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an that be all-Well, father, and how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val?

Sir Sampson. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I writ you word when you were at Leghorn.

Ben. Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you say-Well, and how?—I have a many questions to ask you

Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be revolting, or rather in real life could not have

co-existed with the warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations rather than strict metaphrases of nature should be taken, or when you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does

wound the moral sense at all. For

what is Ben-the pleasant sailor which Bannister gave us―but a piece of a satire-a creation of Congreve's fancy-a dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character his contempt of money-his credulity to women-with that necessary estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of credibility to

suppose might produce such an hallucination as is here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, But when an actor comes, and inor feel it as a stain upon his character. stead of the delightful phantom-the creature dear to half-belief-which Bannister exhibited displays before our eyes a downright concretion hearted Jack Tar-and nothing else of a Wapping sailor-a jolly warm

when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose-he gives to it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the stood upon nothing else, and was to character with a pretence as if it be judged by them alone-we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; a real man has got in among the dramatis persone, and puts them out. We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not behind the curtain, but in the first or second gallery.

(To be resumed occasionally.)

ELIA.

THE DRAMA.

OUR article last month was not extraordinarily long, but this will be shorter:-not that we are deficient, as we flatter ourselves, either in will, or ability to talk; but that there is little to talk about,—and that little (the pantomime excepted) little pleasant. The mighty mother, having decided on another avatar, is greatly gravelled by the superhuman efforts of the rival Bayeses for the honour of becoming her fleshy receptacle. Piece after piece they throw out to be damned, with hisses, or with the worse doom, faint applause; and heroically persist in running them against that most satisfactory proof of public disapprobation,--empty bench

es.

Who shall decide on the ultimate success of these belligerents? At which house are we most soporific? Whether is the immutable order of mundane things, mutability, better oppugned at Drury, by Geraldi Duval, Monsieur Tonson, and

the Coronation of George the Fourth; or by The Exile, The Two Pages of Frederick, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona at Covent Garden?—To come to the point: the managers must by this time have found out that costly spectacles which do not draw, and which, from the vast preparatory expenses, they cannot afford to withdraw, return into the treasury fewer net profits than sterling tragedies and comedies, carefully cast. Mr. Elliston has had very miserable audiences, and latterly his great 66 masque must have eaten its own head off; and though there was a fuller show of heads, on the average, at the other theatre, their receipts must have been smaller in proportion; for this reason, that, to the best of our information, the amount of salaries paid from the treasury of Mr. Harris is in relation to that of the great lessee as four to one. We are, indeed, afraid that Mr. Harris's wish to treat

the public with liberality is carried to an excess hurtful to his own interests. His company, like a company of the Guards, is assured with double numbers; he can present a front on every side; while that of E. resembles a skeleton battalion of a condemned West India Regiment. The simile will also hold with regard to their arrangements of novelties. At Covent Garden, they form four deep; if one drops, another is pushed forwards with promptitude to the murderous fire. The Venison Pasty is damned! Let it go! The Two Gallant Pages will make the pass good; and if they too fall, we have another, and another, and another. The Russian troops in the Exile slacken fire: Try we the day then with our hot Italians, Our Veronese, cat-footed, to climb towers Where damsels be, though perpendicular straight,

And with the steamy breath of swathing

clouds

Most dizzying slippery.

Now how is it on the other side of the Euxine? The English beef-eaters, worn with ninety nights' successive watch and ward, were relieved by an ill officered levy of Irish Galloglasses, who, thrown speedily into confusion, were, after a feeble resist ance (to use a phrase of Soult's) annihilated-and the overweening general having no fresh troops in reserve, was forced to protect his re"treat with his jaded yeomen: that is to say, Giovanni in Ireland received its well deserved quietus; and though Mr. Elliston has had experience of the public for thirty years, " man and boy," he had nothing in rehearsal against accidents; so that after a very formal red-lettered interment of his "King and no King," the royal Vampire was dragged from the tomb of all the Capulets, or wherever it was, to amuse the little Christmas people, (who had, doubtless, had a glimpse of it before) in lieu of that mysterious entertainment, chartered to them by custom, viz. a pantomime. The consequences of this grand failure were felt sensibly in the treasuries of both houses:-new ventilators were required by Covent Garden, and more fires at Drury. Loss of money was not all;-miscarriages at such a critical season create a want of confidence in play-goers

every one is not amused with the damnatory sound arising from a conflict between expellent breath and repellent teeth; and Elliston, who knows this as well as any body, in his despair, laid violent hands on the new Scotch Novel, and, assisted by Mr. T. Cooke, and Mr. Moncrief, or Mr.Somebody, actually strained forth a premature bantling, which seemed to interest nobody. Still we must inflict somewhat concerning it on our poor readers.

