himself with pruning, but he has even ventured to plant; he has not only curtailed Shakspeare, but he has engrafted upon him passages from other writers. This is the case with Coriolanus as it has lately been performed at Covent-garden, and upon this play, with your leave I would hazard an observation or two. In the first place I think Mr. Kemble has shortened the play too much; he has pruned in some places so lavishly that a person unacquainted with Shakspeare's play would scarcely be able, even with all the latitude allowed to dramatic writers to connect the incidents of the story. Shakspeare in this respect is frequently faulty enough, and Mr. Kemble has here put the force of our imagination to as great a test as ever Shakspeare did. Further, I think Mr. Kemble censurable for omitting the first scene of the fourth act, in which Coriolanus takes leave of his mother, his wife, his general and his friend, without the walls of Rome. The scene is short, but it displays the respective characters of the persons present in as masterly a manner as any that occurs in the play it should therefore undoubtedly have been retained. The scenes which so admirably depict the character, temper and manners of the Roman citizens I think too much abridged, more especially as the parts were not given to the understrappers of the house, but were acted by some of the best performers. But I think Mr. Kemble the most censurable for having exchanged the nervous and glowing language of Shakspeare for the tame and inflated effusions of Thomson. What could induce the manager to commit such a glaring and palpable offence against good taste, it is wholly impossible for me to imagine. Not only whole speeches, but entire scenes, as well as an additional character have been added from Thomson, to the exclusion of Shakspeare, and this too in the most interesting part of the play. Even that exquisitely pathetic and most affecting scene between Coriolanus and his mother in the Volscian camp, is now a mere medley, a speech from Thomson and a line from Shakspeare, and stead of the highly characteristic, animated and effectual appeal which Volumnia makes to her son, we are astounded by the stale tragedy trick of her drawing a dagger and threatening to stab herself. Now, sir, it may be in character for Thomson's Volumnia to attempt to frighten her son into compliance with her intreaty by a trick of this kind, but I do contend that it is wholly inconsistent with the dignity, and indeed wholly incompatible with the character of Shakspeare's Volumnia to have recourse to such an exhibition. It degrades her to a level with the host of tragedy queens who so long have strutted, ranted, poisoned and stabbed "To frighten wives and children with their rage." It also degrades the character of Coriolanus to represent such a state and paltry device as necessary to entrap his consent to return to Roine. Such, sir, is my opinion of Mr. Kemble's alteration of Coriolanus, but while I notice these defects, suffer me at the same time to award him the praise which I think he merits. He has discovered a classical and correct taste in the dresses and decorations of the play, he has cast it with great judginent, and his own performance of Coriolanus may be reckoned among the finest efforts of the present day. Archbishop Sancroft once asked this celebrated actoTM, "Pray, Mr. Betterton, can you inform me what is the reason you actors on the stage affect your audience by speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real; while we in the church speak of things real, which our congregations receive only as if they were imaginary ?” Why, really, my Lord," said Betterton, "I don't know; except it is, that we actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real, while you in the pulp.t speak of things real as if they were imaginary." 66 TASWELL. Taswell, the player, was originally bred at Oxford and designed for the church: but from some of those unaccountable events which decide the fate of characVOL. II. Q ters, he neglected every thing for the stage; a profession that seemed to reject him, as he never could rise above the station of a low comedian, But his humour was original; and as a performer, he was not only a favourite, but his jokes bore the currency of the day round Covent-garden. His wife was (in the technical language of the theatre) a dresser and property-woman; but one evening in distributing the properties of the play, making some mistake, which he felt in his own character, he said nothing to her till he got her home, and then thus addressed her:-" Madain, as you are my wife, I must forgive you this little faux pas; but having offended me as one of the company, I must chastise you:" which he did corporally. GARRICK AND MRS. CLIVE. Having once a green-roon wrangle with Mrs. Clive, Garrick concluded his remark upon her by saying, "Madam, I have heard of tartar and brimstone, and know the effects of both; but you are the cream of one and the flower of the other." BAD HOUSE. One night during the winter before Garrick went to Italy, the cash receipt of Drury-lane Theatre (though he and Mrs. Cibber performed in the same play) amounted to only three pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence! FOOTE. Davenport (the Taylor) who acquired a considerable fortune with a good character, asked Foote for a motto for his coach. "Latin or English" asked the wit. "Poh! English, to be sure; I don't want to set up for a scholar."" Then I have got one from Hamlet, that will match you to a button-hole: List! list! oh, list!'" THE SAME. One of the performers of the Haymarket Theatre was observing to Foote, "what a hum-drum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appeared to be in the green-room, compared with the figure he made in his poetry."-"The reason of that," said he, " is, because the muses are better companions than the players." POETRY. SONNET. FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENNEDETO GUIDI. LOVE fondly wand'ring thro' the golden maze W. M. T. Liverpool. STANZAS. ON SEEING THE GROUND COVERED WITH SNOW IN THE MIDDLE OF APRIL. LO! where the smiling flow'r of Spring Should rear its fragrant head, The piercing blast with wasting wing, No green leaf flutters in the breeze, So, when on Beauty's infant breast, The bud of beauty thus destroy'd, Can never hope to bloom; The sufferer droops by grief annoy'd, July 2nd, 1807. LINES ADDRESSED TO THE MISS BEVANS. WHY does the harp neglected slumber? Ne'er upon its silent strings The tuneful lay of rapture rings, But inspiration o'er it sighs, And half her fading spirit dies! When, ere I pass, 'twixt hope and fear, Still as I pause some strain to hear, Never does a single note, Her murmur wild, in pity float, Sit shrouded mid her cheerless gloom! Her sounds, with some divine controul, In bondage dear enchains the mind. J. M. L. G-W.C. |