The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-03-28 00:00:00

THEATRES.

DRURY-LA NE.
Light hearts and holidays were of the olden time, when
Christina,' cheer and May-slay gambols were a part of old
England's constitution it observances, when the green
holly and the misietoe, "that mystic parasite," under
whose milk-white berries many a maiden fair has blushed,
though not unseen, bedecked the nrs and windows of
famous London town, till it looked as if " Birnam wood
had come to Dunsinane ;" when the" wassail bowl" and
the " fairie queene" received the homage of every true lover
of mirth anti revelry ; when health anti exercise made the
heart glad ; and erc Bank restriction Acts, long wars, Me-
chanics institutes, and '• the Emporium of the world"—the
modern Babylon—had changed our unsophisticated notions
of enjoyment into mere dull matter of fact calculations, anti
I checked the cheerful impulses of our nature, by the modern
inventions of high civilization, the acme of whose bliss is
—ennui. lint what are we about? This is Easter ; the
world is yet green, anti contains hearts and heads too,
capable of every pleasure that the warmest admirer of
•' our falters' wiser ways" can boast ; and though.
some of the more robust and out of doors enjoyments

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have gone by, still there remain enough to chase away
melancholy, and to make the heart glad. Holiday, indeed,
is in Itself a good—it brings together parents and children,
old ft iemls and young ones, and is a sort of pause in the
general strife of the world's cares, when !ove and friendship
are plighted anew, and confidence and strength arc gathered
to aid us through this our mortal coil. Nothing is more
remote from idleness than a well-spent holiday. To cease
from toil is not to be listless ; it is a brief hour snatched
from the world, in which to refresh our spirits and to
give a fillip to our memories, to remind us of our
gnat original ere the curse bad been pronounced—
" Who first invented work, and hound the free

And holiday-rejoicing Writ down
To the unremitting importunity
Of business, in the green fields and the town ;
To plough, loom, anvil, spade, and oh ! most sad !
To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood ?
Who, but the being unblest, alien of good,
Sabbstliless Satan !"
Easter, as far as we are aware, has no particular pastime
appropriate to itself, as Christmas and May-day have. But
from the peer to the 'prentice boy, where a good-will is,
every pleasure, if innocent, is appropriate. Fairs are ge-
nerally the places of resort at Easter ; but these, especially
in and about large cities are a very equivocal sort of amuse-
ment. We are not straightlaced in our morality, but we are
as assuredly no advocates for those great nurseries of every
vicious propensity that can contaminate our nature. A coun-
try fair is quite a different thing: there cricket, wrestling,
running, and (yes, we say it) single-stick, and, what is more
than all, a wide expanse of fields, with none of those conco-
mitants of a town that make fairs so dangerous, all these
combine to give a character t 3 the scene totally distinct
from each as predominates, for instance, at Greenwich on
these occasions. But the country has no Drury-lane, no
Coburg, to close the days' delights. Here, then, the
town has its advantage; for let grave moralists preach as
they list, our faith upon it ! the stage corrects many more
hearts than it corrupts. Let us then suppose the impatient
apprentice boy, after all the dismal forbodingli of a wet
day " as if on purpose," because Mary had promised to go
to Ilampsteatl for a walk the very first holiday he got,
wake, or rather get up (for sleep he could not), at six
o'clock, and tapping gently at Mary's door, said with a half
chuckling voice, " tis a beautiful fine morning, Mary."—
Mary, good-natured girl, does not on this occasion suffer
William to knock twice, but soon' apparels all her charms,
and off she and William go, for the cook had promised to
do all the little jobs which Mary was wont to perform in
the morning. The couple, tittering and exclaiming " what
a fine day ! how lucky, after such a storm last night," shuffle
on their way, and having called oo Mary's cousin to
breakfast, the latter becomes one of the party, and away
they travel to the Parnassus of Cockaign. 'We cannot de-
tail all the little triflings that occurred between this happy
pair during the day; but of their evening's enjoyment we
were eye witnesses. Being comfortably seated in the two
shilling gallery, they anxiously watched for the curtain's
rising, which, after many " Lord bless toe's! how long
they be!" rolled up its folds, and the play began. It was
Beglowsky. Neither William nor Mary were critics, and
therefime were pleased. They thought Benyowsky a very
nice man; but Tri.arogn Starke (Harley) was the funniest;
he was so fidgetty, so droll, and then he shivered so, that
what with cold and txrwardice they thought him the oddest
sort of man that ever was. Bet it puzzled both William
and Mary how it was that they were all outlandish fo-
reigners, and yet spoke English so well ! They liked and
pitied poor Aihanasin (Miss Foote), but Mary thought her '1
singing was not quite so good. After the play came the
great attraction of the night, and now all was built ! Up
runs the curtain, and behold a sight I—But here we must
descend from the gallery and become ourselves again. The
piece, then, is called a new grand romantic fairy tale, and
is stated to be founded on the celebrated poem of Wie-
land, Oberon, or the Charmed Hewn. It would be use-
less in these speculating times to cocci Lin of the ma-
nseuvre (to call it by no other name) that has been
practised at this Theatre by the production, just now,
of this Oheron ; or, the Charmed Horn, when it was
known, and had been for months, that Covent-garden' was
preparing a grand opera, by the aid of Weber 's splendid
genius, upon the very same story. If Messieurs the Ma-
nagers of Drury consider this all fair (anti we are not ac-
quainted with the laws of war in these matters), at least
they must be told that it is all a failure, and, drat instead
of its doing them any good, it will only serve as a
foil to set oft' the real Oh,•roa whenever it shall appear.
Let not any of our readers imagine that this " Romantic
Fairy 'l' ale" resembles the expected opera in Gogh' save its
name. The materiel of course is similar, because there
must be fairies, elfin messengers, invisible ta, music,
o
and so forth, but of the quality, the essencethe thing--
if they should tell you their's was the Peal Simon
Pure, believe them not! The plot is too long to
detail now. It consists of the adventures of knight
crusader, Sir Huon Guyeenne, who having, at a tour-
nament before Charlemagne of France, killed the Em-
peror's son, was banished to the Holy Land,and enjoined by
an oath to visit Bagdad, enter the Caliph's Palace, and
kill his most honoured guest; to marry and convert the
Caliph's daughter, anti to cut from his heard a lock of hair,
then hasten bark to Paris on the anniversary of the fatal
day, with vouchers to redeem his vow ; if not his lands
and titles should be forfeited to the Empeeor, who would
award them to the victor of the next par's tournament.
By the kind agency of the fairies, who, it seems, inhabit
that part of the world in large colonies, and *loo give to
the Knight the " charmed been," the Knight is enabled to
reticent his vow, and to regain his lost honour and his
hands. The magic power of the " horn" was t xercis.'ll on
effectually over the Caliph of Bagdad, his harem and at-
toulants, that at one time they, all became so many living
petrifactions, and at another were like the lovers in the
Midmrnmer Night's Dream, charmed to a most smith n and
dreamless sleep. These were the only two incidents that par-
took of anything like novelty. The dialogue is in the usual
melo-dramatic style, and the sentiments of the most com-
mon-place description. As for the music,if we except one
little air in the fourth scene, and a song made up of the
'drinking anti the laughing song in D:r Preigehatz, there
was not a single bar deserving notice. Even the overture from
Mozart seemed to have been selected from the worst of that
master's works, for the sake of preserving harmony through-
out the piece. But the scenery was in' many instances
splendid. The names of Stanfield, Marinari, and Roberts
are well and deservedly celebrated for their power of pencil
displayed both at this house and at Covent-garden. The
panorama of the Harbour of Tunis, by Stanfield, was the
best of many excellent scenes. The clearness of the
attnovbere and the aerial perspective were admirable;
each object stood forth so distinctly that the eye seemed to
have a glimpse of every side of them. The scene shifters
were, however, sadly imperfect in their parts, as were
several of the performers. Miss Vincent played Oberon in
a manner that did her great credit. We have not
time to notice' the rest. Considering that it was
holiday time the house was remarkably orderly, al-
though it was as full as any shareholder need desire.
The piece was announced for repetition amidst much ap-
plause ; but, with all the pageantry that attends it, we
Frognosticate that its run will not be long. Our young
friends in the gallery said they were very tired before the
curtain fell; anti well they might, for the piece was not
to er till heir-past twelve—too long by an hour.

