The National Register. — London, England, 1808-05-22 00:00:00

, • •, MAY 2./. . , ~. .~,; . , , 4 •., $ . J ,r.~ -- . ~Y. a~~~r fr .. .__ .. . ... THE NATIONAL REGISTER. THE THEATRE. COrENT-GARDEN. Although it is not usual for Newspapers to give any accounts of the performances exhibited for benefits, yet wh en sucli n atr i a r : ,edv Shakspeare's King Lear is acted, and acte d in so dm able a style as it was on Wednesday evening, we feel that we should do an injustice to our Readers in passing even a benefit unnoticed. The principal Characters were thus cast : King Lear, Mr. Kemble. Mr. Claremont. Duke of Albany, Dake o f Cornwall, Mr. Jefferies. Earl of Gfoster, Mr: Murray. Earl of Kent, Mr. Cooke. Edgar, Mr. C. Kemple. Edmund the Bastard, Mr. Brunton. Oswald, . Mr. Farley. Mrs. Humphries. .Goneri/,. Prgan, Mrs. St. Leger. Cordelia, Miss Smith. This play is certainly to be ranked among the most splendid productions of Shakspeare a genius. Perhaps, indeed, here, as in his other plays, the story is not conducted in what we now call a dramatic manner ; that is to say the main effects are not regularly disposed in such a way as to relieve the minds of the sneetators by an artificial alternation of incident and dialogue. Tate, by his alteration, has much improved the order of Shaks peare ; but it is to be wished that he had inserted less new mat ter. We are glad to see the dreadful catastrophe of Shakspearc's (erip..iiial softened into a pleasing conclusion ; but the loves of Fd , ;(te and Cordelia are exceedingly heavy and uninterestieg, and are too like the other loves that one finds upon the stage, to be very like nature. Love is indeed a passion, which, when ne v and simply represented, is capable of exciting a stronger, more various, and a more universal interest, than, perhaps, any other affection of the mind : but the magic lies in the its 'Jure, not in the name ; and love, when it does not resemble nature, is the :•top-gap, not the assistant of the fable. To persons who have not been in tbe habit of considering these subjects, it may perhaps seem a little extraordinary, that au diences, who so perpetually express the loudest disapprobation. at unnatural representations of any other passion, should not detect and denounce false expressions of love. We answer, that •audiences have no mode of estimating the truth of the exhibi tions that are presented to them, except the comparison of those exhibitions with the feelings of their own hearts. If then a passion be described to a spectator, of which he has no proto t. in his own heart, how shall hejudge whether the descrip tion be accurate? No man can decide on the likeness of a por trait, who has never had an opportunity of seeing the original. Such is constantly the difficulty that an audience must encounter in judging the representations of love. Hope, and fear, and anger, and joy, all have felt, and all may judge in representa tion : but love is a passion too exalted for vulgar minds, com posed of particles too fine to be caught by common senses : a passion that few have ever beheld in its purity, and that fewer still have, in its purity, ever felt within themselves. But love, when feelingly represented, touches so many of the sprinsp: of the human heart by its association with other passions, as jea lousy, despair, joy, or grief, that it has an effect even upon the minds of those whom, when it is unmixed, it cannot move. If it be naturally conceived itself, it will blend readily with the annexed passion : if it be conceived by a poet ss ho has studied it only front books, it will with difficulty be joined to the asso ciated feeling. Thus the grief of true love is universally inte resting, : not because every body has felt true love, but because every body has felt grief, and the added hue of trite love, like the first tints of a picture, gives brightness to the other colours, thaugh it be not in itself perceived by the unpractised eye. On the oilier haul the griefs of love that is not real, move no sensa • lion in the mind. The love is nothing, and the grief seems causeless. The uninformed spectator does not see more beauty here than the most feeling metaphysician : but he does not con demn, necanse he does not discern the fault. The general effect is cold : the scenes produce no emotion in any body : and the piece goes off flatly. Such is the case with the lore-scenes of Edgar and Cordelia. But whatever we nuts say of the manner in which the plot of this tragedy is connected, whether by Shakspeare or by Tate, we cannot but speak of the poetry with enthusiasm. The sub limity both of intellectual nod descriptive writinz-, the discri sniuntive delineation of character. the keen conception of sat.zical