The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor

Nature has bestowed upon this young gentleman a countenance of no common order. Its expression has not yet unfolded itself; but we entertain no doubt that when manhood and diligent professional exercise shall have brought the muscles of his face into full relief, and strengthened its lines, it will be powerfully capable of all the inflexions necessary for a general player. At present the character of his physiognomy is perfectly discernible only upon a near view. When he advances towards the front of the stage, the lines may be perceived from that part of the pit and boxes which are near the orchestra; even then the shades are so very much softened by youth, and the parts so rounded, and so utterly free from acute angles, that they can, as yet, but faintly express strong, turbulent emotions, or display the furious passions. In a boy of his age, this, so far from being a defect, is a beauty, the reverse of which would be unnatural; and if it were a defect, every day that passes over his head would remedy it. What is now wanting in muscular expression, is in a great measure supplied by his eye, which glows with animation, and intelligence, and at times speaks the language of a soul really impassioned. Upon a close view, when apart from the factitious aids and incumbrances of stage-lights, costume, and paint, he must be a shallow-sighted physiognomist who would not at the first glance be struck by Master Payne’s countenance. A more extraordinary mixture of softness and intelligence never were associated in a human face. The forehead is particularly fine; Lavater would say that genius and energy were enthroned there; and over the whole, though yet quite boyish, there is a strong expression of what is called manliness; by which is to be understood, not present, but the indications of future manliness. How strongly and distinctly this is characterised in the boy’s face, may be collected from an anecdote which, exclusive of its application to this subject, we think well worth relating on account of the other party concerned in it.

A day or two before Master Payne left Philadelphia he and a friend of his walking in a remote part of the city, were encountered by a strange old woman, who requested alms with an earnestness which exacted attention. The gentleman who was in company with our youth, and from whom we deliver the story, being an Irishman, instantly recognizing in the petitioner, an unhappy countrywoman, stopped, surveyed her with more than cursory regard, and put his hand into his pocket in order to give her money. As there was in her aspect that which bespoke something that had once been better accommodated, and had claims above a common mendicant, he was searching in his pocket for a suitable piece of silver, when the generous boy outstripping him, put unostentatiously, into the old lady’s hand some pieces of silver. She viewed them – drew back – gazed upon him for some seconds with a fixed look of wonder, delight and affection, then lifting up her eyes to heaven, in a tone of voice, and with a solemnity which no words can express, exclaimed, “May the great God of heaven shower down his blessings on your infant years, and manly face!” Quickness of conception beyond all other people is now allowed, even by the English, to be characteristic of the people of Ireland, once considered by those of the sister kingdom as the Bæotians of Britain; and we are disposed to concur with the Irish gentleman, who, in his exultation and honest prejudice said, “that the woman might be known to be Irish from her warm gratitude, her quick discernment, and her elegant extemporaneous compliment.” In fact, if Edmund Burke himself, who exceeded all mankind in the quickness and elegance of complimentary replies, had been considering the matter a whole hour, he could not have uttered anything to surpass it.

