The National Register. — London, England, 1809-09-10 00:00:00

5S t itself to the laws of the modern Drama.: it must have plot and c haracter—it must have incident both humourous and pathetic,—in its dialogue there must be both wit and senti tent—its SO/144 auu.t possess ease of versification, tender and pointed thoughts, and the most brilliant figures of poetry—the Odes of Anacreon or of Horace should not be seperior to those short and ardent ebullitions of melody, that ought to burst with spontaneous energy from the lips of the actor. Perhaps a regular critique concerning . the nature of the modern English Drama, with some sugges tions concerning the means of bringing it to the perfection of which it may he found capable, would not be useless or uninteresting; we shall therelore seize an early opportunity of giving our opinion more fully upon a species of compo sition which, report says, is to be frequently exhibited Oil the boards.of our new National Theatre, during the ap proaching- :;eason. Should the public taste be found to l)' entirely in that direction, we shall indeed lament its error, tput we shall, at the same time, be ready to follow it through every novelty, and to slmw that as much of nature as is ad missahle into every dramatic composition will always bring it se much the nearer to truth and common sense, and ren der it so match the more worthy of approbation and support. The Theatre at the Lyceum has now been open nearly three mouths, for the purpose of exhiltiting pieces under the title of English Operas. In matters of taste lie public arc accustomed to insults: folly end dullness have been preseeted to it le every form and—folly and dullness have gained its applause !—The success of 'Messrs. Arnold and Co. is their best excus. The public. they saV. will have nonsense and mae music. They say true—we have heard the public Mauch and the public. etatit bestow- . ed on the vilest shift' that ever diseraced the booth of a country fair.. Puns and kitchen jokes—silly, boarding nhool sentiments Wended with that insigricaeee of ex i.ression le which a Bend-street Idler may he supposed to :address the fair daughter of his laine7ress, have been re vetted and repeated to crowded au di ences ., an d we h ave witnessed a greater defalcation of public taste in the Drama this summer than we remember ever to have known. On Monday se'nnight was breteekt forward one of these English Operas, entitled Frfe and Soleze. The ground work of the story might have been rendered interesting: a young officer who has freight a duel with his friend, and whom he is supposed to have killed in the rencentre, finds refuge accidentally in the house, of his friends father, and becomes the favoured lover of his friend's sister. In aid of the interest attached to such a situation, the scene is laid in the Prussian dominions, where the laws against duelling are particularly severe and where the other officer is equal ly pursued by their rigour on his recovery from his wounds. In this story there was certainly room for incident and rafter;—but the author or authors (for they are swpposed to be many) have taken no further trouloe with their plot, than to break it into dialo t vw, anti to cnnn it as full as possible with love son;s. The most trite sentiments in the most sleepy mus:e fmcceed each oth:r perpetually, and r 3der even the voices of Mrs. 'Mountain and Mrs. Bishop uhsolutely tiresome. Perhaps of ell the wretched combi nations or modern metre, the mwlern sentimental love song is the most unsufrernMe ; it is only when the silly word, arc cf4mpletely lost in ardert and expressive music that we can keep our fin_lers from stopintr our ears, but . • when these silly words flow upon the sickly sameness of Mr. Hook's unmeaning concords: oar only resource is in that slumber to which those drowsy un i sons seem so perfectly congenial. The music of this piece is of t h e most harmless sort : it is innocent of any emotion ; the bells of a West Country wag4on, or the gingles of a boy's hoop have far rt oreater claims to he ranked among' the melodies of exnres sion, than the most animated bar in the whole Opera.— The overture possesses that sort of prettiness • which is suited to the practice of a Boarding-school Miss; its best of Scotch tunes, united by passn.es consist in the tails such v•lriaCons as trizilt serve to *hook Them together. These in the.r combliwtl form made a solo for the "Butt which SEPT: 10. tickled the fancy of the aut;ience very much, and received considerable appinuse. It is almost impossible to conceive that such passages as this What are .you doing 1" " Nnthinz." " And what are Non dolng• ?" " helping' him," would ever be admitted,—or, being admitted, would ever be suffered hy an audience in London. Yet this nohscnse that has been grinned at for ages in every kitchen in the kingdom, is thought tit to be served up at the Lyceum Theatre, and is there received with zipplause. The old man's expression that, .4• in love aiTairs.he is like a finger-post which points out that way to others which it canto` co itself," is rot deficient in wit : we suspect it came front Theodore; and if he did not steal it it does him credit. Sleeping upon tlit! hoards is saitl to be hoth board and lodging-: this we think is a new pun and not a bad one. It is a sign of improvement in taste when puns grow commendable! We commend all that we can. * heg Mr. Hook's pardon, hut we assure him that this pun came uoau u; unawares: we would Jot trespass oo Theodore's property, rrA we arc told that that young fieutle. man used this very e‘piabbiou some ti► e. agu oil the occai.iun of bis father's marriage. MA CRETII, 1:-:t1 I 11!T CD AT Tit r, ROYAL CIRCUS. One of the most constant complaints against the theatri cal exhibitions of the present time. is their proneness to the spkadours of spce:acte. The complaint is inconsiderate ; [nit were it even founded in good taste, it would he an idle attempt to strive to reasou down the most elegant anst the most inipos . m; aitjaaets of the drama. There exists •a . party of\stage reformers, as violent aril as m i etforined as the. Calvittistic rerormers of the Church in the sixteenth • century. In thcir . zeal to preserve the cell and internal . spirit of the drama, they would destroy all external deco- • razioas; they aro coatentel with the plain purity of Shake spear, and are Wit ;n;; to receive him in the most simple scenery. T.k'y cannot Lear that the scesie.painter and the marhinist should share in the ,applause, due, they . believe, to him alone ; an:! with still less patience can they lister to his hall-eonneil speeches badly recited by con- . ceited actors, is hile the nirsie, processiuns, and stage de corations late:y inteolueed nit° some of his revived pieces,. attract crowds of g•aziug but insensible spectators. But . let us not so peremptorily reject the assistance which the ii!g+eit productions of our best dramatic authors may de rivf., from the continued improvements of the arts. The Greeks were not so fastidious. Their theatre admitted every embellishment on the most extended scale ; and their most cminenr poets did not disdain to direct the or naments, to contrive and arrange the scenery. to devize the dresses, to frame the dances, and to superintend the . machinery. The . language, the characters, and the plot, although the essential parts of a dramatic exhibition, are, however, no more than the mind without the body ; they require both place and agcals—place again requires all its concomitant forms, whether it be a palace, or a rural .. plain, a temple, a street, or 11p; strand of the sea shore. Agents must have all their distinctions of. degrees or of fices; the monarch, the priest. the beggar, or the slave, must be externally characterized, while their actiaos, de petulant upon the cei emonials of soe.ety, open the splen dours of state, the prq 'e lions. the sacrifices, and the' other solemnities of superstition, must be accurately . sustained. It is, therefore, not for its composition alone (although we admit that tale ciouposition is the in trinsic part, and the great essz;ittiat of the piece),, that a trazedy is to be esteemed the highest product:on of human ingenuity. Few tragedies can be exhibited without great attention to scenic aria;l7,-Trt,-,.! ancient undisturbed unity of the Mace, was supplied with every jiipl” palaces, streets, temples, graves, distant mountains, rock.... and oceans that could he anceived visible at one coup del. It would be superfluous here to repeat the frequently described scene of the Pursei:6-, of .ischylus, or to refer to exquisite piCturesque perspective necessary for th e re- THE NATIONAL REGISTER'.