The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-08 00:00:00

GILBERT GURNEY.

ZrTHJ AUTIIOR OF " SAYINGS AND DOINGS," " LOPE AND

PRIDE," 6T.

In Three Vole. London : Whittaker and Co. 1836.

Of the merits of " Gilbert Gurney" the public can
have but one opinion. In abundance and richness of
humour; in fertility of invention ; in ludicrousness of
contrast ;
and in variety of laughable incident, it is
fully adequate to sustain the high character of Theo-
dore Hooke, as one of the first novelists. of the day.
,In every page we see the keen observer, and the con-
4ummate man of the world; but what would provoke
the ire of a more bilious subject,- only supplies
4r. Hooke with food for laughter. As we noticed
the several chapters of " Gilbert Gurney" in the order
which they appeared in the " New Monthly Ma-
gazine," it is unnecessary for us to enter into any
minute criticism of the work as a whole. The public
will learn with as much pleasure as we did that the
author has republished it.
The extract which follows might be said to be
taken at random, if we had not been constrained to
Pay some regard to brevity. It is not the best se-
lection that we could have made, but it is the
shortest—and yet it is longer than we are in the
habit of giving. We will make no comment upon
it, assured that it will be read with lively interest.

" It was by a peculiarly happy concatenation of circum-
stances that I was enabled to see all these features of civic
Jostiqe combined. The Judge, however, as soon as the
Recorder made, his appearance, rose from table—we all
aid the same—they remained in conversation for some
time, when his Lordship bowed to the company, and retired,
accompanied by the Lord Mayor and one or two of the
Ruests. The Recorder then assumed the presidential chair,
and we began the afternoon afresh. The Chaplain pushed
round the wine—the butler placed glasses before the Re-.
corder, together with pens and ink, and a long book-like
Paper, which I found to be the calendar. At his right
band sat one of the city pleaders, and on his left, the Clerk
Arraigns, who had joined our party at the same period
With his Lordship.
" The learned Judge having placed his spectacles on his
'lase, began to peruse the Ames and crimes which this book
of fate contained, and to apportion to each culprit tried
that day, such quantum of punishment as he might seem to
deserve.
" No. 174,' read his Lordship. Martha Hickman-
-Btealing pewter pots—what shall we say, Mr. Drawley ?
Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to drink all your very good
.bealths.—Why, Mr. Butler—'
" ' My Lord.'
" What wine is this?'
" ' The same wine your Lordship always drinks,' said
Mr. Butler ; for every office in the City, which is not dig-
nified with a lordly title, is designated at once by its name,
to which is prefixed Mister—for instance, the Lord
Alayor's mace-bearer, and sword-bearer, are uniformly called,
as indeed they call each other, Mr. Mace,' and Mr.
Sword,'—so Mr. Butler.
" Not a bit of it, Sir,' said his Lordship ; this is sour,
bad, wispy washy stuff—not fit to be drunk.'
" lam very sorry, my Lord—'
" Sorry!' said his Lordship ; what signifies being sorry,
''r—you should take care in the first instance to have
Proper wine put down.
" I will change it, my Lord, I—'
" Change it said the Recorder ; to be sure, Sir—
;uange it directly ! It won't do, Sir. This sort of thing
bas happened before—get some other wine, Sir, directly I'
" This command was delivered in a tone of thunder, pre-
ceded by a flash of lightning from the eye of the irritated
Judge, who then fell to work upon the calendar.
" Martha Hickman, stealing three pewter pots—seven
.Years' transportation.'
" Robert Hayes, stealing three fowls, one duck, and a
uue rabbit—fourteen years, I think, eh, Mr. Drawley—
Yes--fourteen years--have you marked him?'
`" Yes, my Lord.'
1" Harriet Richards, stealing four yards, of linen—
Richards ? was not that the woman with the cap and
ribbons ?'

" Yes, my Lord.'
" That was a banging cap,' said his Lordship ; hard-
erred woman—two years' imprisonment.'
Walter Cutts, stealing two loaves—seven years for
hits; I think. Did you ever taste such stuff as that wine,
kr. Ordinary ?'
" My Lord.'
" You have not been drinking. any of that bottle, haw)
NO, my Lord,' said the Chaplain ; • it is corked.'
" It never 'should have been uncorked here, Mr. Ordi-
-114157,' said the Judge ; it is an absolute insult.—Well—
Stephen Robinson, for stealing two pewter pots—upon my
il°llout. it. is enough to bring on a cholera rnorbus:--Robin-
on, seven, years' transportation. Vinegar would be just
45 Palatable.- Rachel Marsh, fourteen years—abominable

