the murder, and omitted the robbery. On being questioned as to the proceeds of so nefarious a business, our retrospective enthusiast asks, “Could he lay sacrilegious hands on the body he had just murdered?" to which his cooler and more rational accomplice replies, "That as he had robbed him of his life, which was no doubt precious to him, she did not see why he should not rifle his pockets of that which, being dead, could be of no farther use to him."1 However, Barnwell makes such a noise with his virtue and his penitence, that she is alarmed for the consequences; and anticipating a discovery of the whole, calls in the constable, and gives up her companion as a measure of precaution. Her maid, however, who is her confidante, has been beforehand with her, and she is also taken into custody, and both are hanged. Such is the morality of this piece.

2

[Both pantomimes are indifferent. That at Drury Lane" consists in endless flights of magpies up to the ceiling, and that at Covent Garden1 stays too long in China. The latter part was better where Mr. Grimaldi comes in, and lets off a culverin at his enemies, and sings a serenade to his mistress in concert with Grimalkin. We were glad, right glad, to see Mr. Grimaldi again. There was (some weeks back) an ugly report that Mr. Grimaldi was dead. We would not believe it; we did not like to ask any one the question, but we watched the public countenance for the intimation of an event which "would have eclipsed the harmless gaiety of nations. "5 We looked at the faces we met in the street, but there were no signs of general sadness; no one stopped his 2 Ibid., v, i.

1 George Barnwell, IV, ii.

3 Harlequin and Fancy; or, The Poet's Last Shilling, by T. Dibdin.

The

4 Harlequin and Fortunio; or, Shing-moo and Thun-ton. European Magazine attributes it to Charles Farley, but Henry Harris received £105 as author.

5 Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Edmund Smith, says that Garrick's death "has eclipsed the gaiety of nations" (Lives of the Poets, ii, 25, Bohn's edit.).

acquaintance to say that a man of genius was no more. Here indeed he is again, safe and sound, and as pleasant as ever. As without the gentleman at St. Helena, there is an end of the politics in Europe; so without the Clown at Sadler's Wells, there must be an end of pantomimes in this country!]

THE BUSY BODY.

[Drury Lane] January 7, 1816.

1

THE admirable comedy of The Busy Body was brought out at Drury-Lane Theatre on Wednesday, for the purpose of introducing Mrs. Mardyn in Miranda. She acted the part very delightfully, and without at all overdoing it. We seem to regret her former luxuriance of manner, and think she might take greater liberties with the public without offence. Though she has lost some of the heyday vivacity of her natural spirits, she looks as charmingly as ever.

2

Mr. Dowton's Gripe was not one of his best performances. It is very much a character of grimace, and Munden perhaps would do it better on this account, for he is the greatest caricaturist on the stage. It was the character in which he originally appeared. We never saw him in it, but in several parts we missed his broad shining face, the orbicular rolling of his eye, and the alarming drop of his chin. Mr. Dowton, however, gave the whining tones and the dotage of fondness very well, and "his voice pipes and whistles in the sound, like second childishness.' " If any thing, he goes too far in this, and drawls out his ecstasies too much into the tabernacle sing-song.

By Mrs. Centlivre; revived January 3.

2 Munden played Sir Francis Gripe at Covent Garden, December 2, 1790 (his first appearance).

3 An allusion to As You Like It, 11, vii, 161-5.

Mr. Harley played Marplot in a very lively and amusing manner. He presented a very laughable picture of blundering vivacity and blank stupidity. This gentleman is the most movable actor on the stage. He runs faster and stops shorter than any body else. There was but one fault in his delineation of the character. The officious Marplot is a gentleman, a foolish one, to be sure; but Harley played it like a footman. We observed also, that when Mr. Harley got very deserved applause by his manner of strutting, and sidling, and twisting himself about in the last scene, where he fights,' he continued to repeat the same gestures over again, as if he had been encored by the audience.