Of Master Payne’s person we cannot speak (nor do we hope) so favourably as of his face. And we much fear that he will not undergo the pain of mending it by abstinence from indulgence. Early hours, active or even hard exercise, particularly of the gymnastic kind, and diligent unremitting study are as indispensable to his fame, if he means to be a player, as food or drink are to his support. In general his action is elegant – his attitudes bold and striking; but of the former he sometimes uses too much, and in his appropriation of the latter he is not always sufficiently discriminating. This was particularly observable in his performance of Frederick in Lover’s Vows – a character in which we shall have occasion to speak of him, and with great praise in a future number. His walk too, which in his own unaffected natural gait is not exceptionable, he frequently spoils by a kind of pushing step, at open war with dignity of deportment. It would be well for this young gentleman if he had never seen Mr. Cooper. Perhaps he will be startled at this; and flatters himself that he never imitates that gentleman. We can readily conceive him to think so even at the moment he is doing it. To imitate another, it is not necessary to intend to do so. Every day of their lives men imitate without the intervention of the will. The manners of an admired, or much-observed individual, insensibly root themselves in a young person’s habits – he draws them into his system, as he does the atmosphere which surrounds him. We doubt very much whether Mr. Cooper himself would not be surprised if he knew how much he imitates Kemble. Though seemingly a paradox, we firmly rely upon it – Mr. Cooper may be aiming at Cooke, when he is by old habitual taint really hitting Kemble.[1 - Had Mr. Cooper entered on the profession in the days of Garrick, we are persuaded he would, with the advantage of that great man as a model, and the scientific Macklin as an instructor, have been one of the first actors that ever existed.] On this subject of imitation much is to be said. Kemble rose when every bright luminary of the stage had set. Being the best of his day, in the metropolis, he has become the standard of acting to the young and inexperienced; more from pride than want of judgment he goes wrong; his system of acting is radically vitious; but as it makes labour pass as a substitute for genius, by transferring expression from its natural organs to the limbs, and making attitude and action the chief representatives of the passions and the feelings, it not only fascinates because it catches the eye, but is adopted because extremely convenient to the vast majority of young adventurers on the stage, who, possessing neither the feelings fit for the profession, nor the organs, nor the genius to express them if they had, are glad to find a substitute for both. Hence the system of Mr. Kemble has spread like a plague – infected the growing race of actors, mixed itself with the very life-blood of the art, and extended its contagion through every new branch, even to the very last year’s bud. Thus Mr. Kemble is imitated by those who never saw him. Let us tell Master Payne that it is the very worst school he could go to, this of the statuary. It is as much inferior to the old one – to that of Garrick, Barry, Mossop, and nature, as the block of marble from which the Farnesian Hercules was hewed, is to the god himself. Of its superiority we need urge no farther proof than that of Mr. Cooke, who, though assuredly inferior to several of the old stock, and groaning under unexampled intemperance, has in spite of every impediment which artful jealousy and envy of his talents could raise against him, risen so high in public estimation, that even when just reeking from offences which would not have been endured in Garrick or Barry, his return is hailed with shouts, as if it were a national triumph. And why? – because he is of the old school, and scorns the cajolery of statue-attitude and stage-trick.

We speak thus freely to Master Payne because we think he has talents worth the interposition of criticism, and if we speak at all, must speak the whole truth. The praise we give him might well be distrusted, if from any false delicacy we slurred over his defects and errors. The most dangerous rock in his way will be adulation. Sincerely we wish him to be assured that those who mix their applause with a proper alloy of censure are his best friends. Indiscriminate flatterers are no better than the snake which besmears its prey with slime, only to gorge it the more easily.

On reviewing what we have written, we find no observation on Master Payne’s voice, in which nature has been very bountiful to him. We heard him a few times, with no little pain strain it out of its compass. He need not do so; since, judiciously managed, it is equal to all the purposes of his profession. Those are dangerous experiments, by which he may spoil a voice naturally clear, melodious, and of tolerable compass. His pronunciation is at times hurtful to a very nice ear. He is not to imagine that he has spoken as he ought when he has uttered words as they are pronounced in general conversation. There are some, and high ones too, who will say “good boy” when they mean “goodbye;” and it would not be at all impossible to hear a very fine lady say that she was daown in taown, to buy a gaown. We do not accuse Master Payne of this; but at times a little of the a cheats the o of its good old round rights; so distantly however, as not to be noticed except by a very accurate ear – but he ought not to let any ear discover it.

To the correct orthoepist, several persons on the stage give offence in the pronunciation of the pronoun possessive my – speaking it in all cases with the full open y, as it would rhyme to fly, which should only be when it is put in contradistinction to thy or his, or any other pronoun possessive: in all other cases it should be sounded like me. This is a pure Americanism, not practised in any other place where the English language is spoken, and, so far as it goes, deprives the word of a quality of nice distinctness.

It gives us great pleasure to communicate to our readers the intelligence that Master Payne’s success at Richmond, even surpassed that which he had met before. From a letter submitted to our perusal we have, with permission, made the following extract: “Wednesday night Payne arrived; Thursday was the first day of his performance; the other nights, being Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, when the house closed for the season; and on Sunday he departed in the mail stage. This flying visit (of ten days only) produced him upwards of seventeen hundred dollars!!”

