The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-16 00:00:00

f - r. THE PRESS, JANUARY 16,1858. very cold praise, and apparently considers his novels only skilful in making rogues look like heroes ; sneers at Lamb, Wordsworth, and Southey, at German philosophy and American poetry, and evidently thinks all modern novels trash. On the other hand, he admires Bowles, Darwin, Charlotte Smith, and that very much overpraised writer, "Delta," of the collection of whose poems he is, strangely, not aware. But he has a wholesome admiration fur Turner, with whom he was for a time on greater terms of intimacy than many persons have been able to accomplish. Turner told him that ho was a native of Barnstaple, in Devon shire, but this we suspect was a mystification, a trick of which the artist was rather fend. The following extract shows what was the source of some of his marvellous marine effects. Mr. Bedding, Turner, and some friends had set out to sail to Bur Island, fish, and eat hot ' lobsters : Running out from the land the sea rose higher, until off Stokes Point, it became stormy. We mounted the ridges bravely. The sea, in that part of the Channel, rolls in grand furrows from the Atlantic, and we had run about a dozen miles. The artist enjoyed the scene. He sat in the stern sheets intently watching the sea, and not at all affected by the motion At last, we got round under the lee of the island, and contrived to get on shore. All this time, Turner was silent, watching the tumultuous scene. The little island, and the solitary hut it held, the bay in the bight of which it lay, and the dark long Bolt head to seaward, against the rocky shore of which the waves broke with fury, made the artist become absorbed in contemplation, not uttering a syllable. While the shell fish were preparing, Turner, with a pencil, clambered nearly to the summit of the island, and seemed writing rather than drawing. How he succeeded, owing to the violence cf the wind, Ido not know. He, probably, observed some thing in the sea aspect which he had not before noted. After three years spent in Paris on news paper work, Mr. Redding came to London and joined the New Monthly Magazine, iu which he began to write about 1820. Colburn the publisher was proprietor, and Campbell the poet editor. Unfortunately, nothing that we hear of Campbell's private character tends to raise him in our estimation. He was per fectly unfit for his post, was continually pur suing abstract projects which came to nothing, offended numerous persons by his forgetful. ness, and threw all the onerous duties of the editorship upon Mr. Redding, who must have been blessed with an excellent temper or a strong affection for his very trying coadjutor. For ten years the magazine took his whole time, and on his retirement he was consoled by no word of thanks from the publisher. During this time he came in contact with many literary men, and on ono occasion had an evening with Wilson, and drank with him glass for glass of punch—with what result next morning he does not relate. He did not much admire the lion like Professor, and thought his appearance " not gentlemanly." We are hardly disposed, however, to trust Mr. Redding as a reporter on these points, for he has given a description of L9ekhart which, as we are able to state from our own recollection, conveys a completely false impression of him. Even of late years he was a man of remark ably handsome and striking appearance, and his manners, so far from having " nothing winning" about them, were calculated to at• tract and cause a wish for further acquaint ance. The space, indeed, which Mr. Redding bestows upon really notable people bears too slight a proportion to that which he assigns to characters of no moment whatever. Lock hart is dismissed in a paragraph, but several pages are given to Sir Herbert Compton, an Indian barrister, who was in reality a man of vulgar and overbearing manners, and chiefly remarkable for his habit of making bud puns. The following story of Croker would appear open to doubt : Being down at the Pavilion, at Brighton, the Sunday before, the company in the drawing•room after dinner, there was a group at the end of the room in conversation, including the Duke of Clarence and others. The Duke sag having a sly blow at the Admiralty, as well as at Croker, whom some of the naval men ii4ed to call, " The whole board of Admiralty." The Duke iu reply to some remark of the secretary, said: When I am king, I'll be my own First Lord of the Admiralty." " Does your Royal Highness recollect what English king was his own First Lord, the last time ?" The Duke replied in the negative. " It was James II." There was a general laugh among the party. The King walking up and down the room at the time, hearing the laugh, approached the group— " What—one of your good things, Croker, I suppose— what was it r " Nothing and please your Majesty, but your Royal brother is saying what he will do in toe navy, when he is king." George IV. turned on his heel and walked off to the other end of the room. The next morning Croker, on the point of going up to town, received the King's command to attend him in his bed-room. " I was annoyed at your exposing my brother's non sense, under my roof, last evening ; and in the next place, in staling what should happen when I am no longer king. Let me request there may be no repetition of similar remarks. Do not believe lam offended, but it is distaste ful to ms feelings." He then gave the honourable secre tary his Band to kiss, and he departed to ruminate on the hint he thus received of the sensitiveness of royalty. The following story will be new to most of our readers : Lord Holland used to tell a story with some humour of his father, or grandfather-1 forget which. His relative had brought a hill into the House, which was sadly muti lated with red ink in the way of alteration and amendment. One of the opposing peers called it " the noble lord's bill." His lordship ruse, asserted that, so mutilated, the bill was not his. Then, pointing at the scarlet mutila tions, he exclaimed, turning also to the peers who had made them:— Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through— See what a rent the envious Cases made ! Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed! The effect was so droll as to convulse the House with laughter. We cannot exactly recommend these volumes on account of either their spirit, their accuracy, or the soundness of their judgment ; but they are tolerably amusing, and to those who can de!y the depressing tone usually as sumed by reminiscents, will afford an hour or two of agreeable reading. Essays on the Drama. By William Bodham Donne. London : J. W. Parker and Son. AMONG the social changes that have taken place in England during the present century, the decline of the Drama is perhaps the one which we are most disposed to regret. In most respects, indeed, the amusements of the nation have changed for the better. Yet, enlightened as we consider our selves in many respects, it would seem as if the faculty of appreciating good plays were among the benefits which education had of late forgotten to impart—to those classes at least which used formerly to enjoy them with the greatest relish. It might almost be imagined that the spirit of wealthy exclu siveness, finding that taste was a possession which could no longer be kept to itself, had resolved to abandon it (with dignity), as no longer worth having, to the ranks which had begun to usurp its privileges. It is certainly true enough that it is not every one who can afford to have Grisi and Mario to sing in his drawing-room, and that a box at the Opera may be used without much mental effort ; while a certain degree of thought and cultiva tion, be the same ever so slight, is required for attending to a play of Shakespeare, or even of Sheridan. We have met with a family considered extremely well educated, and moving in the best circles of this metropolis, who on going to see Mr. Kean's Hamlet had no notion whatever of the story, except a vague surmise that there was a ghost in it ; and some of whom felt deeply annoyed when " that dear " old man" (meaning Polonius) came to his untimely end behind the arras. This, we trust, is an extreme case. But there can he no doubt that the persons who in a past gene ration would have been the most eager patrons of the theatre have now either entirely de serted it, or only visit it to participate in the same kind of passive enjoyment which they receive from their habitual Opera. The Essays of Mr. Donne, which have sug gested the above remarks, would illustrate what we have said at greater length ; four out of the eight papers being more or less directly concerned with the condition of the Stage at the present day. Articles on "Athenian Comedy," `• Beaumont and Fletcher," " Songs from the Dramatists," and " Popular Amuse ments," make up the remainder of the volume—which the author has reprinted in deference to the opinion of " persons in whose " judgment he confides." We are not sure that he has been wise in doing so without effecting some alterations. His style his easy and flowing, though it has a very conventional twang ; and the four essays last mentioned, •47 -- • fr- though exhibiting little novelty or suggestive ness of treatment, are pleasant and perspi cuous, showing a sufficiency of information, and likely to be found attractive to any reader who may take them up. On the Drama, however, Mr. Donne has written essays for no less than three periodicals—Prettier, the Westminster, and the Quarterly. We have no quarrel with his ideas, for we entirely agree with them, and think that he has pretty nearly exhausted the subject. We only complain that they come before us too often. The crambe repetitis which has done duty in one review is cooked up again for a second and even a third time, certainly with much skill, but with little variety. Surely it is somewhat imprudent for a literary man to allow us to get behind the scenes in this . .vay and observe how thin he variety. His violins operandi would have been less evident if he had consoli- dated these essays, as he might easily have done, instead of allowing them to remain in their original shape. When they are read nearly in succession, as is at present the case, the repetition becomes tedious, and the novelty of their views is destroyed by a sort of self. plagiarism—only admissible on the supposi tion that you cannot have too much of a good thing. One of the causes to which Mr. Donne ascribes the present decay of theatrical per formances is the great number of theatres now open, rendering it impossible for a manager to keep a first-rate company together. Another is the loss of the provincial stage (once a nursery for London), through the greater facilities of travelling, and the drafting off of second-rate actors to suburban boards. Another is the prevalence of novels, which enable us to enjoy a drama at home ; another the custom of adapting French plays, the lightness of which is sacrificed in the transfer, while their startling situations spoil the actor's taste, and prevent him from studying the situations of real life. Another, of course, is the change of habits and hours—the vast quantity of work or amusement crowded into each day, and the consequent inroads made upon the night. Mr. Donne lays hardly suffi cient stress upon tho inordinate length of the entertainments of the present day—not likely, we fear, to diminish, while the intervals of the acts are occupied by the arrangement of the cumbrous machinery which grand perspec tives and astonishing effects now render necessary. Formerly it was possible to go to the theatre at a reasonable hour, and return home, amused and not exhausted, by twelve at the latest : this is now out of the question, except by missing some part of what we have paid to see—a thing the Englishman hates to do. Another cause, says Mr. Donne, " lies deeper, " and must be sought in the character and tendencies of the age itself " It is perhaps an inevitable result of advancing civilisa tion, that it levels in great measure the external and sa:ient points of individual character, and thus deprives the drama of one of its principal aliments and attractions. Evil passions and evil natu►es are unhappily, indeed, the accompaniments of every age, bat they do not therefore always exhibit themselves under dramatic forms. The mimes and woes of " old great houses " seldom affect in our days either the annals of the world or the passions of individuals. Wars have lost their chivalric character; politics are no longer tissues of dark intrigues, revealed only by their results, but hidden during their process in impenetrable darkness. Society has ceased to be divided into castes, or distinguished by outward and visible tokens of grandeur or debasement. Oar manners and habits have grown similar and unpicturesque. A justice on the bench is no longer worshipful ; a squire, except in the eyes of some poaching varlet, is no more " the petty tyrant of his fields;" we take the wall of an alderman, and feel no awe in the presence of a mayor ; lords ride in cabs ; the coach, with six Flemish horses, with its running footmen and linkbearers, has vanished into infinite space ; a knight of the shire may be the son of a scrivener; our men on 'Change have doffed their fist caps and shining shoes ; there are no bullies in Paul's Walk, and hardly a Toledan blade within the liberties of London. " The toe of the peasant comes near the heel of the courtier." Our very inns have dropped their pictorial emblems : we write, instead of paint, our tavern-heraldry. Town and country are nearly one. Clarendon says of a certain Earl of Arundel, that, " he went rarely to London, because there only he found a greater man than himself, and because at home he was allowed to forget that there was such a man." Lord Arundel's policy would be unavailing now. Our humours and distinctions are wellnigh abolished, and the drama, so far as it depends upon them, is deprived of its daily bread. The stage•poet cannot find his Bobadil in any lodging in Lambeth, nor his Justice Shallow in Uloucestershire, nor Ancient Pistol in Eastchesp. The . - • •• "*.•;^"" • 1 1858. nr suggestive- ~ ~ _~• . ,