iusauity, the illustration of. MLA and parental fc:lintl and duty, in short, all the noblest excellences of Shakspeare's mind blaze gloriously through this splendid tragedy. Mr. Kemble, in the character of Lear, had wound himself to the top of his compass; and he exhibited, in a manneradmirable and astonishing, all those touches of nature, and all those bursts of poetry, that combine in so remarkable a degree to render Lear the most sublime of dramatics characters. if in any ex pression Mr. Kemble fell beneath tired exalted excellence to which the representation of such a part required that he should adhere, it was in his attempts at a tremulous tenderness. The tones of his voice are not well adapted to convey tender feelings and perhaps he would do better in laying less stress upon those passages which, however admirably he may conceive them, his physical powers will not enable him to express. Mr. Kemble is not the zephyr, but the storm : sublimity is the characteristic of his genius, not sweetness. His curse on Goneril, at the con clusion of the first act, was one of those mighty bursts of, mag nificent passion, which immortalize the actor, by elevating and transporting the audience. The imagination of the spectator is upborne into the grandeur of infinite expanse; and thejudgment of the critic, though not overthrown, is hurried away. Perhaps the effect of this passage was heightened by the air of infirmity which Mr. Kemble threw into the whole character. Mr. Cooke was a little too sly for the plain. blunt Kent; but a good deal of his acting was very forcible. His first dress was handsome; but his disguise made him look like Bobadit. Mr. C. Kemble acted Edgar with judgment and with genies. Ills rapid and impassioned utterance in those scenes where Edgar affects madness, formed an admirable contrast with the real and quiet insanity of . Lear. Ile who assumes a passion generally expresses it more loudly than he who truly feels it. Miss Smith was the Cordelia. Cordclia should be more tender and more passionate than M iss Smith represents her. Miss Smith has a habit of acting from her ear, rather than from her feeling, and perpetually throws the emphasis of a sentence on those words where the harmony of the passage seems to want energetic tone, rather than on those w here the passion re quires a rapid, forcible, or tender utterance. It seems to us that she would do wisely if, in herself, she were to preparing . study the sense before she learns the words, instead of letting the beauty of the words get the previous possession of her imagina tion, and exclude the sense. An interlude was then performed, called The Day after the Marriages or, the Wefe s first Lesson. It is a pretty little drama, and has a good deta the air of a French piece, A lady of violent temper is, on the second day of her honey-moon, com pletely cured by her husband, who, counterfeiting a similar vehemence of disposition, does so much mischief, as folly to con ' vince his bride that she had better correct herself. Mr. and Mrs. C. Kemble played these parts in a lively wanner, and the interlude went off very agreeably. E ARTS. EXHIBITION AT TILE ROYAL ACADEMY. 63. Iris communicating, to King Priam Jove's commands, that he should go in person to solicit from Achilles the dead body of his son !fcclor,—B. WEST, R. A. Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, And swift at Priant's mournful court arrives ; AN here the sad sons, beside their father's throne, Sate batted in tears, and answered groau for groan ; .And all amidst them lay the hoary sire, (sad scene of woe !) his face, his wrapt attire Concealed from sight—kith frantic hands he spread, &e. Pope's Homer's Iliad, Book xxiv. v. 195. This picture is one of the most remarkable examples tbat we ever remember to have beheld, of executive science wasted upon weak conception. No man, unless he knows the art of painting, and can estiniate the difficulties of expressing by Mite touches of light and shadow all those lesser effects, which though not individually observed by the ordinary spectator, yet contri bute in an incredible degree to the production of the. greet effect. will he likely to find out the sinall•!st tner:it in this feeble work. On the left hand of the gazer is I ris, with a wand in her hand : next to her is Priam, covering half his face with his robe : and on the right ham{, and in 0 ie back and fore grounds. the old king's son; are occopie,l in la, nentatiOn. But among all these figures there is fiat oue that d nerves to he remarked foe any of those excellences that i:onstit Atte the poetry of painting. Iris is ahnost an ideot, I'.c: right baud, holding the caduCemli •,- 3 fi 11111/1 s2l f •~ tj~ _.., ~~ ~! I