It was our intention to confine our remarks on this occasion entirely to Master Payne. It seemed to us that the interest taken by the public in this native plant, the novelty of his appearance, and, indeed, his own merits, laid claim to a very particular discussion of his performances: but as we read over the play for that purpose, Mr. M‘Kenzie’s Old Norval forced itself so imperiously upon our remembrance, that we could not drop the subject without doing justice to that gentleman’s performance and our own feelings. It was a specimen of acting and speaking we little expected to meet with: masterly, chaste, and exquisitely affecting; no less gratifying to the critical ear than to the feeling heart. We particularly admired his attestation to heaven of his innocence:

As I hope
For mercy before the judgment seat of heaven
The tender lamb that never nipt the grass
Is not more innocent than I of murder.

And his pathetic supplication for mercy:

Oh, gentle lady! by your lord’s dear life,
Which these weak hands, I swear, did ne’er assail,
And by your children’s welfare spare my age!
Let not the iron tear my aged joints,
And my gray hairs bring to the grave with pain.

The first of these he poured forth with an expression of simple sincerity, and the second with a gentle earnestness, so humble, so passionately moving, that none but the most hardened hearts could resist it. Even the gallery felt its force and made the house resound with its rude applause – ’twas well; and we may say with Pierre,

We could have hugged the greasy rogues; they pleased us.

As in the two former passages Mr. M‘Kenzie presented a specimen of exquisitely pathetic expression, so he evinced his skill and powers of speaking in that speech which may be called the pride of the play – perhaps of all Scottish poetry too, in which he relates the finding of the child:

One stormy night, as I remember well,
The wind and rain beat hard upon our roof;
Red came the river down, and loud and oft
The angry spirit of the water shriek’d, &c.

Randolph is a character of which we doubt whether Cooke himself could make any thing. Mr. Warren did all that is usually done for him.

Partial as we are to Mr. Wood’s acting generally, we did not perceive in his performance of Glenalvon any thing to please us very much, or augment his reputation.

In Lady Randolph, Mrs. Barrett would deserve much commendation, if she could get rid of a few faults in her speaking. Her feelings and personal appearance are finely adapted to the character.

A correspondent at Baltimore, of whose judgment we think highly, has sent us the following communication, and expressed a wish that we should publish it – at the same time acknowledging that it had been printed in some periodical paper. As we wish to oblige our correspondent, and there is no opinion in it which, according to our present idea of the company violently militates against our own, we give it a place.

While so interesting a scene is now acting upon the great theatre of the world, and as the chief performer has recently closed one of the acts with a very important incident, it may, by many be considered as a relaxation, to employ a few minutes in taking a concise view of our own little theatre; the leader of which has also so lately closed his campaign in Baltimore.

I am the more desirous of offering a few remarks upon this subject, from having occasionally heard observations indicating some disapprobation relative to our theatrical arrangements. Such impressions, we flatter ourselves, a little more information upon the subject, and a candid reconsideration will do away. From a knowledge of the state of the theatres in other parts of the continent, we feel ourselves perfectly safe in declaring, that ours is most unquestionably entitled to the first place, whether we have reference to the performers composing the company, the scenery, dresses, decorations or music.

In tragedy and genteel comedy, Mr. Wood must certainly be considered preeminent, with the exception of Mr. Cooper only, who though perhaps[2 - Perhaps!!! Mr. Wood we dare say has too much good sense to relish this perhaps, it rather savours of irony.] excelling him in some tragical characters, is considered by many good judges, as by no means his superior in many appertaining to genteel comedy.

Mrs. Wood ranks high in the same line; the correct style in which she gives the sense of her author, the refinement of her taste and her clear and distinct utterance, must always ensure to her the approbation of an enlightened audience; we feel some reluctance in adding that her uniformity of declamation, and something in her tones approaching to monotony, retard her progress to that excellence to which the qualifications abovementioned must evidently lead her.

