The National Register. — London, England, 1808-07-17 00:00:00

469 .ITILY 17 • ant of OGl.Wit- dreadrul•serret ; stroyerkfof their I then himself. I excited by this empathy. Such 'at d'o'nOt . please I , sted rather than Lined by long and n the third Act, piece of limbic, is never. cumstances, and be prOdoctive of irder, committed we,ittit, is, of all forgive:illingis , for tin' mke of THE NATIONAL REGISTER. rally spread itself to the audience. But the displeasure, which we felt at Mr. May's performance, arose from a totally different cause; it arose not through damps and flatness, but from that net of mixed tedium and indignation which is 'Aire to fill the mind at the sight of heavy mirth and dashing impotence. The Comic Anse has many suitors, for her gaiety and man ners are generally enticing; but very few of her admirers are happy earmark io obtain her favours. We do nta , :aeak •of the basatrd goddess of lon Comedy ; we mean the more dignifisal and elegant divinity.. We hope that Mr. May will consider himself, Irani this moment, as a hopeless lover; and, like the wooers of Shakespeare's Portia, having failed in his chance, be content to court. no more. his physical defects alone are sufficient to render success unattainable : his sharpness of visage, . and his harshness of voice, must always make him unpleasing. But he Iris also a total want of dignity in his manner, of ease in his carriage, of whim in his drollery, and of impressiveness in his heroism. And if his external deficiencies are thus re markable, his mental powers do not seem to compensate the evil. His coheeption is as bad as his execution. Our readers will, perhaps, be able to form some judgment of his intellectual incompetency, when we tell them, that, in repeating the line. "" A voice, potential double as the Duke's," that is, a vote twice as powerful at• the Duke's ; he gave the reading— ' " A voice potential, double as the Duke's," as if he intended to say, a powerful voirr, hare ns fond as the Duke's. Mr. 111.1 y has a tolerably good figure, and, for ought we know, tarty be a gentlemanly - man in private; but on the stage he is terribly inelegant, and seems too eager to make the most both of I tis person and his part. It may he right that every body she uld have a trial ; but it is very had upon us critics to :AK ,oblige. Ito see such rulers in such weather. The thermome ter is too- high, and our impatience grows hotter with our blood. On We. lnesday evening appeared, (for the first time) after a sleep of t wenty years, Mr. George Lillo's tragedy of Fatal Curiosity. We see no reason for congratulating the public upon ,this revival. Lillo is an author, nut perhaps so highly estimated in this country as lie might to be; for though he has succeeded almost beyond any tragic poet, except only Shakspeare, in rousing the passions and touching the heart ; he is scarcely ever men tioned when people are talking of Rowe, Otway, Fletcher, Dryden, and Massinger, and indeed appears to be a poet too little fashionable to be named with safety. The reason of this injustice it is not easy to determine ; we are a little inclined to Oink that it arises from Lillo's practice of selecting domestic stories for his plays, and then not kuowing how to snit his lan guage to the genius of his fable. A domestic story, as we have 1 ,..i0wn in the tragedy of the Gamester, may he made a 3 per fectly. pathetic. as the most exalted event of heroic history; but tlitit thnuld be treated in a manner adapted to its own na ture and cat"L'll ities. Now Lill() has in this very play selected a dotoestic storti mid treated it, in the language of princely ire yeti v. The incon,s,ni IY tobOCkS us, and we are tempted to smile at th e l anguag e, w h et { the situation ought to make us weep.-- The eharacters at the Ilav-Martet are thus represented : Old Wilmot , Mr. Young. lain ng Wilmot ~ .. Mr. Palmer, jun. Etistact Panda( • Agnes . Mrs. bt. Leger. Caaraitte • Mario Mrs. MathewS. Old Wilmot and Agnes his wife, are reduced from a flourish ire; situation to gradual penury. This penury, and the sup posed loss of their son, who has been many years absent from blame withont transmitting any accounts of himself, prey deeply ml their spirits. They are relieved and consoled by Charlotte, ii ho is' ttaideriy attached to Young Wil,not, and whose distress at his unexplained absence, is no less heavy than theirs. During the depth of these sorrows, Young Wilmot suddenly atvioe, - rediscovers himself to Charlotte, who at first fails to recagnise. h,im, in his disguise; and this inspires him with an 4S,'* af t withholding the discovery from his parents, in order resenitly to inereree their pleasure by a surprise. He there ... I re/wilts lodging at their house as a friend of Charlotte's. fa9our they grant, and he entrusts his jewels to their care e begbes to rest. The temptation of so much a ealtit is ;be faculties of resistance ; Agnes proposes to her hus 'ban 'the murdtr of the Stranger ; he agrees