had the true poetico-metaphysical cadence, as if the sound and the sentiment would linger for ever on the ear. She might sit for the picture of a heroine of romance, whether with her form "decked in purple and in pall. When she goes forth, and thronging vassals kneel, or whether the eye "beholds that lady in her bower, That is her hour of joy, for then she weeps, Bertram; or, The Castle of St. Aldobrand, is written by an Irish Clergyman, whose name is Maturin. It is said to be his first successful production; we sincerely hope it will not be the last. [Covent Garden. We have seen Miss O'Neill's Mrs. Oakley.3 It is much better than her Lady Teazle, and yet it is not good. Her comedy is only tragedy diluted. It wants the true spirit.] ADELAIDE, OR THE EMIGRANTS. Covent-Garden, May 26, 1816. A TRAGEDY, to succeed, should be either uniformly excellent or uniformly dull. Either will do almost equally well. We are convinced that it would be possible to write a tragedy which should be a tissue of unintelligible commonplaces from beginning to end, in which not one word that is said shall be understood by the audience, and yet, provided 1 Bertram, I, v. 2 Ibid., I, V. 3 In Colman's The Jealous Wife, revived May 4 for Miss O'Neill's benefit. appearances are saved, and nothing is done to trip up the heels of the imposture, it would go down. Adelaide, or the Emigrants,1 is an instance in point. If there had been one good passage in this play, it would infallibly have been damned. But it was all of a piece; one absurdity justified another. The first scene was like the second, the second act no worse than the first, the third like the second, and so on to the end. The mind accommodates itself to circumstances. The author never once roused the indignation of his hearers by the disappointment of their expectations. He startled the slumbering furies of the pit by no dangerous inequalities. We were quite resigned by the middle of the third simile, and equally thankful when the whole was over. The language of this tragedy is made up of nonsense and indecency. Mixed metaphors abound in it. The "torrent of passion rolls along precipices; "" pleasure is said to gleam upon despair "like moss upon the desolate rock; "3 the death of a hero is compared to the peak of a mountain setting in seas of glory, or some such dreadful simile, built up with ladders and scaffolding. Then the thunder and lightning are mingled with bursts of fury and revenge in inextricable confusion; there are such unmeaning phrases as contagious gentleness," and the heroes and the heroine, in their transports, as a common practice, set both worlds at defiance. 4 The plot of this play is bad, for it is unintelligible in a 1 By Richard Sheil; produced May 23 and not repeated. 2 3 66 'The torrent is the same, But rolls along another precipice.—Adelaide, 1, i. "All her offices of filial care Were moss upon the rocks of misery."—Ibid., III, ii. 4 A most unfair misquotation. Sheil says: "When we have strayed at eve Along the shores of fair Geneva's lake 5 Ibid., II, i. Ibid., II, i. 5 great measure, and where it is not unintelligible, absurd. Count Lunenberg cannot marry Adelaide because "his Emperor's frown" has forbidden his marriage with the daughter of an Emigrant Nobleman; and so, to avoid this imperial frown, he betrays her into a pretended marriage, and thus intends to divide his time between war and a mistress. Hence all the distress and mischiefs which ensue; and though the morality of the affair is characteristic enough of the old school, yet neither the Emperor's frown nor the Count's levity seem sufficient reasons for harrowing up the feelings in the manner proposed by the author, and plunging us into the horrors of the French Revolution at the same time. The exiled St. Evermont saw "his lawful monarch's bleeding head, and yet he prayed;" he saw "his castle walls crumbled into ashes by the devouring flames, and yet he prayed:" but when he finds his daughter betrayed by one of his Legitimate friends, he can "pray no more." His wife, the Countess, takes some comfort, and she builds her hope on a word, which, she says, is of great virtue, the word. 'perhaps." "It is the word which the slave utters as he stands upon the western shores, and looks towards Afric's climes-Perhaps!"-Of the attention paid to costume, 1 2 "If I break The compact which my sovereign has commanded, 3 Stands on the beach of western India's isles P Ibid., II, ii. some idea may be formed by the circumstance, that in the church-yard where the catastrophe takes place, the inscriptions on the tomb-stones are all in German, though the people speak English. The rest is in the same style. The Emigrants is a political attempt to drench an English audience with French loyalty: now, French loyalty to the House of Bourbon is a thing as little to our taste as Scotch loyalty to the House of Stuart; and when we find our political quacks preparing to pour their nauseous trash with false labels down our throats, we must "throw it to the dogs: we'll none of it." Mr. Young, as the injured Count,' raved without meaning, and grew light-headed with great deliberation. Charles Kemble, in tragedy, only spoils a good face. Mr. Murray, as the old servant of the family, was "as good as a prologue," and his helpless horror at what is going forward exceedingly amusing. Miss O'Neill's Adelaide, which we suppose was intended to be the chief attraction of the piece, was to us the most unpleasant part of it. She has powers which ought not to be thrown away, and yet she trifles with them. She wastes them equally on genteel comedy and vulgar tragedy. Her acting in Adelaide, which in other circumstances might have been impressive, was to us repulsive. The agonizing passion she expressed, required that our feelings should be wound up to the highest pitch, either by the imagination of the poet or the interest of the story, to meet it on equal terms. We are not in an ordinary mood prepared for the shrieks of mandrakes, for the rattles in the throat, for looks that drive the thoughts to madness. Miss O'Neill's acting is pure nature or passion: it is the prose of tragedy; for the poetry she must lean on her author. But strong passion must be invested with imagination by some one, either by the poet or 1 Young was Count St. Evermont; C. Kemble, Count Lunenberg; and Murray, Godfrey. 2 An allusion to Romeo, IV, iii, 47. 1 the actor, before it can give delight, not to say, before it can be endured by the public. Her manner in the scene where she asks Lunenberg about her marriage, was much the same as when Monimia asks Polydore, "Where did you rest last night?" Yet how different was the effect! in the one, her frantic eagerness only corresponded with the interest already excited; in the other, it shocked, because no interest had been excited. Miss O'Neill fills better than any one else the part assigned her by the author, but she does not make it, nor over-inform it with qualities which she is not bound to bring. She is, therefore, more dependent than any one. else upon the character she has to represent; and as she originally owes her reputation to her powers of sensibility," she will perhaps owe its ultimate continuance to the cultivation of her taste in the choice of the characters in which she appears. The public are jealous of their favourites! 2 EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR." [Drury Lane] June 9, 1816. MR. KEAN had for his benefit at Drury-Lane Theatre, on Wednesday, the comedy of Every Man in his Humour.* This play acts much better than it reads. It has been observed of Ben Jonson, that he painted not so much human nature as temporary manners, not the characters of men, but their humours, that is to say, peculiarities of phrase, modes of dress, gesture, etc., which becoming obsolete, and being in themselves altogether arbitrary and fantastical, have be The Orphan, IV, i. See ante, p. 135. 2 Adelaide was written for Miss O'Neill and is dedicated to her. 3 Much of this article is quoted by Hazlitt in his English Comic Writers, pp. 57-8. + Revived, June 5. |