The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 16,1858.

very cold praise, and apparently considers his
novels only skilful in making rogues look like
heroes ; sneers at Lamb, Wordsworth, and
Southey, at German philosophy and American
poetry, and evidently thinks all modern novels
trash. On the other hand, he admires Bowles,
Darwin, Charlotte Smith, and that very much
overpraised writer, "Delta," of the collection
of whose poems he is, strangely, not aware.
But he has a wholesome admiration fur
Turner, with whom he was for a time on greater
terms of intimacy than many persons have
been able to accomplish. Turner told him
that ho was a native of Barnstaple, in Devon-
shire, but this we suspect was a mystification,
a trick of which the artist was rather fend.
The following extract shows what was the
source of some of his marvellous marine effects.
Mr. Bedding, Turner, and some friends had
set out to sail to Bur Island, fish, and eat hot '
lobsters :
Running out from the land the sea rose higher, until off
Stokes Point, it became stormy. We mounted the ridges
bravely. The sea, in that part of the Channel, rolls in
grand furrows from the Atlantic, and we had run about a
dozen miles. The artist enjoyed the scene. He sat in
the stern sheets intently watching the sea, and not at all
affected by the motion At last, we got round
under the lee of the island, and contrived to get on shore.
All this time, Turner was silent, watching the tumultuous
scene. The little island, and the solitary hut it held, the
bay in the bight of which it lay, and the dark long Bolt-
head to seaward, against the rocky shore of which the
waves broke with fury, made the artist become absorbed in
contemplation, not uttering a syllable. While the shell
fish were preparing, Turner, with a pencil, clambered nearly
to the summit of the island, and seemed writing rather
than drawing. How he succeeded, owing to the violence cf
the wind, Ido not know. He, probably, observed some-
thing in the sea aspect which he had not before noted.

After three years spent in Paris on news-
paper work, Mr. Redding came to London and
joined the New Monthly Magazine, iu which
he began to write about 1820. Colburn the
publisher was proprietor, and Campbell the
poet editor. Unfortunately, nothing that we
hear of Campbell's private character tends to
raise him in our estimation. He was per-
fectly unfit for his post, was continually pur-
suing abstract projects which came to nothing,
offended numerous persons by his forgetful.
ness, and threw all the onerous duties of the
editorship upon Mr. Redding, who must have
been blessed with an excellent temper or a
strong affection for his very trying coadjutor.
For ten years the magazine took his whole
time, and on his retirement he was consoled
by no word of thanks from the publisher.
During this time he came in contact with
many literary men, and on ono occasion had
an evening with Wilson, and drank with him
glass for glass of punch—with what result
next morning he does not relate. He did not
much admire the lion like Professor, and
thought his appearance " not gentlemanly."
We are hardly disposed, however, to trust Mr.
Redding as a reporter on these points, for he
has given a description of L9ekhart which, as
we are able to state from our own recollection,
conveys a completely false impression of him.
Even of late years he was a man of remark-
ably handsome and striking appearance, and
his manners, so far from having " nothing
winning" about them, were calculated to at•
tract and cause a wish for further acquaint-
ance. The space, indeed, which Mr. Redding
bestows upon really notable people bears too
slight a proportion to that which he assigns to
characters of no moment whatever. Lock-
hart is dismissed in a paragraph, but several
pages are given to Sir Herbert Compton, an
Indian barrister, who was in reality a man of
vulgar and overbearing manners, and chiefly
remarkable for his habit of making bud puns.
The following story of Croker would appear
open to doubt :
Being down at the Pavilion, at Brighton, the Sunday
before, the company in the drawing•room after dinner,
there was a group at the end of the room in conversation,
including the Duke of Clarence and others. The Duke
sag having a sly blow at the Admiralty, as well as at Croker,
whom some of the naval men ii4ed to call, " The whole
board of Admiralty." The Duke iu reply to some remark
of the secretary, said:
When I am king, I'll be my own First Lord of the
Admiralty."
" Does your Royal Highness recollect what English king
was his own First Lord, the last time ?"
The Duke replied in the negative.
" It was James II."
There was a general laugh among the party. The King
walking up and down the room at the time, hearing the
laugh, approached the group—

