Star.
London, England, 1829-12-03 00:00:00

THE THEATRES.

DRURY-LANK—KEAN'S RICHARD 111.
From the recollection of the unworthy means that were
adopted by the Managers of Covent-garden Theatre, to
deprive the great rival establishment of that support to
which their defeated jealousy has given additional value,
we would gladly pass on to the contemplation of the splen-
did triumph of KEAN 's great talents onWednesday evening,
did not the indignation excited by the machinations of his
ungrateful opponents demand from us that severe repre-
hension with which it is the duty of the Press, not only to
discountenance illiberality, but to repel every tendency to
oppression and injustice.—When we witnessed, with
unfeigned regret, the state of actual beggary, and almost
hopeless ruin to which the affairs of Covent Garden had
been reduced—we looked upon Mr. CHARLES K BLE
as " a very ill-used gentleman ;" and we regarded the
fatalities of that destructive system of management, to

which, as we have observed, he was but a party,
as the natural and inevitable consequence of admitting

persons who were not professionally experienced in such
pursuits, to any participation .whatever in the direction
of theatrical affairs. We thought so then :—we do not
think so now. Mr. CHARLES KEM BLE has undeceived

us ; and in the frankness of his nature he seems deter-
mined to remove every particle of blame from the con-
duct of his unskilful colleagues, by convincing the pub-
lic, that with all his experience as an actor, he possesses
neither the discretion nor the judgment—the policy nor
the tact, which should qualify him for so important and
responsible a station as that of the Manager of a great
Metropolitan Theatre.
With every pretension to high repute as an accomplished
comedian, but with only the attributes of a respectable
third-rate tragedian, we are sorry to see such a man in-
dulging that desire for exclusive display which was the
great failing of DAVID GARRICE,—the bane of his
popularity, because it was, the " moat easily besetting
sin" of his management. To us it appears as if
Mr. CHARLES KEMBLE had cheated himself
into a belief, that the tragic mantle which had
so long been shared by his distinguished relatives,
had fallen upon his shoulders ;—or' in somewhat less
figurative language, that with the shares in the proprie-
tary of the theatre which were the bequest of the truly
great JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE, the sublime genius of
that brother had also been bequeathed to him as a species
of hereditary heir-loom. As managers, neither " the
mighty dead," nor the ambitious living of the race,
need desire to be " remembered in their epitaphs ;"—the
unbending spirit of the one excited such a storm
of popular fury as, if not timely allayed, would
have left the Theatre a heap of ruins :—and the mistaken
self-importance of the other, neither chastened nor sub-
dued by the calamities of the last summer, bids fair once
more to consign the establishment to that unenviable con-
dition from which it has been raised by adventitious
circumstances. However ungracious these remarks may
be, they are called forth by a strong sense of pub-
lic duty—and, however problematical the assertion
may seem to Mr. KEMBLE, by an earnest desire to deter
him from the further pursuit of measures which so far
from injuring the object of unjustifiable and ungenerous
persecution, we can assure him can only prove injurious
to himself,—prejudicial to the dawning hopes of his
highly-gifted daughter,—and destructive to that property
in which the fortunes of his family are involved. We
should have so far trusted to the prudence for
which we had given him credit, as to have con-
- tented ourselves with the friendly remonstrance,
which the subject elicited from us on Tuesday ;
had not the play-bills for the succeeding evening be-
trayed the rankling inveteracy of an uncharitable spirit—
baffled in the gratification of its jealousy, and driven to
the most paltry expedients to perpetrate an injury which
the law refused to sanction. Strongly as we protested
against the publication of " the one-sided correspondence"
pending the decision of the Court of Chancery, what shall we
say to the mischievous ingenuity which suggested its re-
production as an appendage to the play-bills in which the
performance of Romeo and Juliet was announced? It is
not enough to designate it—a vile but impotent attempt
to excite a prejudice against Mr. KEAY by placing him
in a determined position of rivalry to Miss KEMBLE,
which he never thought of assuming :—we know not by
what term of opprobrium we should stigmatize the
worse than foolish the illiberal and inveterate effort ;
but we must do the only responsible person in the affair
the honour to adapt to his merits one memorable expres-
sion of that scourge of petty tyrants—Junius--and
freely tell Mr. KEMBLE, that we look upon it " as an
odious act, because it is the act of the Manager—and as
his act, because, lie is Manager." But is there not
something more in the whole transaction than " is meant
to meet the eye ?" Are the workings of personal vanity
--professional jealousy—and some feeling yet deeper
and more despicable than either—quite indiscernible in
the supercilious treatment to which Mr. KEAN was 'most
unkindly and uncourteously subjected in the first in-
stance, and most ungratefully exposed throughout ? Or
do we owe the re-iterated publication of a Stage-managers'
" communications" only to the egregious vanity of Mr.
BARTLEY, " concurred in" by the careless complacency
Qf Mr. CHARLES KEMBLE?

