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

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itself to the laws of the modern Drama.: it must have plot
and character—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 audiences., and we have
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 dialotvw, 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 unisons seem so perfectly
congenial. The music of this piece is of the 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 mietforined 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 the re-