CHAP. X.

Mr. Pope's Oroonoko.--Massinger's Maid of Honour.-Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth.-Smith in Macbeth.-Packer in Duncan.-George Steevens attacks the Banquet Scene. --That Play repeated by royal command.--The king's notice of Henderson's Benedick.--Imperfect once in this character.-The Orphan.--Holman's Hamlet.-Henderson's readings at Freemason's Hall.-Le Texier in Lisle street.— Compared with each other.-Theatres resumed, Othello.Mr. Kemble in the Moor.-His sister in Desdemona.-Depreciated.--Great excellence exemplified. They read to their majesties.—Mr. Kemble for his benefit acts Macbeth. -Critical dispute.-Mason's Elfrida.-Mrs. Siddons in that part.-The original Tempest acted.-Inadvertency of the Poet.-Mrs. Siddons acts Rosalind.-Mrs. Bellamy.Her Benefit.

On the 8th of January, 1785, an actor, who has now been near forty years among us, made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre in the character of Oroonoko. I allude to the performance of Mr. Pope. The policy of the manager led him to give Mr. Holman a rival at starting, as one mode of insuring his utmost efforts, and also perhaps of moderating his demands. There might too be a feeling, that something more tender than Holman was still the desideratum of the stage. The silver tones of Barry yet lingered in the ear, and the voice of Mr. Pope was unquestionably a very fine His person too was really very elegant, and his excellence as a painter gave him that knowledge of expression and picturesque effect, which comes very powerfully in aid of the other requisites for the stage.

one.

The opinion originally formed of this actor, I cannot think ever materially varied. There was in his cadence a disposition to throw the voice upward unnecessarily, and this even injured the display of its powerful tone-had he declaimed more upon a level, his organ would have produced a greater effect, and perhaps the meaning would have been better conveyed. There always seemed to be more effort than was absolutely necessary. Perhaps too his ear was not critically accurate. He was, from his outset, a very able performer, and

although not what I should style a great and original artist, yet it may be said of him that his talents were highly essential in the composition of a good company; and from his manners and accomplishments he powerfully aided the increasing respectability of the profession. Mr. Pope was invariably, I believe, thought a handsome man, but his countenance never augmented the effect of his pathos; its expression was either feeble, or seemingly differed from the characteristic of the

emotion.

When on the 19th he was completely known by his performance of Jaffier, it was considered that he rather gained than lost by the colour of his first character.

Holman had been hurried on to the exhibition of his Richard III., which I well remember. There was energy unfailing, but a want of discrimination. Surely the manager must have leant to youthful effort very decidedly, to think of Holman as a Richard, when Henderson was in his theatre. I freely admit, however, that the treasury must be deemed a very competent critic; but writing now with the knowledge that this was the last year of Henderson, and that he was snatched away from us at the early age of forty, one is hurt to think that there should have been a disposition to divest him of any of his honours, and that his exquisite judgment and masterly elocution did not secure for him all the leading characters of Shakspeare, both tragic and comic.

At Drury Lane Theatre Mr. Kemble brought out on the 27th, his alteration of Massinger's Maid of Honour. It would ask a long dissertation to show the cause of the slender popularity of Massinger. This was by no means a successful revival. Mr. Kemble contented himself with the modest character of Adorni. Mrs. Siddons supported the Maid of Honour with much grace and sweetness; but she in vain tried to give a comic effect to the epilogue supplied by the elder Colman. The gaiety of Mrs. Siddons did not excite mirthit was patience smiling at grief--it was the condescension of tragedy. The critics of that day, for once, were unanimous, that it would be better to trust such things to Miss Farren, or Miss Pope.

The maids of honour of the court had distinguished themselves, at this time, by some singular marks of spirit, and Colman played upon the incident, with his usual whim-but Mrs. Siddons probably disappointed the author's expectation, and suffered, unecessarily, by comparison with the favourite organs of the sportive muse.

In looking to the reasons which probably induced Mr. Kemble to revive the Maid of Honour, the principal must have

been that of adding to his sister's attractions. Kept down as he was himself, Adorni could do nothing for him. Bertoldo was a fine showy part for Palmer. The play, however, is not built upon flesh and blood--its interests are the fopperies of our old ponderous romances, and its poetical justice to be awarded only by the Parliament of Love.' The audience, I remember, was cold to it--to the great bulk of them it must have been utterly unintelligible. Camiola ransoms the object of her affection, on condition that he shall marry her-he listens to the temptation which Aurelia holds out, and, against conviction, would break from his engagement to Camiola. Upon coming into her presence he is overwhelmed with her reproaches, and sues to be forgiven. Aurelia too releases him from his second engagement. Then, the Maid of Honour, with a nicety peculiar to her character, refuses him absolutely, and devotes herself to religion. The priest edifies the assembly with the austerities she is about to practise, and leads her off to consummate the sacrifice. Such is the interest.

