The National Register.
London, England, 1809-07-09 00:00:00

TIIE NATIONAL REGISTER.

(epilog, perhaps, WILLIAM CODSZTT ? It would be a ser-
vice worthy of his tergiversative talents to administer ex-
treme unction to your expiring popularity, and ue know
thatiyour wounded spirit would derive consolation from a
well.turned malignant invective against Mrs. Geirke.
Do you not know that Mr. Serjeant BEST has desired his
friends to say, that you never sent him one line of writing
during the trial, If you have not heard as much, this will
furnish you with an excuse for inquiry. If this be so, either
you or Sedeunt BEST have told a FALSEHOOD ; but fier the
truth of Mathis assertion I believe you do not appeal to God.
n is, however, something more than a parole assertion.—
scripta ntanent.
Did you not pledge
,your honour to Mrs. Clarke that you
would not mention the business of Samuel Carter ; and
have you not basely forfeited your honour to a woman
who had more generosity and feeling than you had ?
Did you not aselutely steal, feloniously steal, the bundle
of letters P Had you any authority from Mrs. Clarke for
what you said about Donovan ?
We have heard your reason why Dodd was not examin-
ed, but why was not Mr. Glennie produced, and the other
respectable witnesses you allude to, and why are their
names concealed. Mr. lllingworth, who paid the bill of
.6001. to Wright, could have no objection to swear to that
fact, but perhaps he could have mentioned others—we know
he could. Your .friend Mr. MacCullum, too, would at
least have found in you a precedent for short memory,
and an example too of the convenience which attaches to this
failing. And Mr. Thomas Hague, could he have rendered
you no service upon his oath ? He has talents, you know,
that can be made veil useful in that way, and his modesty
would have been no hindrance to the employment of them
upon proper occasions. Was not Serjeant BEST instructed
to state, that such a person as Major DODD did not exist
Do you not know that there are Letters of your own
still in existeuce about DODD, and was it not the fear of
this that prevented DODD from being produced ?—Did you
net instruct Mr. Serjeant Best to tell the Jury that the
whole Bill was an imaginary one 7-1\ o, Sir : Is not every
article of it at Mrs. Ccanoes, and did you not pay the five
hundred pounds in the manner stated.
Have you paid your Bill at
,the Col Fee house for your
witnesses dinner, who attended at the House of Commons
an the first day of the Investigation ? This is mentioned
to give you an opportunity of proving that if your u•ickets
are not running over, they are at least full enough to pay
what even you-must admit to be a just debt.

COLONEL WARDLE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE
UNITED KINGDOM.
gi Honoured as my Parliamentary conduct leas been by the
approbation of so many of my countrymen, I &el na3self called
upon, in consequence of as sweet that yesterday took place, hit-
mediately to address you, and that In vindication of my character,
rendered open to attack from the verdict of the Jury, upon the
evidence of Mrs. Clarke and Mr. Wright, the brother of her
Upholsterer, in a cause in which I was defendant, in the Court
of King's Bench.—The detail of the evidence the public prints
will afford. It is with me to state, that my Counsel, satisfied
in their minds that the Jury would not, upon such testimony as
IRA been given by the plaintiff's brotherand Mrs. Clarke, alone,
fnd a verdict against me, did not comply with my earnest en-
treaty (repeated to them in writing, during the trial, in the
sgrogest terms), that Major Dodd, Mr. Glenie, and other re-
, Jectahle witnesses, subpcened by the plaintiff and myself, might
be examined, as I knew their testimony would he founded in
truth, and be in direct contradiction to what had been sworn
against me. Under such circumstances the verdict was obtained.
There only remains for me now, before my God sad my Country,
to declare, that it was obtained by perjnry alone; and I do
pledge myself to prove that fact the earliest moment the forms
of the law will allow me do so. Anxiously, therefore, do I
look forward to that period ; and I trust that, till then, the
public will suspend their judgment upon the case.
W ith sentiments of the deepest gratitude and respect, I remain
Tour ever faithful! y,devoted Servant,
" July 4, lb®. " Gs L. WARDLE."

THE Alltle4LS.

JULY P.

TUEODORE :woes "KILLING NO MURDER."

Farces are play-things it is true,but they are play-things
of the Comic Muse. Mr. Theodore Hook having no ac-
fuaintance with the Comic Muse, seems to consider a
arce as the the rattle of absurdity. Thanks to the per-
vasive power of folly, every provocative to laughter is
now honoured with the name of wit, and every ideot who,
with our pity for his condition, excites a smile at his stu-
pidity, may set himself up as a man of humour. Happy
age! emancipated from the fetters of sense, and the toils
of thought, we laugh we know not Ow, and we care not
wherefore 1 In such an age it is no wonder if we find an
Ar;stophanes in Theodore Hook, a Menander in Thomas
Dibdin, and the second Terence of England in Mr., Cherry!
There was a time when the minor drama, or farce of
England abounded in broad and strong traits of character;
when sterling wit sparkled in the dialogue. and Vi hen the
incidents, unassisted. by the grin of bulloonery, were re-
plete with genuine humour. An author did not then
poach for puns in ()Idlest books, or pillage the walls of
Moorfields, where funny folly is strung in sheets, for
public study, to the great advantage of such readers as
Mr. Tie, whose multiplicity of engagements we are told.
oblige him, to " read while he runs, and to write while
, he eats."