Mr. Warren, viewed only as a performer, will be found fairly deserving of our praise. In the arduous character of the “inimitable and unimitated Falstaff” he has no rival on this side the Atlantic. In the other class of characters, to which he modestly confines himself, he is always correct and respectable.

In Mr. Cone, we see a young performer gradually rising in estimation. To the manners of a gentleman, he adds a habit of discrimination, the effect of a liberal education; and could he get over a certain inflexibility of voice, (whether arising from nature or habit we know not) he must very soon become a distinguished performer.

Mr. M‘Kenzie is also a most respectable and useful actor: his person and manner give him many advantages in performing characters requiring dignity and firmness of deportment; as Glenalvon in Douglas, he is excellent; and those who have witnessed his performance of sir Archy M‘Sarcasm and sir Pertinax M‘Sycophant, will unite with us in paying him the tribute of applause for his correct personification of the wily Scotchman. – His talents do not seem calculated for genteel comedy in general.

Mrs. Barrett must be considered as a very useful actress; her figure is well adapted to the characters she undertakes, and her general deportment upon the stage immediately indicates her perfect acquaintance with the boards.

Mrs. Wilmot needs not our panegyric to call forward that public attention she has so long merited; her qualifications as an actress are uncommonly general – whether we see her in genteel comedy, or in the English opera, we are equally gratified with the diversity of her talents. As a singer, her voice and judgment are equally conspicuous, and those who have seen her in the character of Ophelia, will readily admit her claim to the pathetic.

In addition to Mrs. Wilmot as a vocal performer, we have Mrs. Seymour, who possesses much sweetness and melody of tone, and whose modest and unassuming manner of giving her songs is not their smallest attraction.

In low comedy where shall we find a competitor to Jefferson? The only performer who seems to bear the comparison for a moment is Twaits; but although we willingly subscribe to his merits, yet we can by no means admit him capable of that variety of character for which Mr. Jefferson is so distinguished.

Mr. Blisset is also very prominent in the same line – Together with a fund of humour he possesses a whimsical eccentricity of character which is always diverting; his voice however, is frequently too weak to be heard in the remote parts of the house.

Mr. and Mrs. Francis have long enjoyed the favour of the public. Francis has much comic talent, sometimes, however, he is led by it, a little too much into the caricature. Mrs. F. is not less diverting, and remarkable for her appropriate manner of dressing for old characters; a property very estimable. The ladies too often sacrifice a correct representation of the character in this respect, to an unconquerable aversion they so naturally retain of appearing old and ugly.

Mr. West, lately added to the company, seems to promise something in low comedy; and Mr. Hardinge, in Irish characters, and vocal parts will certainly be an acquisition to the theatre. Although our dramatis personæ do not afford much strength as to their vocal abilities; some of those abovenamed, with the assistance of Wilmot and Jacobs, form a group sufficient to render a musical piece very entertaining.

It should be recollected, that in all theatrical companies, there must necessarily be a number of inferior rank; performers of merit will not take the minor parts abounding in every dramatic piece; and while we condemn a want of excellence in the performer, we should consider, that did he possess more talent, he would not fill that situation.

Our orchestra will assuredly bear the strictest scrutiny. – The names of Gillingham and Niniger are sufficient of themselves to stamp its character. The other accompaniments are very respectable and sufficiently numerous. The scenery, as far as the scale of the stage will admit, is frequently beautiful, sometimes superb. The illuminated wings recently exhibited in some of the pieces last produced, are new to this country, and have a very brilliant effect: they do much credit to Messrs. Robins and Stewart in the painting-room. The dresses of the principal performers are rich and beautiful; to those who are acquainted with European theatres, it will not be considered as amplifying, when we assert, that we do not yield to them in that species of decoration. The management of the scenery is as correct and subject to as few interruptions as possible; and the expedition with which one act succeeds another, can be only appreciated by those who have witnessed the tedious delay so often experienced in other places.

We are assured no pains have been spared by the manager to procure the most eminent performers; nor is any opportunity omitted to take advantage of the accidental presence of any performer, whose engagement promises to gratify the town.