" What—one of your good things, Croker, I suppose—
what was it r
" Nothing and please your Majesty, but your Royal
brother is saying what he will do in toe navy, when he is

king."
George IV. turned on his heel and walked off to the
other end of the room. The next morning Croker, on the
point of going up to town, received the King's command
to attend him in his bed-room.
" I was annoyed at your exposing my brother's non-
sense, under my roof, last evening ; and in the next place,
in staling what should happen when I am no longer king.
Let me request there may be no repetition of similar
remarks. Do not believe lam offended, but it is distaste-
ful to ms feelings." He then gave the honourable secre-
tary his Band to kiss, and he departed to ruminate on the
hint he thus received of the sensitiveness of royalty.

The following story will be new to most of
our readers :

Lord Holland used to tell a story with some humour of
his father, or grandfather-1 forget which. His relative
had brought a hill into the House, which was sadly muti-
lated with red ink in the way of alteration and amendment.
One of the opposing peers called it " the noble lord's
bill." His lordship ruse, asserted that, so mutilated, the
bill was not his. Then, pointing at the scarlet mutila-
tions, he exclaimed, turning also to the peers who had
made them:—

Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through—
See what a rent the envious Cases made !
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed!
The effect was so droll as to convulse the House with
laughter.
We cannot exactly recommend these
volumes on account of either their spirit, their
accuracy, or the soundness of their judgment ;
but they are tolerably amusing, and to those
who can de!y the depressing tone usually as-
sumed by reminiscents, will afford an hour
or two of agreeable reading.

Essays on the Drama. By William Bodham
Donne. London : J. W. Parker and Son.
AMONG the social changes that have taken
place in England during the present century,
the decline of the Drama is perhaps the one
which we are most disposed to regret. In
most respects, indeed, the amusements of the
nation have changed for the better.
Yet, enlightened as we consider our-
selves in many respects, it would seem
as if the faculty of appreciating good
plays were among the benefits which education
had of late forgotten to impart—to those
classes at least which used formerly to enjoy
them with the greatest relish. It might almost
be imagined that the spirit of wealthy exclu-
siveness, finding that taste was a possession
which could no longer be kept to itself, had
resolved to abandon it (with dignity), as no
longer worth having, to the ranks which had
begun to usurp its privileges. It is certainly
true enough that it is not every one who can
afford to have Grisi and Mario to sing in his
drawing-room, and that a box at the Opera
may be used without much mental effort ;
while a certain degree of thought and cultiva-
tion, be the same ever so slight, is required
for attending to a play of Shakespeare, or even
of Sheridan. We have met with a family
considered extremely well educated, and
moving in the best circles of this metropolis,
who on going to see Mr. Kean's Hamlet had
no notion whatever of the story, except a vague
surmise that there was a ghost in it ; and some
of whom felt deeply annoyed when " that dear
" old man" (meaning Polonius) came to his
untimely end behind the arras. This, we
trust, is an extreme case. But there can he
no doubt that the persons who in a past gene-
ration would have been the most eager patrons
of the theatre have now either entirely de-
serted it, or only visit it to participate in the
same kind of passive enjoyment which they
receive from their habitual Opera.
The Essays of Mr. Donne, which have sug-
gested the above remarks, would illustrate
what we have said at greater length ; four out
of the eight papers being more or less directly
concerned with the condition of the Stage at
the present day. Articles on "Athenian
Comedy," `• Beaumont and Fletcher," " Songs
from the Dramatists," and " Popular Amuse-
ments," make up the remainder of the
volume—which the author has reprinted in
deference to the opinion of " persons in whose
" judgment he confides." We are not sure
that he has been wise in doing so without
effecting some alterations. His style his easy
and flowing, though it has a very conventional
twang ; and the four essays last mentioned,