Jan. 15.-Bowed together by the rushing force of the chill north wind, we threaded rapidly the yelling groups under Covent Garden Piazza, pressing onwards to the warmth of a full house, on the first night of The Pirate; but, as we obliqued from the angle of Bow Street, to the angle of Bridges Street, our hopes were blanked. Before the swinging valves of Drury stood no carriages, but those with the Arabian numerals. "Are you full?" said we, 66 Middling ! very fair, Sir!" (Gentlemen! we mean.) We would try the dress circle, however; and there, by the aid of that obliging box keeper, Mr. Stewart, (whom we thus immortalize) we got a seat, second row, third from the stage. Soon we wished for the great coats unheedfully delivered into Mr. S's safe custody-for though the pit was full, and rolled below us like a black lake, the boxes, in general, were merely dotted about here and there, with extremely plain-faced people, pale, disconsolate, having no voice but wheezes, snuffles, and coughs. We are believers in ugly nights, and handsome nights; and nearly always contrive to go on the former-which is pleasant!

Reader, we take leave to set it down that you have eaten (a more genteel word than devoured) the novel. You shall not therefore be bored to chew the cud of it with Messrs. Foote, Penley, and Mrs. W. West, as we were. We will speak briefly, and only let you know that the Pirate limped very much, notwithstanding the excision of his worst corns, Mr. Trips Yellowley, and his sister Ba aby. We should have been for casting off the poet Halcro, with his "long yarns," instead of aiding his proper dullness with some ingredients from "the clod compeller;" and

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have been passed, which privilege Mr. Pope from all petty hostility.

That unequalled humourist, Munden (whom we seldom see now, because Mr. Elliston considers him too dainty to be supped on often) was put into Bryce Snaelsfoote; but he did little; for he had nothing to do;-still he gave us his unctuous countenance.--Reader! did you ever see him in the Deaf Lover? or is that luxury yet in unenjoyed perspective? if so, take our envy!

the point cravat!-the public-house physiognomy! - the ineffable stand of the legs!-and the cloathing of those ship-adapted legs, of sky-blue silk grizzled horizontally with white heraldic palisades! What else? dainty What else? what is omitted?-Everything, himself! But if "the Fortune's Fa"vourite" be not blown up at point non-plus before we are off the stocks you must go and see the old " key-sucker," with his one-eyed boatswain, and his men, carousing in the cabin; singing manfully the best song in the piece, or the tale

Thus said the Rover,
To his gallant crew,
Up with the black flag,
Down with the blue!
Fire on the maintop,
Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun deck,
Fire down below!

mon

When we call to mind this joyous chorus, we almost incline to set down the Pirate as an amusing spectacle; but then Mr. Pope and Mrs. West arise, and crush the humane feeling. And here we will just note the different treatment which these two performers met with from the vulgar fooking audience. Mrs. West, who in the rapt enthusiast Norna was a little more mannered, a little more false, and a little more weak, than customary, seemed to join the powers of Cecilia and Timotheus; drawing down applause from the gods, and raising rapturous shouts from "the satyrs of the pit." On the other hand, Pope (Basil Mertoun) was laughed at, and hissed by a parcel of half-price shop boys, to whom this long tried servant of the public might be grandfather. Is this all the consideration and the kindness that English youth show to an old familiar face, falling somewhat into "the sear and yellow leaf?" "Fie on't, O fie!"-When indeed novel imbecility is smuggled on the town at the commencement of a season (as in the recent case of a young soi-disant comedian at Covent Garden) to cheat us of an able hand, it beseems the real theatrical amateur to let no means of warfare escape that may bring about the pristine integrity; he must combat stratagem with stratagem; but surely in the space of forty years, acts of amnesty must

The ladies ask a word or two. -Minna, the lofty-visioned, "call her fair not pale," was thrust on Vestris with the roving eye, who used a whole sixpenny paper of carmine on her pretty face, tried to look grave, and sang delightfully. Her style was steady yet graceful, and her intonation rich, full, airy, and clean. Miss Cubitt, a favourite with us, was much applauded in her musi→ cal portions: but spite of her very beautiful sunny hair, and her odd saucy looks, she was not much nearer to Brenda, than Lucy Giovanni to the Zetland Zuleika. We are quite at fault respecting the "faits et gestes" of sweet-voiced Mrs. Bland and Miss Povey; but their names are in the bills.