It would be setting out too seriously were we to attempt
to define what a farce ought to be; but we may surely ven-
ture to ask this question of that good-natured and indul-
gent being, Pusvie TASTE, what is expected in a farce 7
Poor Public Taste, who is daily imposed upon by the nu-
merous men if genius with whom this metropolis abounds,
and who good humouredly puts up with alt these imposi.
tions, whetheri they come from picture-dealing daubers, or
their subscribing patrons in Pall Mall ; whether they spring
from the paste-pot of book-making authors, or their bc.
knighted publishers; whether Mr. Ackerman, in his
double, capacity of print-broker and magazine-monger,
ber almost blind. Or the two knights-errauts of Ire-
land and Russia, Sir John Carr and Sir Bob Cur, throw
the spoils of all her former travellers in pictured bundles
at her feet ; whether this quack fiddles, or that quack phy-
sics; still poor, indulgent Public Taste, we say, will hardly
allow us to ask wkat iv expected in a force j Debauched.
disordered, and diseased—drunk at night, and &amid in
the morning, Public Taste can answer no questions. Let
her then be told what is not expected in a farce. Since
she is become the public prostitute of every flippant fool
who can raise a laugh, let her be told of the things which
she path left undone, and let her be sent to repent in sack.
cloth and ashes, in some tenvile Penitentiary, for her pre-
'sent sin and iniquity with that punning plagiarist, Mr,
Theodore Hook.

A Farce ought not to be without wit. True—but Theodore's
wit being otherwise engaged, in private parties, and select
entertainments, he is compelled to find a substitute for
public service. Substitutes for this sort of Militia are
always ready at the offices of Messrs. Joe Miller, Thomas
Brown and Co. A Farce ought not to be without character.
True again. Theodore acknowledged this, and had in-
stantly an expedient for it " Let every performer appear
in his own character," he exclaimed, " and the devil's in
it if it can want character when Mathews and Liston are in
it."--A Farce ought not to be without incident. --Very true.
But the invention of incident being in itself of too serious
a nature, and requiring so much thought, Theodore swore
that it would hurt his natural vivacity to attempt such a
labour; he therefore left all incident to accident. He could
not have done better. The recollections of Mathews and
Liston were better than all the inventions of twenty Theo-
dore Hooks; and by thrusting in a bit of one Farce in one
place and a bit of another in another, no incidents could
jumble more ludicrously together than the incid:nts of
Theudore's Farce l Perhaps the public (as well those who

have seen it as those who have not seen it) may he curious
to know the story of Theodore's Farce, and why it is called
KiLLi Nfl so,. Munn ER. Patience, gentle readers.—Ex nihilo
nil —Our invention w:11 nut bear any more racking than
that of Mr. Hook's ; and to give you the story of his farce
w•ittfiout some considerable supplies from invention, would
be as difficult as to recount instances of the patronage of
Mr. Angerstein, or the military exploits of Lord Ch—t—m.
All we can do is to tell you whit we have heard and what
we saw, as we sat before the stage and joined in what the
play-bills call the re-iterated bursts of luatghter—•z the
author.