to the deed, ;and , stabs Youne . •ll+ &not during sleep. As he comes out d.t • the youth's apartment, ,Charlotio enters, with Jiustare, the cumpa- nion of her Jover's voyage, and Randal, a ►ervam mot. The natrdcrees bloody hands reveal ihe dr and the wretched parents find themselves the des' n son. Old Wilmot stabs first his wife, and Our traders will °Verve, that the sensatiotr Play, is tIT sensation rather of horror than of svi Plays chew the powers of an Author's genius, ht. the spectators in general, who love to he interest, shocked. Here, till the third Art, we are decal dull declarations front all the characters : and in which le thelast, we are suddenly electrified by a pi. which, though it he not, we fear, totally improbaln theless of so atrocious a kind, under all the eircumm considering the characters of the parties, as to be • more pain than pleasure trethe audience. A mur through avarine, that is, for the sake of getting wt. murders, that which people in general least willingis a murder committed through ambition, that is, for the setting power, has something dazzling and splendid in i:s tive, and more easily obtains the allowance of the audience. Excepting this great difference in the motives, the great incident in the third Act of Toe Fatal Cariosity, almost resembles thc! murder •,f Punran, by Maeheth and his wife, both in the con- , ception of the pistil, and in Cie language employed during its execution. The imitation seems too evident, to he denied. Rut this murder of Young Wilmot is not only shocking in itself, but has no attendant circumstances to make it .e tolerable to the audience. If Young Wilmot had been made interesting, :he sensation of horror at the murder would have been mingled is ith a sensation of pits for the sufferer : but at present the mind dwells on the villany of the parents, and its horror is timuiti4ated by the participation of any other feeling. The character of Maria is an incumbrance to the piece ; she appears, only to sing a song, which would hate been better left out. r. Young did little for the part of Old Wilma. This is not excusable, because the character affords considerable oppor tunities to a good actor for producing strong eft'ects. Mr. Palmer had not indeed the same advantages in Young Wilmot, whirl; is really a bad part but he needed' not have committed so gross an error as to appear before Charlotte and his parents with an uncovered head. Finn must have recognised him in a state so completely u n disguised. Mrs. Bellamy's Charlotte shewed more knowledge of melo-dramatic movement than of the human heart. A Farce followed, called The Cheats of Srapin, altered by Mr. Winston (as we are told) from several Farces, but princi pally from Moliere's Fourberies de Scapin. Mr. Winston doe; not seem to have done much for the Farce ; which is a shame : for as he was so bad an actor, he ought to have been doubly careful to make amends to his brother-managers by excelling as an author. In fact, there is nothing in the piece worth no ticing, except Mr. Mathe%v's cleverness in theassumption of se veral different tones and dialects. LAW ItEpoRT. COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, WCDNESDAV, JULY IS. SITTINGS BEFORE SIR JAMES MANSFIELD. CRAM. CON. F0141.11,1i v. HODGSON. The Plaintiff is an Attorney, and the Defendant was his ar ticled clerk. Mr. tied. Onslow stated the ease on the part of the Plaintiff. Mr. Fowler was an Attorney of that Court, of an minor:relied character, and had been married for about twenty dears to his precut wife, by whom he had four children, of w Well only one was living, a Lieutenant in the Marines. About five or six years ago, the Plaintiff went out with the Volunteer Corps to which he belonged, on a King's birth- day. which isaPP'n ed t ribe a very rainy day, and got to severe a rheumatism that lie was coo tined for twenty-two weeks, and had never yet completely re covered from the effects of it. On acornuit of his state of h'alth, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler have bad separate boils fur sore• ral years, and there had been a cessation of the accusionied in tercourse. She however continued to appear as affectionate to him as ever, mull her criminal intercourse commenced with the D. I •ndant. The Defendant was a young man, svho was ar , tieled to the Plaintiff as his Clerk, about the month of April in the la,t year. From April till the month of August, ti Deoendant wrote io the alike of the Plaintiff, but did not live the haus.% nor take his mea l s ther e . In the month of Augu-I, ho%Never, when Mr. Fowler went down to Margate, where he liceit ortkred by his physicians from the very day of his Ci::1-C Fise rli I Ili • ilia id n got Ii Thy for t or a diha l i ; t e, wills pnsua kart monk Mrs. how. t For ward I. al Rig 0 . ce.sc pi,e .1 r:ipi4lll sup flow Yew weir. I. chargim trt.3!., `list 111 r,. tnatie burl, Mr. In li~t told h a pi; ell film, could the so Sir tringcs tr.oe I Thi trial co.nni and Wnst,