The National Register. — London, England, 1808-12-04 00:00:00

7SO THE 4T'AtiOlgAt RPGISTEII. • THE THELAT4E. •' r DHU • .• .. • On Thursday night a new drama, its three acts, untitled renott4 or the ogice of St. Mark, was acted for the first time at Drury Lane. • • Promotion Is no where become. solrequent, sulks° fa. sbionable as on the Stage. The promotion of which we in tend to s e peak is not of m.., and st ill less of merit and talents, but that of Mein-arenas ! ! Humble throt‘h necessity, they formerly crawled oaseq..iously, ilioneh not without betray ing great symptoms of self colleen, and a bustling dispost titbit, at the heels of our first rate tragedies and comedies. But of late, they have been raised to an equably with the first born of the tragic and comic muse. They now impu dently rear their beatta as soon as the curtain is drawn, the nightly monarchs of the scenic. boards arrayed in the borrowed majes!y of their betters, which but ill 0- guises their native servility. Like an Eton boy, when after having long obeyed the commands of his feflow stu dents, he not only starts at once into the fifth class and out of his jaleship, but becomes the prond imperious Master of a fag; a melo.drama struts, sings, and dances on the stage, atietated by a lowly but good humonred mcival, who, by and bye, it i the present system of promotion continees, will limo his way to precedence, apd most probably claim the pantortinne for his follower. Accordi,',g to the present system, therefore, if it be per sisted in, and anilines and mowers suffer themselves to be carried away by the current of noorky, the theatrical pro apeci soi - the ensuing generation are theses tragedies, as being 100 iet...oes and too long, and comedies, a* requiring too . a study, and too exact a display of nature, are "now *• • ely ever ante pted bythe authors of acting plays---- 1.,! ) , will be tolally ha ished from the futnre stage, Melo er .i l la s ,!t . ioipz.,h they have not only usurped the place , hut tne serf moire of regular dramas. now enjoy but a fleeting .hoor eov-er; :nd will *ken seldom dare to show their ; toe more ''re iently, at !emit, than new tragedies d u g ! flow do. Farces will long reign supreme nail t....e.p:eint, for the uni:iher of Langton fools is always sa . z;reat, t itat sure eat Pantomimes to attack them with .t e pre powerful weapons of zrosser and more sense sway would be endless. Broad grins, the inblings of a clown, the leaps of an Hark selin, led fairy trippings of a Columbine, will then be the *-3 , 4 pertermances aline ed on the stage, which will then IndanbictllN • great ends of its creation, the ira i irovemeot of publio +9,4lllers by the correction of prirat , vtut.et 37;4 failings. Bey owl th is ae g radation of one of the 11 , iiricrt es! iblishments formed by man, the stage, even imierinatiott dreads to pierce. Tae Scene lies at Messina. retest/an, the Prior of the Cml•e::, of St. Mark is a common character enough, an bypecrje. Josephn, dloghter to a weak woman, the ',liar-chin/fess (Oprnna, is his victim, anti torn by his artifice from the arras of renoni, a young nobleman, still sc‘Aker than the Marchionexs, whom she was about to marry, in order to be made an Urimline mm, or rather to be forcei! to gratify Cele Vino's passion. On her refusal, she • is planged into a vault, where, ys hen the piece opens, she has atewitly resided more than a year. She is reported to have *Led, and Vrnoni, deprived of all sense, but that of grief, resolves to become a monk, and begins his noviciate at the Convent of Mark, which is separated from that of the irsAines by a party-wall only. The Viceroy of Sicily, , unt ienvor,ro, undertakes in vain to combat his resolu ail, at the moment when he has conquered almost all his bjections, the Prior mimes Joscpha and points to her rave, and Felton; becomes his again. Father ,tsever, a young and beuevolent monk, who during tke Oict destroyed a wing of the Convent some nor hAnre, tuts dewovered written proof's of the Prior's !nit, !indA means to them before Venoni, and presses t0,:44 Vihigeance and not safety, is now the only , DEC. 4. wish of the youth; his loud exclamations put Luther to flight, and bring the Prior, whom he 