Be it as it may, there certainly must be something
more " than is dreamt of in our philosophy," to justify
the line of conduct so systematically pursued towards
that gentleman, who, after having relinquished three
provincial engagements, (by the performance of which,
upwards of two thousand pounds would have been se-
cured to him) and hastened to London, to fulfil
a voluntary and disinterested promise, had the
mortification, instead of being honored by the
visit of the person on whose behalf he had made
such sacrifices—a mark of condescension by no means
degrading to the dignity of a party who could condescend
to accept that generous proffer in the time of need.4o
be waited upon by deputy, (a most respectable and effi-
cient deputy, certainly—but still a deputy) and 'moors-
momously informed that " his services were not re-
quired." Will Mr. BARTLEY question the accuracy
of this statement ?—And all this, too at the very time
when, to render the gratuitous services of Mr. T. P.
COOKE in any way available, the Managers of Covent
Garden are reduced to the necessity of palming upon
the patrons of that Theatre, on the very evening on
which Miss Kunlun played Juliet, an after-
piece which has been played even to satiety
at the Surrey—an Afterpiece of which even the
complimentary critic of the Times admits that
the purpose of its being played here was to enable the
managers to avail themselves of Mr. T. P. Cooxu's offer
playing in aid of the theatre," but " under any other:
circumstances it might be very questionable whether the
piece is of such a kind as ought to be acted at a theatre
like Covent Garden." And has it already come to this ?
Are " our Nobles so soon sunk to ninepence ?" Upon
the very showing of this-most indulgent of all critica--
especially when the interests or Covent Garden are at
stake—we should not• be at all surprised to find, that
with all the show of an • affected indifference to "fr.
Kiaiei unequalled powers, " there is some. ,

thing rotten in the State of Deinlark." How-
ever the Morning Chronicle may think " the natural
course would seem to he for Mr. KEAN to have imme-

diately taken the three open nights of the week," with all
their disadvantages, we request our contemporary to an-
swer us one simple question Had the circumAances under
which Covent Garden was opened this season, been 5..3
untoward" at the period when Miss F. H. Kta.a.v d
all the world to witness her delightful pe:Tormonz-e ot
Juliet —and it was fully as attractive as Miss E
—and the aid of Mr. KEA N had been proffered, just ;Li it
was in this instance, dos he suppose that the borstal
" sense of gratitude and d4csrence to the public" w.).;ld
have operated so far as to set aside so powerfal
an auxiliary, merely be ea use Miss F. H. KELL Y
played on the very nights for which Mr. KEAN stipu-
lated, as the only condition of his gratuitous assistance ?
—The flies of his own parer may furnish an an-
swer to this interrogatory.—We have said all that our

