young lady has appeared at this theatre in the character of Cecilia in The Chapter of Accidents:' but from the insipidity of the character in which she chose to appear, we know no more of her powers of acting than before we saw her. Both her face and voice are pleasing.]

RICHARD III.

[Covent Garden] April 21, 1816.

THE managers of Covent-Garden Theatre have treated the public with two new Richards this season, Mr. Edwards,2 and Mr. Cobham. The first, his own good sense and modesty induced to withdraw, after the disapprobation of the public had been expressed on his first trial. Mr. Cobham,3 who is not "made of penetrable stuff," intends, we understand, to face the public out in the character. This is an experiment which will never answer. We shall take good care, however, not to be present at the fray. We do not

1 By Miss S. Lee. Revived April 2 for the first appearance of Miss Eliza Murray.

2 See p. 110, ante.

3 Thomas Cobham (1786-1842) made his début at Covent Garden as Richard the Third on Easter Monday, April 15, 1816,

4 Hamlet, III, iv, 36.

blame Mr. Cobham for the mortification and disappointment which we have received, but the managers. Selfknowledge is a rare acquisition; but criticism upon others is a very easy task; and the managers need merely have perceived as much of the matter as was obvious to every common spectator from the first moment of this actor's coming on, to know that it was quite impossible he should get through the part with ordinary decency. The only scene that was tolerable was the meeting with Lady Anne.1 But for his Richard (Heaven save the mark)—it was a vile one -"unhousel'd, unanointed, unaneled, with all his imperfections on his head."2 Not that this actor is without the physical requisites to play Richard: he raved, whined, grinned, stared, stamped, and rolled his eyes with incredible velocity, and all in the right place according to his cue, but in so extravagant and disjointed a manner, and with such a total want of common sense, decorum, or conception of the character, as to be perfectly ridiculous. We suspect that he has a wrong theory of his art. He has taken a lesson from Mr. Kean, whom he caricatures, and seems to suppose that to be familiar or violent is natural, and that to be natural is the perfection of acting. And so it is, if properly understood. But to play Richard naturally, is to play it as Richard would play it, not as Mr. Cobham would play it; he comes there to show us not himself, but the tyrant and the king-not what he would do, but what another would do in such circumstances. Before he can do this he must become that other, and cease to be himself. Dignity is natural to certain stations, and grandeur of expression to certain feelings. In art, nature cannot exist without the highest art; it is a pure effort of the imagination, which throws the mind out of itself into the supposed situation of others, and enables it to feel and act there as if it were at home. The real Richard and the real Mr. Cobham are quite different things.

1 Richard III, 1, ii.

2 Hamlet, I, v, 77 and 79, misquoted.

3

But we are glad to have done with this subject, and proceed to a more grateful one, which is to notice the Sir Pertinax MacSycophant of a gentleman whose name has not yet been announced.' We have no hesitation in pronouncing him an acquisition to this theatre. To compare him with Cooke in this character would be idle; for it was Cooke's very best character,2 and Cooke was one of the very best actors we have had on the stage. But he played the character throughout without a single failure, and with great judgment, great spirit, and great effect. In the scenes with Egerton, where he gives a loose to his natural feelings, he expressed all the turbulence and irritation of his mind without losing sight of his habitual character or external demeanour. He has a great deal of that assumed decorum and imposing stateliness of manner, which, since the days of Jack Palmer,* has been a desideratum on the stage. In short, we have had no one who looked at home in a full dress coat and breeches. Besides the more obvious requisites for the stage, the by-play of the new actor is often excellent: his eye points what he is going to say; he has a very significant smile, and a very alarming shrug with his shoulders. The only objection that we have to make is to the too frequent repetition of a certain motion with the hands which may easily be avoided.

During a part of the representation there was some opposition most absurdly manifested: partly from its being Easter week, partly from persons who did not understand Scotch, and still more, we apprehend, from those who did. Sir Pertinax has always been an obnoxious up-hill character, and hazardous to a débutant. We see no reason for this on

1A Mr. Bibby, from the United States. [W. H.] Mr. Bibby made his début in Macklin's The Man of the World on April 16.

2 G. F. Cooke first played this character April 10, 1802.

3 Man of the World, II, i, and III, i. Egerton was played by

a London stage. The Irish say that we laugh at them on the stage: why then should we not laugh at the Scotch? The answer is that we laugh at the Irish, to be sure, but we do not make them odious.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

[Drury Lane] April 28, 1816.

ROMEO AND JULIET was played at Drury-Lane to introduce a new candidate for public favour, Miss Grimani,' as Juliet, and to show off a very old one, Mr. Rae, as Romeo. This lady has one qualification for playing the part of Juliet, which is that she is very pretty; but we are afraid that's all. Her voice in common speaking is thin and lisping, and when she raises it, it becomes harsh and unmanageable, as if she had learned to speak of [Mrs. Bartley]. We cannot however pretend to say how far her timidity might interfere with the display of her powers. Mr. Rae cannot plead the same excuse of modesty for the faults of his acting. Between the tragi-comedy of his voice and the drollery of his action, we were exceedingly amused. His manner of saying, "How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,' 192 was more like "the midnight bell that with his iron tongue and brazen mouth sounds on into the drowsy race of night";3 and his hurried mode of getting over the description of the Apothecary, was as if a person should be hired to repeat this speech after ten miles hard riding on a high trotting horse. When this "gentle tassel" is lured back in the garden by his

1 Miss Celia Grimani, "from Bath," sister of Mrs. C. M. Young, made her first appearance at Drury Lane April 23.

2 Romeo, II, ii, 166.

3 King John, III, ii, 37-9.

Juliet's voice, he returns at full speed, like a harlequin going to take a flying leap through a trap-door. This was, we suppose, to give us an allegorical idea of his being borne on the wings of love, but we could discover neither his wings nor his love. The rest of the play was very indifferently got up, except the Nurse by Mrs. Sparks.

After the play, we had Garrick's Ode on Shakespeare, and a procession of Shakespeare's characters in dumb-show. Mr. Pope recited the Ode, and personated the Genius of Shakespeare as the Wool-sack personates the Prince Regent. "Vesuvius in an eruption, was not more violent than his utterance, not Pelion with all his pine-trees in a storm of wind more impetuous than his action: and yet " Drury-Lane "still stands." We have here used the words of Gray, in describing a University Orator at a Cambridge Installation. The result, as given by the poet, was more agreeable than in the present instance-"I was ready to sink for him, and scarce dared look about me, when I was sure it was all over: but soon I found I might have spared my confusion : all people joined to applaud him. Every thing was quite right, and I dare swear not three people here but think him a model of oratory: for all the Duke's little court came with a resolution to be pleased: and when the tone was once given, the University, who ever wait for the judgment of their betters, struck into it with an admirable harmony; for the rest of the performances, they were just what they usually are. Every one, while it lasted, was very gay and very busy in the morning, and very owlish and very tipsy at night: I make no exceptions from the Chancellor to Bluecoat.

Mr. Pope did not get off so well as the Cambridge Orator,

1 Letter to Dr. Thomas Wharton, August 8, 1749 (Gray's Letters, i. 201).

2 Ibid. The reference is to Dr. Chapman's speech at the installation of the Duke of Newcastle as Chancellor of Cambridge University, July 1, 1749.