The National Register. — London, England, 1812-03-01 00:00:00

MARC!. _THE NATION , - '"VRAMATIC REGISTER. LYCEUM THEATRE. On Thursday last a new Drama, in five acts, called The House of was performed at this Theatre. This piece is evidently thepro ',action of a new dramatic Writer. His ignorance of the stage reSfeals itself throughout,As well as his aberrations from taste and interest. Scenes devoid of either the one or the other, and totally foreign t.) the subject, are heaped up together to conceal the poverty of the plot, without leading us to forget their intrusion by any beauty of style, or theatrical effect. Attempts at wit. such as no man, save the sensible author, could laic even conceited, had he not h.:ard . .Item, form the chief excellencies of these extraneous scenes. In one of them we are treated with the following. list of the articles rendered ne• cessary by the arrival of visitors at a castle :••••• 44 stables for the horses, carrion for the dogs, burrows for the rabbits, styes for the pigs," &c. &c. With this chosen dish, 'however, the audience were not satisfied, and expressed their distaste rather significantly. But rathe. than curtail 'this elegant enumeration, Mr. Pa NUT bravely encountered -the hisses of the whole house, whieh at last drOwned this brilliant specimen of th e author's wit, leaving him no cause of coMplaint against the actor. The length of the piece causes the little interest which it contains to dwindle away into insignificance. The plot is not well managed. We are admitted from its very threshold Into its deepest mysteries, and therefore have only to await whit we know for cert-in is coming. t'l , c Nouse of MOrrillc is represented in the bills as a Play of which 44 the Mat and characters are dr..wn in bumble imitation of the ancient Eng lish dramatist :.- The imitation, we must fairly own, is very humble; but it is so frequent and so ill judged, that whilst it destroys the charm of novelty, it does not redeem its loss by any of those attractions with which the pieces of our ancient writers abound. We see an uncle (Mr. I.VitovoitroN) poisoned by his nephew (4r. RAYMOND), after having disinherited his son (Mr. DREAM . 11) because he had married an orphan girl (Mrs. EDWIN) without name or fortune ; but before the murderous act is committed, we are cautioned by the leaned sage (Mr. tiOLLAND) who supplied the poison, thht its effect is to lull life asleep without de stroying it, and that he will take care to relieve the buried Lord from his gave before his mock dissolution should become real. This is an imitation of Romeo and Juliet, snost skilfully divested of the little inte rest which it might retain. No sooner has the supposed murder been rffected, than it is discovered by a faithful servant who comes to awake his master; and, as in Macbeth, the assassin roars most loudly against the deed, causes the alarum bell to be rung,.and, in virtue of his uncle's succeeds quietly to his vast estates. The disinherited son has re course to the law to regain his patrimony, but is foiled by the bribes of his enemy; and, on the point of lacing arrested for the costs of his suit, runs away with his wife, and enlists in a regiment beating up for recruits. I lere the malice of his foe pursues him : having obtained a commission for one of his agents (Mr. PALMER), he instructs him, by ill treatment, to induce the new recruit to desert. This plan succeeds; i qud we have apathetic apology for, er rather encouragement to, deser tion, attended - With patriotic reflections on the impolicy and cruelty of compelling a soldier, by excess of severity, to abandon the service of his King and Country. The wicked minister of Rodniond's vengeance, thinking to profit by De Alorville's absence, brutally assaults his wife, %% hill her husband hearing from his concealment what passes, rushes °a the offender, and in the affray wounds him, as he thinks, mortally. ile'then esaapes to'the Woods, pursued by a deAchinint of soldiers, as the murderer of his officer, and is caught by the. Colonel of his own re giment, who, in De Morville's wife, had discovered his own long-lost mere. lie, however, delivers him to be tried as an assassin,, and they %pair to Rod/mold's ca s tle, where, in consequence of the indisposition •Lf the Judo, as we are told, in all the pomp of blank verse, " The Judge is ill, and cannot sit in Court," the Usurper be, omens the sole arbiter of his cousin's fate. The trial pro ceeds, and be Norville is on the eve of being condemned, when all the snrPosed dead revive. His father, still disguised, produces the Officer, whom his son charged is with having murdered, and who had only been severely wounded. He'then accuses liodnunid of having murdered his uncle, and reveals himself, when the guilty is condemned, and the innocent made happy. Would the - Author condescend - to expunge at least two acts of - his piece, it might