woman. Simon Warner ;pair of boots, umph—oh, I recol-
lect that case—transportation for life. Well, Sir--'
" < Will your Lordship please to try this,' said Mr. But-
ler, proffering a new bottle. His Lordship, still muttering
indignation, filled his glass, and after smelling its bouquet,
and lOoking at its brightness, swallowed the contents.
Ah,' said his Lordship, this is something like wine—
why did not you give us this at first, Mr. Butler ? Fill my
glass again—hand it round—you'll find that, Mr. Ordi-
nary, quite another sort of thing—excellent, excellent wine
indeed. Well, let us finish our business. Robert Hol-
land, stealing fourteen gold watches, thirty-four gold chains,
six time-keepers, and sundry loose diamonds; oh—in a
dwelling-house—well, let's say three months for him—
capital wine, isn't it, Mr. Clerk—capital. Roger Perkins,
three mares and a foal—six weeks' imprisonment. Anne
Griffiths; administering poison to her mother, aunt, and two
sisters—poor girl—case of mistake, eh—pass that bottle,
Mr. Ordinary—what shall we say—childish carelesspess—
one month. Simmons, cow—oh—fine one shilling and dis-
charge—that's the last—the last.'
" Nz.ver was I more convinced of a man's wisdom than I
was at this moment of that of the foreman of the Grand
Jury, who had expatiated so elaborately on the effect of irri-
tating circumstances, acting upon the mind while it is em-
ployed in the dispensation of justice. As a sequel to the
decisions of the Jury, it-appeared to me that the appor-
tionment of punishment was incomparable ; however, for
the -scene that was immediately to follow, I own I was not
prepared.
" Just as the Judge had concluded the catalogue of
crime,' it was announced that the last trial was over, and
that the Court was waiting for his Lordship to pronounce
sentence upon the convicted prisoners. The company rose
and followed his Lordship down stairs to the Court—l re-
sumed my seat upon the bench, wholly unconscious of the
nature of the spectacle which was so soon to absorb my
attentiqn.
" The whole-place had assumed a different aspect since
I had left it—it was now night, and the lights were burning
dimly in their. sockets—a profound silence reigned, and
every eye was directed towards the door by which the pri-
soners, classified before their arrival, were to enter the
dock. After the lapse of some minutes of suspense, a
motley crowd pressed forward towards the bar—sobs and
groans were heard—and faint cries, which evidently pro-
ceeded from those relations of the culprits, to whom, fallen
and debased as they were, they were yet devoted in affection.
" Who are these ?' said Ito Bucklesbury.
"'These are the capital convicts—you'll hear in a mo-
ment,' was the reply.
" And I did hear—one of the most awful addresses
ever made to guilty creatures, delivered by the Judge,
who but a few moments before had seemed to me to
be of the world, worldly. It appeared as if he had be-
come suddenly inspired with an almost unearthly dignity
and power. His voice deep and impressive, his language
forcible and eloquent ; the purport of his dread appeal,
and its termination, never will be effaced from my me-
mory. And when, in conclusion, amidst their wafflings
and supplications, he passed the awful sentence of the law
upon his fellow-creatures, and in dooming them to death,
prayed for mercy on their souls, I fell back in a state of
insensibility, wholly overcome by my feelings, much, as I
subsequently perceived, to the amusement of one of the
under-sheriffs, (a small attorney,) who, at a later period of
the evening, whether in order to enjoy a joke at my ex-
pense, or to affect the hospitable, I do not know, told me
that he supposed, as I had heard the sentences, I might
like to witness the execution of those who were to die, in
which case, he should be glad to see me whenever the day
was fixed ; adding, with an . expression of peculiar boa-
hopuntie, ' we hang at eight, and breakfast at nine.'
" There can be no question that a constant familiari-
zation, with such scenes blunts the feelings, if it does
not harden the heart. The butcher's wife, who bribed
her baby to take physic by promising, if it were a good
child, that it should stick a lamb the next morning, saw
nothing revolting in the idea of killing that, by the death
of which, she lived. To show to what an extent expe-
rience in horrors deprives them of their effect, I may
mention the following fact, related to me many years after
this period, by a friend.
When the traitor Thistlewood and his murderous
gang of accomplices were to be executed before Newgate,
my friend, whose taste lay that way, secured a window to
witness the catastrophe. The sentence included decapita-
tion after death ; and when the executioner commenced his
work by cutting off the head of Thistlewood, and holding
it up to the people as the head of a traitor, a shudder
of horror thrilled through the crowd. The second simi-
lar operation upon the next culprit produced a similar
effect, but in a slighter degree ; and so completely did
that feeling wear off as the performance of duty proceeded,
that when, in the executioner lifting the head of the seventh
traitor, as the preceding six had 'been lifted to the public
gaze, happened to let it fall, cries of Ali, clumsy'—
'halloo butter fingers,' were heard from various quarters of
the assembly.
" The awful denunciation of offended justice from the
lips of the Judge, certainly did not produce upon the
habiiiti;s the effect it had upon me. To the passing of the
minor sentences I listened with composure, and I confess
that when I heard Robert Hayes sentenced to fourteen
years' transportation for stealing two ducks and a doe
rabbit, and Anne Griffiths saddled with a month's imprison-
ment for endeavouring to poison all her existing relatives, I
could not help thinking of the butler's corked bottle and
the foreman's smoky chimney."

