lating as a relief to the hard, barren facts of our actual life. It is not so much the business of the dramatist to point a moral as to adorn a tale. Wit, taste, and sensibility; these are the ornaments the dramatist should employ to deck the offsprings of his fancy-not waste his time over what can never be accurate copies of foul and worthless originals. What wit, what taste, what sensibility, is there in ‘Drink?’ People of education and refinement know it to be degrading and repulsive; they do not know it to be true. The moral it is intended to convey has been a household word since the beginning of the world, and that class of society to whom it is especially directed know far more about it than Mr. Reade or M. Zola can tell them. It brought home no truth to these people that they did not already know. It needs not Mr. Charles Reade to tell them that the excessive use of ardent spirits will ruin their health and their fortune. Where the dramatist was didactic and moral, as he occasionally was through the mouth of one of his characters, he was voted tedious and unnecessary. Where he presented pictures that were at once absurd and horrible he was applauded to the echo. These pictures pleased because they had at the same time something familiar and something unknown. They presented characters and treated of matters that bore at least that resemblance to reality which one is accustomed to find on the stage, and which your critic of the gallery does not wish too slavishly to adhere to nature. On the other hand the stage had never gone before quite so far as this. Real water dashed about, and a man falling from a broken scaffold, before their very eyes! Surely this was something like a show. And it was only a show; there was nothing real in it. There was all the fun and excitement of the reality, and none of those more disagreeable elements which are unfortunately inseparable from it. There are no coroners or police magistrates on the stage, or, if there are, they are as unreal as the things and people with whom they have to deal. Such or something like this we conceive to be the real sentiments of the people with whom Mr. Reade's play is likely to be popular. But we have perhaps said enough and more than enough on a very worthless subject. Our desire has been to put the matter in its true light, and not to allow a disagreeable and disgusting play to affect a virtue which does not belong to it, and to win, on the assumed ground of a moral result which does not, and cannot, exist, a sympathy which would otherwise be inevitably refused to it. This has been the most prominent feature of the past month, if we except the performances of the actors of the Comedie Fransaise. Of these we do not propose to speak, for they have, indeed, been commented on almost ad nauseam. We may, however incidentally observe that if one tithe of what has been written about them in our newspapers be true, no such faultless specimens of genius, pure and undefiled,have ever yet been seen upon the earth. They can do no wrong; and as the easiest way to exalt an object is to debase every other object, so our critics can find no better means to show their unbounded admiration and delight for these specimens of living nature made perfect by the most consummate art than by debasing and vilifying their own stage and all that belongs to it. It is a twofold pity; a pity, because exact and judicious criticism might here be of real service to our theatre and our actors; a pity, because this extravagant and ridiculous epidemic of praise will inevitably bring that reaction under which good and bad will alike go down. From one extreme we shall rush to the other, and when we have discovered how foolishly we have been belauding many things that are but indifferent, and some that are absolutely bad, we shall be tempted to think that no part of our indiscriminate raptures can have been truly deserved. When the managment of the Lyceum Theatre first passed into the hands of Mr. Irving, it was announced in some quarters that the regeneration of our Drama, long desired, long expected, but almost despaired of, was at last to begin. An exalted purpose, unwearying study, a liberal education, a correct taste, all these virtues were claimed for the new manager, even where it was allowed that perhaps his execution did not always rise to the level of his design. Assuredly these large promises have not as yet been fulfilled. Miss Ellen Terry became a member of the company, and this was universally hailed as an earnest of good intentions. For a theatre presumedly to be devoted to the presentation of the highest and most poetic order of the drama could certainly not do better than secure the services of the most refined and poetic actress of the day. But from all this labour what a ridiculous little mouse has come forth! To be sure we have had Hamlet, and Miss Terry played Ophelia, and