Adieu Mesdames et Mesdemoiselles au revoir.

The scenery was very respectable, but not correct; for example, though many of the excellent views of Kirkwall and St. Magnus are to be found in the last interesting volume of William Daniel's Coasting Tour, yet the street scene before the cathedral in that burgh was copied from an English town very familiar to us, though we cannot at this moment tell where, but we should say in Herts. As to the machinery, the less we speak of it the better: the engagement between the Pirate's schooner and the Halcyon (if that may be termed an engagement where the slap-banging is all on one side) was jocose, and the fizzling squib which blew up the "Fortune's Favourite" excited much laughter. When the drop fell, a contest arose which kept Mr. Cooper for some five minutes in cap-in-hand suspense. The contents evidently had it, and he gave out "The Pi rate" for the next night amidst a chaos of Bravos! Ya! Yes! No! No! Catcalls! Hisses! Turn the

geese out, &c. &c. This was our notion of the case ;—but as a proof that all people do not hear with the same ears, the actor-emperor announced in his manifestoes," that the new piece was received on its first appearance by the unanimous applause of a brilliant and overflowing audience!"

At Covent Garden, nothing has been done as yet in the fine old preeminent way; in the regular Drama. Macready has played his Rob Roy (which is a clever thing, but not at all like the genuine article); and Miss Stephens has appeared as Polly in the sweet pretty refined abridgement of the Beggar's Opera, executed we hear by Mr. Bowdler the reformer of Shakspeare. Our country friends will be pleased to learn that those profligate wretches, Moll Brazen, Mrs. Slammerkin and Co. are now omitted, in pursuance of remonstrances from the modest and tenderconscienced ladies who nightly occupy such retired and retiring stations as the slips, lobbies, and the pigeonholes. What a miserable self-betraying disguise all this make-believe goodness is!

When wE, the dramatic whipperin, were a little boy, we always, in destroying mince pies, reserved the rich meat for the finish. Characters are best studied from things that the superficial set down as superficial. The principle of selective epicurism, which caused the above delicate separation of the two grand components of the Christmas delicacy, is become so diffused through our nature, that, without any observable exercise of the judicial process, we have hoarded up for our grand finale the following account of the pantomime by a friend "who hath words and wit at will." Here, take it, and allow that we leave you con la bocca dolce till the next month.

THE PANTOMIME.

Drury Lane has no pantomime this Christmas, which we very sincerely regret, for we know no amusement half so rich as the first night of such a piece at this house. The performers begin hopelessly-and nothing turns out perfect. We rememher seeing a splendid failure of this

kind a season or two ago, and were nearly as much entertained at it as if it had been Mother Goose in all her bloom and freshness. The disguises, though touched by a silver wand, and ordered off by a little lady with gauze wings, positively declined making their departure-but stuck to the legs and arms of the irritated Harlequin, as though he had been dressed in cobwebs. Columbine was a considerable time in taking the shutters down from her spangles and laces-and the Clown himself was obliged to stamp at the negligent trap-door, before it would condescend to admit his charmed and charming habiliments. The disaster of this commencement was the prologue to a thousand failures. Half the river Thames, with half a collier, and three fourths of the patent shot manufactory, was pushed on, and joined by half a parlour, and the moiety of a pianoforte; at another change of scene, half a house glided on by itself, and in vain yawned after its partner, which kept struggling in canvas convulsions at the side of the stage, unable to advance or retreat. The sky was laid on as the roof to a kitchen-and the beams of the kitchen were suspended over “a view at sunrise," and were the only beams permitted to illuminate the prospect. Harlequin danced about in dejected gaiety, and faded lustre-and Columbine followed, sighing, and shuffling, like a lady who is following the dance of a runagate husband. The Clown and Pantaloon cuffed one another with desperate pleasantryand there was no other humour that told. In vain Harlequin flogged a hard-hearted chest of drawers that ought to have cracked-opened, and flapped into a wheelbarrow, or a temple, or some such animal; there it stood, with its hateful brass handles, and eternal drawers, determined not to throw off its nature. Harlequin gave his wand an additional flourish, and then in the silence of an expecting audience, banged the stubborn furniture enough to have beat in the brains of a real chest:No-the hint was not taken-the bureau did not move a muscle of its mahogany countenance. At length the jaded Harlequin seized it with one hand, chastised it with the other,

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