OLYMPIC THEATRE.

This house presented three attractions last night, viz
two new pieces, and the first appearance of the son of the
late celebrated Charles Mathews. The house was so
crowded at an early hour that it was with the utmost diffi-
culty we were able to procure a standing place at the back
of the boxes, and even there we could only catch glimpses
of the scene, and collect but the disjecta membra of the
colloquy. Between the first and second pieces Mr. Liston,
in the following modest address, solicited the favour of the
audience in behalf of the young debutant, requesting, for
his father's sake, a fair trial :
Oh I let me beg this night with you and here
One moment to be serious and sincere ;
Serious and Liston, you will pause and ask ;
Mathews and friendship make me drop the mask.
'Twere useless now to dwell on days long past;
Yet with that spirit's humour mine was cast,
And something of your kindly yielded fame
Came to me, blended with his bright'ning name.
Forgive this recollection : but he leaves
One who would fain, on these your joyous eves,
Try on the buskin, which—the word's a spell—
Fitted the father, as I know, so well.
With a right spirit and a crowning name
He spreads his sail out in the wake of fame ;
When Troubridge—Nelson's Troubridge—boldly ran
His sea. worn bark beyond the ken of man,
His boy, devoted to the main and mast,
Pass'd o'er the self-same seas which he bad passed,
Nor could the waves which forced the parent on
'Repel the adventurous ardour of the son.
So on the Drama's gulf, with me for mate,
A gallant youth pursues a father's fate ;
Reverse the Troubridge fortunes on this deck—
The parent safe, preserve the son from wreck.
No more : too long, too tedious, have I been
Through this unusual, serious, earnest scene :
In pure respect for a bright course well run,
Gently regard this enterprise begun,
And, as you loved the sire, receive the son.
The address was responded to by loud and continue(
applause. When Mr. Matthews appeared as Rattleton, in
the new piece of The Humpbacked Lover, he was received
with an enthusiasm of welcome such as we never before
witnessed ; and all through the performance be was loudly,
and (as well as our inconvenient position allowed us to
judge) most deservedly applauded. The piece itself;
though one of those ephemeral trifles which arc produced
with such effect at this theatre, was very amusing in its si-
tuations, and the dialogue, if we may judge from the laugh-
ter which every sentence elicited, must he full of point.
Mr. Matthews, though but a debutant, is a finished and
easy actor. He treads the stage well ; his voice is
good and flexible,, his enunciation clear, and he has a happy
facility of making all his points tell home without any
seeming effort or labouring after effect. Another new bur-
letta, entitled The Old and Young Stagers, in which Lis-
ton and Matthews performed, followed. It is full of whim
and extravagance, and was admirably adapted for exhibiting
Listen's peculiar humour in the character of Toppk", an old
coachman, who looks upon his calling as one of the most
respectable that can be imagined, and is desirous of bring-
ing up his sen Timothy (Mathews) to tread in his steps,
and fill a similar station in society with equal dignity. In
describing the degrees by which he ascended to his present
enviable situation as coachman to Sir Pompadour Puffin-
dale, old Topple has to speak of stages, and under the co-
ver of this phrase contrived to make a contrast between
the former and present management of our great theatres
abounding in points, which told with the happiest effect.
Many passages in this latter piece referred to the dcbutant,
all of which were quickly taken up by the audience, and loudly
cheered. Mr. Matthews may feel justly proud of the re-
ception which he met with last night. It was more than
cordial, it was affectionate ; and although it was obvious
that the son was first greeted thus kindly for his father's
sake, it now became evident that his own ability con-
firmed the predisposition in his favour. At the concha>
sion of the pieces in which this gentleman performed, he
was loudly called for by the audience. He was led forward
by Mr, Liston, and having bowed his acknowledgments in
silence, retired amidst reiterated cheering. It was delight-
ful to witness the kindly and affectionate feeling with which
Liston watched the provw.ss of the son of his old friend. Th e
whole house felt it. Tim 134 OM is, we to lerstand,
from the pen of Mr. Leman Redo,