We cannot close these remarks, without expressing the satisfaction which we received from this play. It is not so profound in wit or character as some other of the old comedies, but it is nothing but bustle and gaiety from beginning to end. The plot never ceases. The ingenuity of contrivance is admirable. The development of the story is an uninterrupted series of what the French call coups de théâtre, and the situations succeed one another like the changes of machinery in a pantomime. It is a true comic pantomime.

A lady of the name of Barnes 2 has appeared in Desdemona at this theatre. Her voice is powerful, her face is pretty, but her person is too petite and undignified for tragedy. Her conception of the part was good, and she gave to some of the scenes considerable feeling and effect; but who shall represent "the divine Desdemona?"

Mr. Kean's Othello is his best character, and the highest effort of genius on the stage. We say this without any exception or reserve. Yet we wish it was better than it is. In parts, we think he rises as high as human genius can go: at

1 Busy Body, v, iii.

2 Mrs. Barnes "from Exeter" made her first appearance at Drury Lane as Juliet, December 29, 1815, and acted Desdemona on January 5.

other times, though powerful, the whole effort is thrown away in a wrong direction, and disturbs our idea of the character. There are some technical objections. Othello was tall, but that is nothing: he was black, but that is nothing. But he was not fierce, and that is every thing. It is only in the last agony of human suffering that he gives way to his rage and his despair, and it is in working his noble nature up to that extremity, that Shakespeare has shown his genius and his vast power over the human heart. It was in raising passion to its height, from the lowest beginnings and in spite of all obstacles, in showing the conflict of the soul, the tug and war between love and hatred, rage, tenderness, jealousy, remorse, in laying open the strength and the weaknesses of human nature, in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motion all the springs and impulses which make up this our mortal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous, but majestic, "that flows on to the Propontic and knows no ebb,"1 that the great excellence of Shakespeare lay. Mr. Kean is in general all passion, all energy, all relentless will. He wants imagination, that faculty which contemplates events, and broods over feelings with a certain calmness and grandeur; his feelings almost always hurry on to action, and hardly ever repose upon themselves. He is too often in the highest key of passion, too uniformly on the verge of extravagance, too constantly on the rack. This does very well in certain characters, as Zanga or Bajazet," where there is merely a physical passion, a boiling of the blood to be expressed, but it is not so in the lofty-minded and generous Moor.

We make these remarks the more freely, because there were parts of the character in which Mr. Kean showed the greatest sublimity and pathos, by laying aside all violence

1 An allusion to Othello, III, iii, 455-6.

2 In Young's The Revenge (see ante, pp. 78-9), and Rowe's Tamerlane (see Appendix, pp. 339-40).

of action. For instance, the tone of voice in which he delivered the beautiful apostrophe, “Then, oh, farewell!”1 struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness. Why not all so, or all that is like it? why not speak the affecting passage—“I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips why not speak the last speech, in the same manner? They are both of them, we do most strenuously contend, speeches of pure pathos, of thought, and feeling, and not of passion, venting itself in violence of action or gesture. Again, the look, the action, the expression of voice, with which he accompanied the exclamation, "Not a jot, not a jot," 3 was perfectly heart-rending. His vow of revenge against Cassio, and his abandonment of his love for Desdemona, were as fine as possible. The whole of the third act had an irresistible effect upon the house, and indeed is only to be paralleled by the murder-scene in Macbeth. Mr. Pope's Iago was better acted than usual, but he does not look the character. Mr. Holland's drunken scene was, as it always is, excellent.

4

3

A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS.

[Drury Lane] January 14, 1816.

MASSINGER'S play of A New Way to Pay Old Debts," which has been brought out at Drury-Lane Theatre to introduce Mr. Kean in the part of Sir Giles Overreach, must have afforded a rich treat to theatrical amateurs. There is something in a good play well acted, a peculiar charm, that makes us forget ourselves and all the world.

1 Othello, III, iii, misquoted. 3 Ibid., III, iii, 215.

4 Ibid., II, iii; Holland was Cassio.

2 Ibid., III, iii, 341.

5 Revived January 12.