After a noisy and discordant overture the rising of the
curtain discovered to us the scene of a village. We had
a public house on our left, and we saw a considerable large
party arrive, loaded w ith portmanteaus and ban-boxes.
This party with the assistance: of the landlord and his sister,
n%a:t a certain Mr. Mathews, (who it seems was a guest and
a resident in thc house, under the name of Billy Buskir,
gave us sonic tolerable singing, and—we saw no more of
them. Then we understood from Billy Buskin that he
Was an itinerant actor, and was cheating the landlord and
debauching his sister. This was told us in the titles of plays
strung together in that sort of way which used to amuse
our grandmothers, and of which some whole sheet editions
may be seen by the curious in the afore-mentioned li-
brary of Theodore hook, the wall of old &Wein.
There used to he an excellent public library of this
sort under the auspices of the Duke of Buccleugh's
old brick,bultresses, and since their removal we find that
many walking members of the House of Commons have
been in want of that pointed argument called a pun. We
are happy to learn, however, that many of the best pieces
were preserved by the retentive memory of a facetious
Secretary of State. But to return to our story : we fouud
out that another stroller (a poor devil who: we think was
called Bradford, and • who ought to be a real stroller under
the name of Wharton), was in love with a young lady, a
ward of Sir Willoughby Wilton, then in the care of the
lady of the manor. Sir Willoughby arrives, determines to
marry his ward himself, quarrels with the lady of the manor,
sad retreats in a huff, without servants, to a little ale-house,
wher, he can get no attendance. If the over-curious read-
er wishes to know why Sir Willoughby travels without ser-
vant*, and goes to a paltry alehouse, when it appears that
there is a good inn in the village, we will tell him, that it
is for the very best reason in the world,—it is to introduce
character and incident at once! Mr. Mathews, alias Billy
Buskin, who is known to all the village as a strolling
player, except the pryieg landlord of the public-house
where he has resided, and where he has run up a hill in the
character of a country squire, now acknowledges himself
a swindler, and offers to.become boots, waiter, hair-dresser,
and cook, at a minute's warning. Here, then,. is a host of
character and a volley of incident let loose upon us at once:.
and all without any trouble to Theodore; fr, dependant
on his own exertions, and on what he has performed in
half a dozen other farces, Mathews acquits himself with
admirable dexterity—and we laughed—good gods ! how
we laughed I The preUy sister of the landlord, however,
up to her ears in love with Billy Buskin, is to be mar-
ried to one Apollo Bele!, a country dancing-master
and ballet-maker to a Welch theatre. Apollo's brains are
any where but in his head : what Theodore has done for
him is little indeed ; he has not even given him conceit,
that absolutely indispensable ingredient in the composition
of every dtsncing-master. Liston, however, has made him
out. 'Billy Buskin belies the chastity of his mistress, to
prevent his friend Apollo from espousing her,_ and the
Afaitrc du Ballet agrees to feign himself dead, and to be the
bearer of the intelligence of his death to his intended bro-
ther-in-law. Some excellent comic acting, rather border-
ing on bufLonery, supplies the deficiences of wit, and we
laughed again, .again and again, but no thanks to Theodore.
Ridicule upon the singing and ballet-dancing in vogue, is
iairaitably displayed through the suituicry

thews' and Listod in a song. And is another song,
descriling the humours of Bartholomew fair, Mathews
pours in so many auxiliaries of irresistablo humour,
that Theodore's little wit shone like the emanmions
of Momus himself from the countenance of Mathews
--and the thunder of the God of Laughter rolled in reiter-
ated peals through the house. To tell the conclusive cir-
cumstances of this tale would pose the powers of any un-
raveller of intrigues from •Bishop Burnet to the Countess
d la Mott; we must content ourselves with saying, that
the young lady of the Manor (personated by MN. Ma-
thews), gets her a booby-like lover fur a husband, and.
Billy Buskin marries the fair maid of the Inn.

kroad accident (for incident is rather too distinguishing
a name for the occurrences of this piece), must not he re-
ceived for broad character. It is the caricature which is
allowed in farce that distinguishes it from comedy : the t
caricature consists in strong marked eccentricities, in the
extravagant burlesque of fashionable follies, in a medley
of risible situations, and must never be sacrificed for un-
meaning whim, childish witticisms, distorted humour, and
downright.manual buffoonery. The Lord Chamberlain is
said to have objected to some sneers at religion, which, as
substitutes for sit, had been enlisted by Corporal The
These have been discarded, and a few sneers at the Cham-
berlain himself pushed into their place. We were ashamed
that a British audience could laugh and applaud such petty.
petillenee, expressed with the spiteful insolence of a cord
reeled school boy. 46 But he shall hear of it yet," is the
ma animous threat of this dramatic caterpillar—of this
literary insect, generated in the blight of taste ! If the
Lord Chamberlain had sat ns the dramatic as well as the
moral censor of this farce, the Killing no Murder, of Mr.
Theodore Hook, would certainly have been crushed out of
existence, before it could have had an opportnaity to can
forth such re-iterated tursts of laughter as strengthen the
cause of absurdity, and support dullness and noisy. folly in
their contest with the almost vauquishc4 wit and spirit of
genuine comedy.

JULY 9.
TH'E NATIONAL REGISTER.
443
have seen it as those who have not seen it) may he curious thews' and Listml in a song. And is another song,
to know the story of Theodore's Farce, and why it is called describing the humours of Bartholomew fair, Mathews
KILLIN6 Na.NtuftnEa. Patience, gentle readers.—Ex sihi/0 , pours in so many auxiliaries of irresistablo humour,
nil —Our invention w:11 nut bear any more racking than that Theodore's little wit shone like the emana4ions
that of Mr. Hook's ; and to give you the story of his farce of Momus himself from the countenance of Mathews
wittout some considerable supplies from invention. world --and the thunder of the God of Laughter rollpd in rpitpr-