The National Register. — London, England, 1814-12-25 00:00:00

VIE NiTIONAL REGISTER. D RAM A .1,;..- COVENT GARDEN THEATRE. On Tuesd'aY evening Mr. Kemple closed his engagement in the character of Macbeth. The liou.e overflowed at an early hour, and he was received with the most enthu siastic and. rapturous applause, which his meri's as•an - actor' so well deserve: We were never more delighted than by his pc; formanee.of that evening, which most certainly stamped him far .pre-eminent above all existing competitors. Ile was . in mo , t excellent voice; and played with all the firmness and vigour of youth. In the soliloquy of "Is this a dagger which I see before.me," in his attempts to grasp the imagi nary weapon, and his exclamation of " there's •no such thing," he was far superior to any person we have ever•seen, and we cannot pay him a greater compliment than by saying he did full justice to the sublimity of his author. Ile was great almost beyond the powers of description *in the pill where llacdqf discovers that' Duncan is assassinated, and when be..exclaims (as a reason for having murdered the at tendants of the king) -t , ... • " Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furlong, Loyal and neutral in a moment? do man." His endeavours - to bide his own feelings under apparent astonishment and horror at the murder of the King, and the agitation which he is scarcely able to command. pre sented to the imagination so true a picture of a man in his situation, that it was attended with the loudest acclama tions of applause. Were we to quote every passage that par ticularly struck us, we should have to repeat almost the 'thole character of Macbeth. In the banquet scene he was Ikery great. • His delivery of the passage after he is con vinced hy Macduff that his charm is broken, commencing with "accursed be that tongue that tells me so," drew forth repeated cries of " bravo ! bravo !" and so highly were the audience delighted with his performance, that after his death the play was not allowed to proceed, and the curtain fell. Such a mark of public approbation must have been very gratifying to Mr. Kemble, and he cerfainly most richly de s:Tv' ti it. Mr. Conway, who for the first time pemna!ed Mactizill; displayed a correct conception of the character. Without ranting he expressed considerable feeling : but we should advise him, in common with all the other representatives of ltracthig; whom we have seen, to preserve something of the expression of grief in his countenance, in the scenes in which he appears after having been made acquainted with the murder of his wife and children. . tb. •••••• - - • ' • • eien•araW - lilas - Word in her ' defence, without being known by her, is an utter impos4ibility; especially as his . rinly guise is an* alteration in the colour of his dress, and she . recOgnises him as soon as-he has dropped his suit of mourning for a.. gayer one ; • a ,change,' by the bye, - ' not very consonaut.with:.the feelings of the -- character, as it takes.place.at the very time when' his wife is undergoing her 'sentence of protracted jeasti. Many other inconsistencies might he pointed out, but they are too prominent to require it; we shall, therefore, return to the chief attraction of the :evening—Miss Walstein's performance. The part of Jane Shore is not one- that presqrstv great diffiCulties: - The effects • of repentance 'and resignation on a mind of no extraordinary power, are all that an actress . .has to,show ; and her death, the conseipfince i-)fextrerne exhaustion, can only be well re preitented by . the absence of all exertion. Miss Walstein evinced a good conception of the character; and played it throughout in a highly respectable manner. If she was not great, she•was not faulty in • any part. Having few opportu nities for declamation, her delivery was more natural than . usual,'though it still retained too much pomp, and the regu lar fall of her voice at the end_of every line, gave the whole the effect of recitative, rather than of plain speaking. Her looks, in the first acts of the piece, were considerably im proved by the skilful management of her rouge, which re stored mimic plumpness to her cheeks. In her last scene, the pallid hollowness of her countenance, the tottering weak ness of her frame, and the dying feebleness of her tones, well pourtrayed the famished and yet resigned Jane, who, pleased at having received her husband's forgiveness, forgot her pants, and sunk, with the hope of mercy, to the grave. Mrs. Glover performed the jealous Alicia with considera ble spirit. She retained, however, too much fashionableaf fectation in her enunciation. In this part she ought to recollect that ..her business is to express one of the most powerful passions that vex the bosom of a woman, and not to mimic the f idiculous peculiarities of a fine lady. _ _ _ _ Mr. Rae ad justice to the part of Hastings, and Mr. Ray coond to that of Gloucester; but the best performance of the evening was decidedly that of Mx. Pope in Shore. LAW INTELLIGENCE. COURT OF KING'S BENCII.-SATURDAY I DEC. e 24. BCRRTIGit 9. HILL. This was nn action by the Assignee of a person name Atkinson to recover 19..,n001. the value of two cargoes of Wine, whirl, had been shipped by the Bankrupt to the Baltic and seized by the Kas•ian Go vernment. The circumstances under.which the action was brought were as follows :—Atkinson previous to his bankruptcy had had dealings with the house of Hill and Jacobe, at Riga, the present de fendant was a partner in that firm residing in England. In 1810 the wine in question was shipped by the Bankrupt to Riga, and seized by the Russian Goverisinent. Atkinson in the mean time having oc- casion for money had applied for and obtained advances from the Defendant, and as a stecurit: had indorsed the Hills of Lading over !o him. The Defendant basing effected .the Insurances on the cargo, soon after advice of the detention and forfeiture of the car goes was received, and the Defendant recovered from the under writers for the amount indorsed. Atkinson having Soon after be come a bankrupt, his Assignees now brought this action to receive back the money so received from the nnderwriters, on the grounds that an act of bankruptcy had been.conimitted by Atkinson previous tis his indorsing the WIN ofLading over to the Defendant. DRURY-LANE. Rowe's tragedy of Jane Shore was revived at this theatre on Friday last, to afford Miss Walstein an opportunity of appearing in the part of the repentant mistress. The selec. flan of this piece was not happy. It is one of the most in consistent, and, with the exception of the last act, the most uninteresting of its author. It abounds with improbabilities, so thinly veiled as to strike at the very first.view. That kore I.bould Jive under the saint roof with his wife, and