COVENTSIA RDEN.
Last night the 7'enipeid was performed at this theatre,
with the holiday piece of the Miller and his Men. It js a
signal proof of Shakspeare's commanding genius, that the
Tempfxf, a play without much passion or plot, and written
in a language nearly obsolete, should still hold possession
of the stage. It is a dignified yet simple tale, and natu-
rally told ;in the first scene the King Nantes and his son
Ferdinand, together with the usurping Duke nf
are cast away in a tempest raistil by the magic power ofPror-
peso ; in the second scene Prospero is already master of their
destinies. It requires but little sagacity then to forsee the
*hole denouement, which is unravelled in the natural
' course of poetic narration. But although this piece cannot
hold the spectator in suspense, yet it has so many match.
less beauties, it displays so much discrimination and vigo.
roes touch of character, such a poetic elevation of lan.
page and of sentiment, so happy an intermixture of pre-
ternatural agency; iu short it unites at once, without any
discordance, so much grandeur, tenderneas, airiness, ino
comic humour, that even if the plot were wholly divested
of dramatic interest, enough would remain of poetical ex-
cellencies to afford a rich intellectual feast.

The piece in its present form, as adopted to the modern
stage, is, we think, in many respects unworthy of its sublime
original; but the further discussion of this point at present
would had us beyond our limits. The cast of last night's
performance was the same as usual. Mr. Wavle enacted
Prospero with rather too much violence, this was partial..
lady manifest in his chiding of Ariel in the first act. He
ought not to forget the gravity becoming one " in dignity
and fur the liberal arts," without a parallel. Mr. Rayrer
played the part of Caliban; he sterns to have studied the
managemeot of his volec as successfully in Exeter Chang,
Mazutiir did that of his features in the Jardin rlu Roi
at Paris. In short he was'; a most &Mcrae monster."
The other performers exerted thernseivrie seeeeserelly.
Miss Paton was in floe voice; but so great was the noise
generated from the fullness of the upper, and reverberated
from the emptiness of the lower, part of the house, that the
effect of the music was marred throughout, and a great
deal of it rendered quite inaudible.