11 preaches with hes guilt, and ill whose hands he impradeutly places the letVr - vilVeh Nickel !Ms left. His death or captivity be. conies necessary for the'seeurity of the criminals, and he is fermi down some secret steps, into a vault, „!here a monk, after twenty yea's spent in captivity, had lately ex . Aired. Here we sec the . party. wall that separates Ow Ise Convent R I and a dungeon - on each side of it. .1 he one con tains the falsely thought dead Jo*epha ; and in [tie other renoni is placed. Yielding to despair, he is about to dz!s!, his head against the wall, when he perceives these words, hope and search," written upon ,it. Ile. seaiclics dungeon, finds a scroll written with blood, which tells hint that the wall is hollow, and an iroa In:, with which, is hew minutes, he overthrows the barrier that divided him from Jescpha, still unc.nseious of her exieence. They Icno,y each other, and at that moment hear approaching voices. Venoni grasps his iron bar for defence, Jostling clings to him, and the dungeon is entered by the good Father Michael, the Viceroy, the Marchioness and at tendants, whom he had informed of the danger of their fl iend. .1 tremendous shower of hisses caused the etutaia to drop soddenly, and thus screened the wicked Prior from the punishment which he so highly deserved, and which but for this would have certainly proved unavoidable. Any man who vents his contempt against a coward, when placed .at the head of an army, would find no fault with him, were he to confine himself to the faithful discharge of his family duties or to industrious pursuits. By the same reason, although we protest against the promotion of meld-dramas to the first rank of the drama, we do not ob ject to these in their proper place. /'ennui, or the .Verire of SI. Mark, is partly taken from a French piece, entitled Les fietimes (loilrhs, which was first. represented at Parie but during the latter part of the first act, and the whole of the second, far surpasses its original. It teems with inte rest, amid, although nut free from numerous defect , :, also abounds with beauties. The style is chaste and animated, natural. and elegant ; the sentiments are all good ; were it not for the ridiculous masquerade introduced at the beginning of the third act, and which interrupts unne cessarily the course of the action, no objection could be made to the conduct of the piece. Were something like comic spirit infused through the ensile parts of this drama ; were the Prior's libidinous speech reduced within the hounds of modesty; were the masquerade suppressed, the whole of the last Act moulded anew into a less reprehen sible shape, and the character of the Here throughout raised above the weakness of despondency, feneni, Novice of .Si. Mark, would become , an d deservedl y so, of the most popular pieces of the or one gilt No play ever receivetl a more powerful assistance from the talents of performers than Venon delinea tion of melancholy despair was, as all his performance., masterly. Brooding incessantly on the loss of his bride, the luminous faculties of his mind are obscured, but not extinguished. Fret,nent gleams of thought and memory dash across his gloomy sorrow, and to catch the fleeting expresaiou of the soul in its momentary emersion from de lair. is perhaps one of the most difficult imitations of na ture which the mimic art can give. Kinston, whose gen seems to rise with diffieultiea,-- displayed su deep a know ledge of the human heart, so exact a portraiture of the play of human passions, that we think he has never be trayed more excellence in any of his former characters.— ' Wrouaihton, in Celestine, depicted hypocrisy with fidelity:, especially its assumed mildness an d humility, below superiors, or those whom he has selected fur his victims , and its burstiug exultation in secret self twatcongraions or the success of his plans. Mr. H. Siddonsosho, enoerl s , is so unequal in his performance, was here unifm great. He surpassed our warmest hopes, and in histin ter% icw with Perron'', in the convent, burst in all the dour of truly Siddonian genius. De Camp, in Father cite 1, displayed real excellence; as well as Mrs. 11.. i• i ~! 1' i ( . o tin uh pIl i} tt~ rir II