The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-05-24 00:00:00

THEATRES.

MUIR V. LA N
The play of Faustus and the aiterpiece of Ann Hassan
were List night rep sited at this Theatre, to a house by no
means crowded. rawlia. a medley of the German Faust
and the Italian Gi'vanni, has certainly been produced at a
considerable expense and with very great splendour,
modelled, questionless, after the manner of its predecessor
Der Freischutz, but much its superior in the language of
the characters and the development of the plot,; while,
however, we concede to the mechanist and the scene-
painter all the praise which can fairly be expected from
us, when we speak of what is caul the getting up of the
piece—and while we allow to its full extent the justice of
the encomiums which have been lavished upon the Syren
tonics of Miss Stephens, and the judicious action of Terry
and Wallack, we cannot avoid saying, that whether we
look upon the style to be, as it was called in the olden time, '
a place of moral instruction, or as it has been snore justly
termed by the moderns, of rational amusement, still we
think there is a something in the nature of such dramatic
compositions far beneath the intellectual spirit of the age,
and peculiarly at variance with the temper and genius of the
English people. If indeed we reflected upon the fact of Pope
having, more than a century ago, lamented in his prologue
to Lids, that
'• Our scenes precsriously subsist too long,
On French translation and Italian song;'
and regarded only the great increase of the melo-dramatic
kind of writing, with its pomp, and show, and procession,
we might be inclined to believe that the very reverse was
the truth, that it had grown with the growth and increased
with the strength of our mental effeminacy, and that we
had at length reached the full extent of that degrada-
tion pictured in the observation of Dr. Johnson, " that
as knowledge advances, pleasure passes from the eye
to the ear, but return' as it declines from the car
to the eye.' But though the great increase of such
productions, and the multiplication of Italian operas, and
French theatres, and carnivals, and pantomimes, and diable-
, ries, might favour such a supposition, we hold the opinion
that the usiform ill-success of every establishment which
has devoted itself to such productions, the vacant benches and
the empty treasury, must be taken as a strong argument
against the general decline of our national judgment, and
as a proof of that, thong the taste of the few may be per-
verted, tl.at of the great body of the community still re-
mains uncorrupted. How long the Managers of the two
winter Theatres will continue to throw into the bands of
the minor ones, the patronage of our native talent, and the
profits which have so justly rewarded their penetration, it
is not for us to determine, but we think the time cannot be
far distait when, to speak in the language of the day,
the rapidly increasing discount upon these theatrical shares
must bring their holders to understand, that sweet sounds
may be united with sense, and that an English audience
must be entertained with something else than gunpowder,
resin, and blue fire.