played it with a grace and charm of truth and tenderness that could not be surpassed. But we have had Mr. Irving's Hamlet a good many times before, and if the Ophelia was taken away, and Ophelia, as a personage in the play is of comparative insignificance, there was not very much else to admire though, of course, a great many people admire, or are believed to admire, the Hamlet very much, on which subject we may perhaps have something to say on another occasion. After Hamlet came the Lady of Lyons. Here again Miss Terry was charming, and not the less charming because she evolved a Pauline out of her own sensibility instead of treading slavishly in the beaten track of her predecessors. But concerning the Claude even flattery itself was silent. Now we are to have Eugene Aram and Charles I. written professedly for Mr. Irving and for Mr. Irving alone; Louis XI., in which there is practically only one character, and Richelieu in which there is little more! This is the regeneration of the Drama! this is the great Avatar for which we have been sighing! In some of these plays there is not even a part for Miss Terry, and in not one of them is there a part worthy of her, or of any actress of real powers. This is only the apotheosis of Mr. Irving, and were Mr. Irving all, and more than all, his admirers proclaim him to be, we must still decline to believe that the Drama is to be regenerated by the individual glorification of one man. We should be more hopeful could we be quite sure that Mr. Irving was of the same opinion. In this respect the Prince of Wales' Theatre offers an agreeable contrast to the Lyceum. We do not at all hold with those who think that the Bancroft dynasty can do no wrong. Frequently we have condemned their judgment in producing pieces worthless in themselves, or unsuited to the company required to present them; sometimes, we have thought the acting positively bad. But there has never been seen at this theatre that odious apotheosis of the individual which is the bane of our stage. Whatever the play chosen, the smallest" part in it has always been as carefully cast, and received as much attention, as the highest. It has been found no more It possible here than elsewhere to command success, but,in this respect at least, no labour has been spared to deserve it. In the present programme may be found a notable proof of this. "Good for Nothing," a very popular old farce, familiar probably to most of our readers, is being played. Nan, the maid of all work, from whom the piece derives its title, was a famous part of Mrs. Bancroft's in the days when she was known as Marie Wilton, and in the opinion of many good judges is the best part she has ever played. Allowing for the inevitable influence of time,she plays it now with no decrease of vivacity or humour, but she is not the only figure in the piece. Surrounded by intelligent and practised actors her own excellence is but enhanced and perfected by theirs. is not the moon which shines supreme among the lesser stars, but the stars which by their brilliancy add new lustre to the moon. With Mr. Gilberts 'Sweethearts' we are not so well pleased. We have never been able to share in the admiration that this play has excited in some quarters. It is neatly written, indeed, like all the author's work, and contains, of course, its proper proportion of smart,' though tolerably obvious, sayings. But it has always struck us as unreal, and is far too long for the subject. With neither of the characters can we feel any sympathy. The pity aroused for the man in the first act is destroyed by his conduct in the second, and the punishment the woman receives in the second is no more we feel than she deserves from her conduct in the first. Mrs. Bancroft is admirable in the second act; some years ago she would have been admirable in the first. Actors a nd actresses, however clever they may be, are but mortal with the rest of us, and the one critic from whose verdict there is no appeal is Time. Looking back over an almost uninter⚫ rupted career of success surely this clever lady might have selected a character in which she could have revived our pleasures without provoking our comparisons. If, as we are given to understand, the end of her stage life is now drawing near, we could wish to carry away of those last days none but the most agreeable recollections. Many people can remember Madeleine Brohan in the high tide of her youthful triumphs; that memory is now gratefully revived by the contemplation of her maturer powers. VOL. XXXVI. G TRIPLE ACROSTIC NO. 7. Pray don't pretend that you don't care to win it ; I. I hurt my finger; it began to swell; This I applied, and lo! t'was straightway well. Correct answers have been received from Dowager-Quite a young thing too-Beolne-Brevette-Shark-P.V.-La Belle Alliance-Artemisia- Black Beetle-Charmione Nursery; II correct and 47 incorrect-total 58. |