•47-- • fr-

though exhibiting little novelty or suggestive-
ness of treatment, are pleasant and perspi-
cuous, showing a sufficiency of information, and
likely to be found attractive to any reader who
may take them up. On the Drama, however,
Mr. Donne has written essays for no less than
three periodicals—Prettier, the Westminster,
and the Quarterly. We have no quarrel with
his ideas, for we entirely agree with them, and
think that he has pretty nearly exhausted the
subject. We only complain that they come
before us too often. The crambe repetitis
which has done duty in one review is cooked
up again for a second and even a third time,
certainly with much skill, but with little
variety. Surely it is somewhat imprudent for
a literary man to allow us to get behind the
scenes in this ..vay and observe how thin he
variety. His violins operandi would have
been less evident if he had consoli-

dated these essays, as he might easily have
done, instead of allowing them to remain in
their original shape. When they are read
nearly in succession, as is at present the case,
the repetition becomes tedious, and the novelty
of their views is destroyed by a sort of self.
plagiarism—only admissible on the supposi-
tion that you cannot have too much of a good
thing.
One of the causes to which Mr. Donne
ascribes the present decay of theatrical per-
formances is the great number of theatres
now open, rendering it impossible for a
manager to keep a first-rate company together.
Another is the loss of the provincial stage
(once a nursery for London), through the
greater facilities of travelling, and the drafting
off of second-rate actors to suburban boards.
Another is the prevalence of novels, which
enable us to enjoy a drama at home ; another
the custom of adapting French plays, the
lightness of which is sacrificed in the transfer,
while their startling situations spoil the actor's
taste, and prevent him from studying the
situations of real life. Another, of course, is
the change of habits and hours—the vast
quantity of work or amusement crowded into
each day, and the consequent inroads made
upon the night. Mr. Donne lays hardly suffi-
cient stress upon tho inordinate length of the
entertainments of the present day—not likely,
we fear, to diminish, while the intervals of the
acts are occupied by the arrangement of the
cumbrous machinery which grand perspec-
tives and astonishing effects now render
necessary. Formerly it was possible to go to the
theatre at a reasonable hour, and return home,
amused and not exhausted, by twelve at the
latest : this is now out of the question, except
by missing some part of what we have paid to
see—a thing the Englishman hates to do.
Another cause, says Mr. Donne, " lies deeper,
" and must be sought in the character and
tendencies of the age itself "

It is perhaps an inevitable result of advancing civilisa-
tion, that it levels in great measure the external and
sa:ient points of individual character, and thus deprives
the drama of one of its principal aliments and attractions.
Evil passions and evil natu►es are unhappily, indeed, the
accompaniments of every age, bat they do not therefore
always exhibit themselves under dramatic forms. The
mimes and woes of " old great houses " seldom affect in
our days either the annals of the world or the passions of
individuals. Wars have lost their chivalric character;
politics are no longer tissues of dark intrigues, revealed
only by their results, but hidden during their process in
impenetrable darkness. Society has ceased to be divided
into castes, or distinguished by outward and visible
tokens of grandeur or debasement. Oar manners and
habits have grown similar and unpicturesque. A justice
on the bench is no longer worshipful ; a squire, except in
the eyes of some poaching varlet, is no more " the petty
tyrant of his fields;" we take the wall of an alderman, and
feel no awe in the presence of a mayor ; lords ride in
cabs ; the coach, with six Flemish horses, with its running
footmen and linkbearers, has vanished into infinite space ;
a knight of the shire may be the son of a scrivener; our
men on 'Change have doffed their fist caps and shining
shoes ; there are no bullies in Paul's Walk, and hardly a
Toledan blade within the liberties of London. " The toe
of the peasant comes near the heel of the courtier." Our
very inns have dropped their pictorial emblems : we write,
instead of paint, our tavern-heraldry. Town and country
are nearly one. Clarendon says of a certain Earl of
Arundel, that, " he went rarely to London, because there
only he found a greater man than himself, and because at
home he was allowed to forget that there was such a man."
Lord Arundel's policy would be unavailing now. Our
humours and distinctions are wellnigh abolished, and the
drama, so far as it depends upon them, is deprived of its
daily bread. The stage•poet cannot find his Bobadil in
any lodging in Lambeth, nor his Justice Shallow in
Uloucestershire, nor Ancient Pistol in Eastchesp. The

. -
• •• "*.•;^"" •
1 1858.
nr suggestive-