This theatre has taken the lead in getting up every thing novel, in either branch of the drama, and that in a style very much superior to any other establishment of the kind upon the continent. It must be evident that it is the wish, as it is the interest of the manager, to conduct the trust committed to him upon the most liberal principles: that which pleases the public most, is most favourable to him.

It must be observed, that the limits of a sketch like this, could only admit of a very concise and general view of the subject. The writer has no farther connexion or interest in the theatre, than that he holds in common with those who are partial to dramatic entertainments, and who think with him that a well regulated theatre, which is the only public amusement Baltimore can boast of, instructs while it amuses, and conduces much to that grace and elegance of conversation and manners so fascinating in private life.

IRISH MUSIC

In the last number, the reader was presented with a short sketch upon the subject of Irish music, in a letter from the celebrated poet Moore. That gentleman very philosophically ascribes the mixture of levity and melancholy which is discernible in the character, as well as the music of the original native Irish, to political circumstances. All who have paid attention to the airs of that country must have perceived that they are extremely lively and exhilarating, or delightfully plaintive and melancholy. The former may be considered as displaying the ground-work, or the natural temperament, the other the superinduced adventitious character, derived from poverty and oppression. A writer of considerable talents and intimate knowledge of the subject (Mr. Walker) adverting to the poetry as well as the music of Ireland, speaks as follows:

“We see that music maintained its ground in this country even after the invasion of the English, but its style suffered a change; for the sprightly Phrygian gave place to the grave Doric, or the soft Lydian measure. Such was the nice sensibility of the bards, such was their tender affection for their country, that the subjections to which the kingdom was reduced affected them with the heaviest sadness. Sinking beneath this weight of sympathetic sorrow, they became a prey to melancholy: hence the plaintiveness of their music: for the ideas that arise in the mind are always congenial to, and receive a mixture from the influencing passion. Another cause might have occurred in the one just mentioned, in promoting a change in the style of our music; the bards often driven together with their patrons, by the sword of oppression, from the busy haunts of men, were obliged to lie concealed in marshes, and in glyns and vallies resounding with the noise of falling waters, or filled with portentous echoes. Such scenes as these, by throwing a settled gloom over the fancy, must have considerably increased their melancholy; so that when they attempted to sing, it is not to be wondered at that their voices, thus weakened by struggling against heavy mental depression, should rise rather by minor-thirds, which consist but of four semitones, than by major-thirds which consist of five. Now almost all the airs of this period are found to be set in the minor-third, and to be of the sage and solemn nature which Milton requires in his Il Penseroso.”[3 - See Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards.]

To illustrate his position, Mr. Walker introduces the following anecdote: “About the year 1730, one Maguire, a vintner, resided near Charing Cross, London. His house was much frequented, and his skill in playing on the harp was an additional incentive: even the duke of Newcastle and several of the ministry sometimes condescended to visit it. He was one night called upon to play some Irish tunes; he did so; they were plaintive and solemn. His guests demanded the reason, and he told them that the native composers were too deeply distressed at the situation of their country, and her gallant sons, to be able to compose otherwise. But, added he, take off the restraints under which they labour, and you will not have reason to complain of the plaintiveness of their notes.

“Offence was taken at these warm effusions: his house became gradually neglected, and he died soon after of a broken heart. An Irish harper who was a cotemporary of Maguire, and like him, felt for the sufferings of his country, had this distich engraven on his harp:

Cur lyra funestas edit percussa sonores?
Sicut amissum sors diadema gemit.

But perhaps the melancholy spirit which breathes through the Irish music and poetry, may be attributed to another cause; a cause which operated anterior and subsequent to the invasion of the English: we mean the remarkable susceptibility of the Irish to the passion of love; a passion which the munificent establishment of the bards left them at liberty freely to indulge. While the mind is enduring the torments of fear, despair or hope, its effusions cannot be gay. The greater number of the productions of those amorous poets, Tibullus, Catullus, Petrarch and Hammond, are elegiac. The subject of their songs is always love, and they seem to understand poetry to be designed for no other purpose than to stir up that passion in the mind.