Star.
London, England, 1829-07-28 00:00:00

THE DRAMA.

As usual at this period, the mighty rulers of Covent
Garden and Drury have commenced the hard tug of theatrical di-
plomacy—the straight road and the crooked road, the secret bribe
and tempting premise, the " espionage " and manoeuvre, are all
pursued with rival machlavelism, and one moment it is whispered
that Liston, gained by an enormous salary, returns to Covent
Garden ; then we are astounded to learn that Vends has been
caught by Drury, with a bait equally splendid ; Young is given to
one and the other ; Healy, in the same way, is as liberally disposed
of ; the Loves and the Trees, the Paton. and Phillip's., are vari-
ously enlisted, by rumour, in the dramatic service. But in all
these changes we hear nothing of a thorough purification and re-
form : managers are as costive in this as the managers of the great
Westminster Theatre of State. The dramatic aristocracy, the
Stars I are all to be retained and magnificently provided for ; but
the sticks, the ranters, and the barkers, the buckram mummers and
paateboard faces are bought silently by the score, at a miserable
price, to damn Shakspeare and Rossini, and drive us from the
theatre. How strange it is that managers will persevere, in
despite of their own interests and public complaint, in maintaining
this wretched band of play murderers--those assassins of English,
propriety, and feeling! The het is, they, like other practitioners,
have been long "Muth " with their trade. Ihe minor beauties
and secondary interests of a play are lost in their satiety ; they can
only bestow attention on the little Garrick. and the eternal
squid of pitiful underlings, with whose faces and defects we are
so long condemned to be familiar, may suit or not suit, just as
the public pleases. Now we, who frequent theatres, as much
to enjoy the works of our dramatic writers, as to hear them
recited by a Young or a Kemble, are indignant at the hard-
ship to which we are doomed in thus, season after season,
having our patience tried by the sorry efforts of these wooden stop.
gaps in play acting. There are some fellows as invariably to be
found in Covent-garden, Drury-lane, the Lyceum, and Haymarket,
as insects in corrupt bodies, who appear as regularly as the stage-
bell is rung to fret our ears and put us in a cold perspiration. Why
cannot our provincial theatres beat a share of this affliction and
labour with them in turn? The great theatres of Paris find it ex.
pedient to get rid of their old faces, by sending them occasionally
to the provinces—judiciously replacing them by fresh candidates

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engaged from thence. Surely our Managers Can afford to do as
much. There are respectable actors at Oath, Liverpool, Edin-
burgh, and Dublin, who doubtless would be glad to try
their (attunes on a London stage even in the humble walks;—
failure in the experiment could only subject us to the mere change
of stick for stick; at all events we should find some relief in novelty :
besides the old proverb says, " new brooms sweep clean," and a
new batch of inferior actors striving to captivate our good opinion,
would be truly refreshing after the long annoyance we have suf-
fered from hopeless mediocrity, making the round of the drama
like horses in a mill, and cured of every other ambition but that of
salary.
Above all we lament to learn, that the directors of Drury-lane
and Covent-garden are preparing, as usual, to get up, during the
winter, every species of Drama on the same stage—tragedy,comedy,
opera, melo-drama, pantomime, spectacle, mimicry, and ballet, by
which justice will be done to neither. Morton and Reynolds will
be overwhelmed with the press of business ; reading running, or
rejecting ;—unread, perhaps, manuscripts in the gross, and puffing
off the stuff they may chose to admit in all the fulsome ways prac-
tised in. the art. While Coleman, the puritanical Guardian of
Theatrical morality, will be castrating and mangling comedies and
tragedies to suit the tastes of his friends, Boatswain Smith, and
Irving the apostie.--It is said he is about to become Quaker, and
renounce Satan and his works fur ever. What a death blow
this will be to the literature of the country. At tha very rumour
of his desertion the genius of the drama turns pale. Still bow can
such a saint preside over a theatre, when language such as this
prevails to the contamination of godly ears—Zounds, 'od's bobs,'
zookers, 'sblood, sod thunder and lightning :—A new MS. Co-
medy in which he detected an allusion to an angel, and that naughty
place called bell, together with a damnable good Heavens ! and a
superdamnable den it ! bas it appears horrified hint into this
hasty retreat to the bosom of the righteous.
The Earl of Mansfield had a grand dinner party yes-
terday, at his villa, Caen Wood.
Viscountess Hampden had a dinner party yesterday,
at her house in Green-street, Grosvenor-square.
Divine service was performed at the Chapel Royal, St.
lunge's Palace, on Sunday, for the last time previous to its un-
donoing a thorough repair. This chapel, which is in t ting to
the antiquarian, as being the first public place of worship in which the
present Church Liturgy was performed in this kingdom, has long
been in a very dilapidated state. The order for its renovation has
been issued by the Board of Works, it is said, at the instance of
the Bishop of London, who is es Oa* Dean of all his Majesty's
Cbspeb Royal. We hope the handsome painted ceiling, charged
in its varied compartments with the portcullis and other devices,
and ciphers of the Beaufort. and Todors, will be preserved.