then excite interest, and claim approbation. The begin :liog is intolerably dull. The end codains some scenes whichmight be L ftEGISTM 13S spared; and the Cenne — xion - between every part being restored, the mi: serable attempts at wit left out, and the language occasionally amended, the end of our present dramatic Productions might be answered—the public might be pleared. We know that the Managers will exclaim, did not several rounds of apphuF follow our announcing The . House of Morttlle for a second re p resen t at i or . ? True, but were not •the hisses so frequent throughout the performance, that Mr. RAYMOND thought proper to addrelis the audience, and tell them " that they defvated the purpose for which they were assembled, in not bearing the piet.e." Did he a :t utter a wish that al} expression of censure should he with holden until the end, whin shotild'aripprobation prevail, the Managers would withdraw the new drama ? And was not the attention of the public in general so taken up at tho close of the last scene, by a sudden tumult in the galleries, which was construed by some Into an altirm of fire, and induc‘d some ladies to attempt leaping into the pit from the boxes, that the friends of the Author were left entirely at liberty to applaud as they pleased, vvitliont any opposition. There is, therefore, no cause for ex'ultation in the momentary success which The House of morviiie had obtained, and which can only be secured by considerable alterations. The Epilogue formed a striking contrast with the . piece. It was full of light sportive wit, the other, of potderous dullness and insipidity. The celebrited amateur Rotleo, of the present day, was moat happily taken off by Mrs. En wkx, who spoke the Epilogue, and by her skilful ex pression, archness and playfulness, added to its excellence. The lines which announced the speedy return of the Company to the temple of the drama, at Drury Lane, were received with marked approhttion. Every performer seemed to 'exert his utmost abilities in support of this piece. Mr. RAY MOND, in the villain, maintained Lis established reputation ; and De CAMP in young De 21furville, displayed justness of f-eling end correctness of expression, under the influei.ce of chang ing which raise our opinion of his taients in the serious Dra ma, and give the most satisfactory promises of encreasing excellence. A Sung, composed by Mr. KELLY, and introduced in the 3d Act ' possessed neither novelty nor melody, and only served to drown the vocal powers of _.. SMITH. The scenery was beautiful, but not entirely new. FINE i! !ITS. BRITISH INSTITUTION. No. 64. The Procession to Mount C.civary. By G. F. 'Jarrett. We have not forgotten the Return trPriart exhible d last year, and we are glad that Mr. Joseph had the good sense to dive esto the purest and best of sources. For it has been hang found out that th- Holy• Writ and Homer's Poems can yield the best subjects for the pall:t. ('he subject treated here has been attempted nearly by all the worthies of the dif ferent schools, and several paintings, representing the same fatal catas. trophe, are still fresh iu our memory. The performance, now observed upon, is most interesting, most pleasing to the eye at first sight. The colouring, that bewitching charm of the muse, allure, the spectator to the spot, and the high-finish;ng of every part repays him fully far the trouble of approaching nearer to the wonet rie of the c:lnvas. But yet ; can we be silent upon the defects which impose a mometitouz drawn back upon the fulness of our admiration ? Can we praise, for ins:iinee, the face of Christ, which is so very unlike that long-adopted physiog nomy which Raphael borrowed from his predecessors, and which, with little variation, has been handed to us so unimpaired that we ade mire it still in the last grand picture of Mr. West. Where is the sublimity of the Son of God which ought to be blended - with the features of the " man of Sorrow ?" Remember his race at Oxford, by the hand of Guido ; that by Vandyke or Stollens, in the possession of Lord Cremorue, and compare. Were Mr. Joseph a man of common abilities, we should, perhaps, be inclined to withhold our criticism, hut we cherish in hint, as well as in several others; the hopes of the national muse of painting, and we show our regard for bins in reproving what we did not meet from an artist whom we hold in so great an estimation. His Magdalen is well drawn, full of expression ; her grief is pathetic, her despair at the utmost; her appeal to the Centurion and his armed men truly new and sublime ; but she does not appear to bek..; exactly to that set of figures which surround her. It is not a sma:l woman, a delicate female, but it is a female who should be plic.ket pe;-. spectively speaking, at a distance behind the cross—She does not make proportionally tine' of the group; and,- were that - figure cut out of ale ..~- _~ ~_ 1