duty rendered it imperative upon us to say at present ;
and however we may deprecate the necessity of recurring
to this subject in a similar spirit, yet we warn Mr. I( -
BLE against the blind and ruilems pursuit of measures,
which, we repeat it, can. only be injurious to him-
self and to the property over which lie has shown
himself but indifferently qualified to preside. But
he must not hope to play the despot or the op-
pressor with impunity.—" So much for Buckingham.
and now for the only " Richnol " of the age.-.At an
early hour on Wednesday evening, Drury-lane was sci
crowded in every part, from the foremost row in the pit
to the highest bench in the gallery, that when the cur-
tain drew up, there was scarcely standing room in any
quarter. Through the first scene of the tragedy, thanks
to the noisy advocates of injustice, little more could be
heard than if it ivere the " tale of an idiot, full of sounds
and fury, signifying nothing"—but provoking such a
manifestation of popular feeling in favour of
KEAN, that his malignant assailants saw they had
but little chalice of adding insult to the wrong be
had sustained. All was impatience till, on the opening
of the second scene, the breathless suspense of a
moment was broken by the most enthusiastic applause
with which a public favourite was ever yet greeted. This
was too much to be endured by the unprovoked antago-
nists, who were evidently so stationed and dispersed
through the House, as to satisfy the most unprejudiced
person, that the attack was systematically organized :
but never was an attempt of so atrocious a nature more
promptly, or more signally defeated. KEAN, on his en-
trance, was evidently labouring under that nervous ex-
citement which the attempt to prejudice the public against
him, by ex parte statement had naturally produced ; hut
the depression was only momentary ; and the cheers
and plaudits by which he was welcomed back to the scene
of his early triumphs, whilst they deeeply and visibly
affected him, soon reassured him, that in " standing
the hazard of the die," be had nothing to fear from
the most rancorous hostility of his enemies.—
We hinted to the Covent Garden Managers, that
" re-actions" in all such cases are very dangerous to
those by whom they are provoked ; and this truth
was fully exemplified in the discomfiture of " the
common cry of curs" that yelped in holes and cor-
ners, in the vain attempt to decry the talents of the
actor, and to militate against the interests of the
Theatre. Gloster's first soliloquy was scarcely audible,
amidst the general and long-continued uproar, till Ku.t s
—with that inimitable scarcasm of tone and manner which
is so peculiarly his own, gave galling effect to that
very applicable line—" the dogs -bark at me, as I
halt by them." A cry of " Turt; out the dogs !" was in-
stantly heard in boxes, pit, and gallery ; and the " curs"
that had hired out ' their most sweet voices' slunk back
into theirown insignificance-humbled, silent, and subdued.
From that moment no opposition was offered to the per-
formance, which was not to be surpassed even by the most
successful of Kzale's most vigorous efforts. He has not
for many years been in such fine voice, and he played
with that regard to his great histrionic reputation which,
we trust, he may never again lose sight of. All the ad-
mirable readings, and the exquisite touches of art, Which
have stamped his4lltistration of the character as an unri-
valled-chef d'auere, were as excellent and effective as
ever. His scene with Lady Anne never was distinguished
by more consummate skill than on this occasion ; and
throughout the play, he maintained all that fire and pas-
sion which so strongly contrast with the deep dissimula-
tion, and insatiate projects of the tyrant. Of the pas-
sages that drew down the most enthusiastic peals of
admiration we may notice that, in which he seals the doom
of his quondam "bosom friend"—" Off with his head !'
So much for Buckingham !"—which was as ably, followed
up by the alternate bursts of triumph and savage ferocity
'with which the closing scenes abound. But we have al-
ready exceeded our limits—and can only say, that when,
at the close of the Tragedy, WALLACE appeared to an-
nounce the performances of the ensuing nights, KEAN
was loudly called for, and on complying with the unani.
mous wishes of the audience, received every mark
of respect and favour.
Hats and handkerchiefs were waved amidst the loudest
cheers, whilst he continued for some moments testifying,'
his sense of. hits, most gratifying reception,--actor and
audience alikeicielighted to find " Rickard himself
again !"

The Duke of CITY BER LAN I) has been Indisposed with
a slight cold during tho last two days, at hie residence at
Kew.
The Boston Papers state the Revenue seeming at that
port, during the last month, was 500,000 dollars ; and
the Revenue this year fully maintains' the receipt of
last year. .
Accounts frtim the Havannah of the eth;:aitnouiice
that transports ba4 been engaged to convey, .7.,-0.0.0 troop,
to Tampico, iiiiirthaiteveral American shipsweVe; engaged
by the Cuba Government for the service. The wine Paper
also adds, that titridia a Russian ship had been chartered
to take on board 500 sailors, to man the Spanish fleet at
the Havannah. . . .

From the Boston Paper of the 3d November :—" Satur-
day we were visited by a storm of wind and rain of un-
usual violence. It commenced at day-break, and con-
tinued till midnight; the tide broke over the wharfs,
which sustained much damage. So high a tide has not
visited this city for 30 or 40 years. The damage sus-
tained by the shipping is less, however, than might be
expected. The New Orleans Courier of the sth Ult.
says,' We are sorry to state that the fever still ragesT on
the coast, nearly all the way from here to Natcher.'
EaCELLENN SHOT.—A gentleman belonging Ito
Dunse, in company with other three went out the
other day with a gun to frighten the birds from a field
of barley which they were destroying; a lark sitting.
at a little distance from where they were standing,
one of the compent, asked the, gentleman referred to
to shoot it fqr him-Afthout doing it any material in-
ingots be ettomesticate a bird of that kind ;
1 to which he rithek, do that for you," and
firing, grazed one of It, All the injury it re--
ceived was the lies of silting feathers.. It is now is
a cage, and doing

THE SPANISH LOANS.

A Meeting was convened, by public advertisement, of
the holders of the Spanish Cortes Bonds yesterday morning, at the
City of London Tavern, for the purpose of taking into consi-
deration some important documents from Madrid connected with
the Loans• . .

The Committee of the Spanish Bondholders, appointed to manage
the negoclations which have been going forward for some arrange-
ments between the King of Spain asd his foreign creditors, gave
”otice that they bad nothing at present to communicate on the sub-
j ct of the Loans, and that, when necessity required, a meeting
fluid be convened by them.
At the Meeting yesterday morning only a few of the Bondholders
aimilded, and no business was gone into up to one o'clock. Some
thisatisfactiors is expressed that the Committee did not make public
the steps they have adopted of late to obtain justice from Ferdi-
n.nd, especially as it is generally believed that they bad more than
one interview with Lurd Aberdeen on the subject. It is also un-
derstood that two eminent Houses are engaged in the negociatiaos
referred to.