Star.
London, England, 1828-01-10 00:00:00

trt.'

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traps, • u.t.cs, &c. and making the poet and his supposed
flame the hero and hetoine. He parodied music AS 411
as words, iivitti 4as the most received cadences and
&Parishes, and calling to mind (not without some ha-
zard 00,41 is filial dune>) the common places of the pas-
ieril'songs and duets of the last half century ; so that
4f Mr. Dignum, she Damon of Vauxhall, had been pre-
-fent, he would have doubteJ whether to take it as ao
affront or a intent.
M
canteen
* I have sines • unable to help wishing, perhaps
entirety wisely. that Mr. Campbell would be a little
less careful and fastidious in what he did for the public ;
for, after all, an author may reasonably be supposed to
do best that which he is most inclined to do. It IS our
• ' business to be grateful for what a poet sets before us,
. rather than to be wishing that his peaches were nec-
tarines, or his Falesnian Champagne. Mr. Campbell,
• as an author, is all for refinement and classicality ; not,
however, without a great deal of pathos and luxurious
• fancy. His merry jonglear, Mr. Hook, has as little pro-
pensity, perhaps, as can be imagined to any of these.
irons the mere pleasure of the
niceties ; yet, I confess,
recollection of the evening 1 parsed with him, I have
been unable to repress a wish, as little wise as the other;
to wit, that he had stuck to his humours and farces. for
which be had real talent, instead of writing politics."
We must, add part of the notice of Mr. Mathews:
" Among the visitors at Sydenharn was Mr Mathews,
the comedian. I have had the pleasure of seeing him'
• there mare than once, and of witnessing•his imitations,
• which, admirable as they are on the stage, are still more
so in a private room. (-Lee in a way his wife used to
come with him, with her handsome tyes, and charitably
make tea for us. The other day I had the eieastoe of ace-
. ing them at their own table; and I thought that while
Time, with unusual courtesy, had spared the sweet coun-
tenance of theone,he had given mote foice and interest i 0
that of the other in the yes yisloughing of it up: strong lines
• have been cut, and the face has stood theni well. I have
seldom been mote surprised than in coming close to Mr.
, Mathewson that Occasion, and in seeing the bust-that
he has in his Gallery of his friend Mr. Liston. Some
of these comic actors, like comic a riters, are as unlit.-
eical as can be imagined in thiit interior. The taste for
humour comes to them by the force of contrast. The last
time I bad seen Mr. Mathews, his face appeared to me
insignificant to what it was then. On the former occasion
. be looked like an irritable indoor pet ;on the latter, he
seemed to have been grappling with the world, and to
have got vigour by it. His face had looked out upon the
Atlantic, and said to the old waves,' Buffet on ; I have
teen trouble as well as you. The paralytic affection, or.
whatever it was, that twisted his mouth when young,
. bad formerly appeared to be master of his fate, and
gives. it a character of indecision and alarm. It now
seemed a minor thing—a twist in a piece of old oak.
And what a bust was Mr. Liston's! The mouth and
. ibis, with the throet under it, hung like an old bag ;
but the upper part of _the head is as fine. as possible :
there is a speculation, a look-int, and even an elevation
of character in it, as unlike the Liston on the stage as
. Lear is to King Pippin. One might imagine Label as;
to have had such a face.
14 The-reasons why Mr-Mathews% imitations are still
. better in private thatvil -public are, that he is more at
his ease tietsClaily—more secure of his audience ( 6 .&t
. tbotskii few'), and able to interest them with traits (1
private character, which could not he introduced on the
stage. He gives, for instance, to persons who he thinks
will take it rightly, a picture of the manners and con-
. vesication of Sir Walter Scott, highly creditable to that
celebrated person, and calculated to add regard to ad-
miration. His commonest imitations are not surf-
ticial. Something (1 the mind and character or the
tudividual is always insinuated, often with a dra-
matic dressing, and plenty of sauce piquante. At
Sydeitham he used to give us a dialogue among.
tie actors, each uf whom found fault with another for
some defect or excess of his own—Kemble objecting to
stiffness, Munden to grimace, and so on. His repre-
sentation of liicledon was extraordinary ; his nose seemed
actually to become aquiline. It is a pity I cannot pet
• upon paper, as represented by Mr. Mathews, the singe-
. lar gabblings of that actor, the lax and sailor-like twist
of mind with whielt everything hung upon him ; and his
profane pieties in quoting the Bible; for which, and
. swearing, he seemed to have an equal reverence. He ap-
pealed to be charitable to everybodybut Mr. Braham. He
would be described as saying to his friend Holman, for
• i istance," My dear George, don't be abn sive, G. orge ;—.
don't insult,—don't be indeceut, by G—d I You should
take the beam out of your own eye,—what the devil is,
it ? you know, in the Bible ; something' (the a very
broad) 6 about a beam, my dear George! and—asid—
and—a mote : you'd find it any part of the Bible ; yes,
George, my dear boy, tl:e Bible, by G—d ; and then
(with real fervour and reve,ence) I the Holy Scripture,,
G—d d—me!' He swore as dreadfully as a devout
knight erten% Btaham, whose, trumpet blew down his
' wooden walls, he could not endure. He is mere-
-tented as saying one day, with a strange mixture of
• imagination and matter of fact, that 6he only. wished i
his belnied master, Mr. Jackson, could come down
from Heaven, and take the Exeter stage to Lon-'
don, to hear that d—d Jew!' As, Mr. Hook made
his extempore verses on us, so Mr. Mathews one
day gave an extempore imitation of us all round, wish
the exception of a fierce young critic, who happened
"to be present, and ip whose appearance and manner he
ppronounced that there was no handle for mimicry.—
This may have been intended as a politeness towards a
comparative stranger, perhaps as a piece of policy; and
the laughter was nut missed by it. At all events, the
critic was both good burnout ed and self satisfied encugh
to have hone the mimicry; and no harm would have
come of it. One morning, after stopping all night. I
was getting up tn,-breaktast, when I heard the noise
of a little boy having his face washed. Our host was
a merry bachelor.. and to the rosiness of a priest
might, for aughElL knew, have added the' paternity ;
but I had never hessid of it, and still less expected
to find a child in his house. M' re obvious and obstre-
perous pro*, hoe ever, of the existence of a boy la ith a
dirty face. could not have been met with. You heard
the child crying and objecting, then the woman remon-
strating; then the cries of the child were snubbed and
swallowed II in the hard towel, and at intervals, cut
came his voice bubbling and deploring, and was again
swallowed ult. At breakfast, the Child being pitied, 1
ventured to speak about it, and was laughing and
sympathising in perfect good faith, when Mr. Mathews
came in, and I found that the little urchin was he. The
same morning he givens his immortal imitation of old
Tate Wilkins.,n, patentee of the York Theatre. Tate'
had been a little too merry in his youth, and was very
Melancholy in old age; he had a wandering mind and
a decrepit body ; and being manager of a theatre. it
husband, and a rat catcher, he would speak, in his
wanderings, . variety of wretchedness.' He would
interweave, for instance, all at once, the subjects of a
new engagement at this theatre, the rats, a veal pie,
Carrick, and Mrs. Siddons, and Mrs. Tate and tattle,
doctph I do not pretend to give a specimen...Mk
Mathews shoe can do it." - ,