Camiola was a new character for Mrs. Siddons; but it was not of the kind demanded by her fame-it was declamatory. Now, certainly among the merits of this transcendent actress. was to be numbered the very finest declamation in the world; but it was asserted that she was for the most part a declaimer only, and indeed that her brother also was a fine reciter of sonorous versification, but unequal to the irregular bursts of passion, as they are found in the page of the genuine interpreter of nature. It was insinuated that some conviction of this deficiency produced Mrs. Siddons's cautious abstinence from the characters of Shakspeare. But that malice must not be expected to be quite guarded, it might have occurred to these critics that Mrs. Crawford's line of character was precisely that of Mrs. Siddons, and indeed for a very sufficient reason, namely that the lead taken by the ladies in our public amusements demanded a kind of exhibition of which the excellencies were more particularly feminine; that they, as might be expected, delighted to see the charms of their sex become almost the arbiters of destiny, and life and empire the playthings of their power. That Shakspeare had exhibited nothing of this sort in his drama was quite apparent for the reasons assigned by his best critic.* There might be found an ad

Need I say here that I mean Dr. Johnson? But I will at all events leave no doubt, in what view of his labours, I so esteem him. I term him the best critic, because he has best displayed the genius of Shakspeare; because he has silenced, and for ever, the puny jargon as to the unities, by which his fame was ignorantly assailed. Because, without soaring into a mystic adoration, too flighty to be rational, he has thoroughly estimated his powers

ditional cause in the want of female performers in his times. I always think that he would have written more for the women of his dramas, if he had found female representatives. His taste was too pure and natural to be quite satisfied with the barbered chins of his young men, and the false delicacy with which they mimicked the real properties of the other sex. They could but barely be endured ;-whatever may be said, nature forbade them ever to delight. I am aware of Kynaston in a still later age, and his morning rides with women of high rank in Hyde Park. I have just reviewed the Follies of a Day, and shall not enquire the motives of these affected gratifications.

It is sufficient, therefore, in looking to the females of Otway, Southerne, Rowe, and Thomson, with those of the French stage, as translated by Phillips and Aaron Hill, and Murphy, it is sufficient, I say, to view the space they fill, and the interest they excite, to ascertain why they must ever be the choice of the young actress, and her female admirers. A period, however, arrives, when the ardent affection of carly life does not quite agree with the stately figure and powerful expression of the mature actress; at such a time Shakspeare opens the region of majesty and power; of ambition, and disdain, and dispair, of guilt and terror; and FORCE confirms the triumphant reign, that commenced with the gentler affections. Although, in point of fact, the time of life to which I allude had not yet arrived, and that Mrs. Siddons, as either maid, wife, or daughter, had sufficient personal charms (indeed when had she not?) to require no grains of allowance in the performance of the long line of tender and graceful heroines, it yet was wise to show that she could gain the utmost heights of tragedy, and astonish at least as much as she had delighted. Her benefit, therefore, on the 2d of February, exhibited this great actress in the crown of all her achieve ments, Lady Macbeth. And, certainly, if ever the slanderer of excellence was put to shame, as well as flight, it must have been at this noble exhibition. Language seemed really to sink under her eulogists. It was the triumph of the art; it was at once, simple, grand, and striking; it was such an impersonation as Raffaele might have conceived, had Shak

and his intentions; and supplied such a preface to his works, as will, under no changes of fashion, be ever separated from that immortal series.

As the laborious collectors of every thing connected with the poet's history, or that of the stage, I feel grateful to Mr. Malone and Mr. Chalmers. As supplying the ablest illustrations from the writings of his contemporaries, the three great commentators are certainly Dr. Farmer, George Steevens, and Edward Malone.

S

speare been his contemporary, and which Reynolds had painted, being so fortunate as to be hers. Sir Joshua on that night occupied his privileged seat in the orchestra, and never availed himself of his other privilege, until the tragic queen had quitted the last scene of sleeping horrour. Then,

"He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff"

Part of the pit, on this occasion, was laid into the boxes; a practice which can hardly be defended, because an usurpation upon the territory of a most respectable class of admirers. But on such nights, the additional splendour gained by the jewels and feathers of the ladies, made up a coup d'œil of the most fascinating description. When I have returned from such exhibitions, it seemed the dispelling of a dream of eastern magnificence. I take the liberty to remark, that there appeared more soul in the applause given to these triumphs of Mrs. Siddons, than I have ever felt in the audiences, who were attracted by any succeeding magnet of the drama.

On this occasion, the admirers of Mr. Kemble were compelled to see Smith in the character of Macbeth. That gentleman had attended to none of the hints, gentle or rude, to withdraw from the busy scene. He was criticised rather unmercifully. In the dagger scene, after the bell had given him the invitation to the murder, Smith was too earnest to remember the stealthy pace, that he had just prescribed to Macbeth; and though not the stones, yet the stage boards at the wing, "prated rather loudly of his whereabout." This incident was converted into a very unexpected compliment to poor old Packer, "who merited, it was said, as Duncan, special praise in the sleeping scene. Any other actor, besides himself, would too probably have been discomposed, by the noise made by Macbeth as he ascended."

Nor did our great actress herself escape the malicious pleasantry of George Steevens, upon her fascinating address at the banquet. With his old allusion to the supposed frugality of Gower Street, he wrote the following masterly insinuation in his usual vehicle. To do him but justice, it is so superior to all other composition of the time, that he might as well have signed it. Those who knew, and most people knew the highly convivial character of Smith, must have enjoyed the imputation so gravely cast upon him.