CHARLES KEMBLE'S ARGUMENT

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quished only by better houses-and the public would in that case gain by the death.

North. His arguments are ably put, but to me they appear inconclusive. He says "that the new theatres would bribe away certain individuals of acknowledged talent and celebrity," (and he adds, parenthetically and pathetically, "God knows they are too few !") "but those few would be scattered then in half-a-dozen different theatres, instead of being collected in one or two; and the perfection of a play depends extremely on the talent you get into it."

Tickler. No doubt it does.

North. The conclusion he draws from these premises is, that the Great Theatres would be ruined, and at the same time the smaller ones good for nothing.

Tickler. Whew!

North. If one first-rate actor could not support a small theatre, and if, as Mr Kemble thinks, only one at the most could be got, then, in a very short time indeed, the small theatres would be changed into conventicles-and Covent Garden and Drury Lane, after transient obscuration, effulge, like suns, brighter from eclipse. He says that a long time would elapse before the legitimate drama could be adequately represented in one of those theatres; and I say, that if so, the public could not wait a long time, and the actors of genius and celebrity, that had been bribed away, would return to their former spheres.

Tickler. I have the highest esteem for Charles Kemble, but I fear you are right.

North. Neither will he admit that the competition of the new theatres would bring forward new actors of talent or genius. "If," says he, "you divide the little talent there is among us into a great number of theatres, you will be worse served." Tickler. Whew!

North. There would not be a great number of theatres; nor does anybody suppose that, by dividing a given quantity of talent, and that quantity little, you will make it great. It is to talent not yet displayed, not yet born, that the stimulus of competition will be applied

Tickler. Don't dwell longer on that point, or you will get prosier than you may suspect. Keep moving.

372

IN FAVOUR OF DRAMATIC MONOPOLY.

North. "It is not the increase of theatres," cries Charles, with great animation, "that will give you an increase of fine actors. The qualifications of a fine actor are a gift that God gives, and they are not to be multiplied as theatres may be." Tickler. That is very spunky-but whence arise fine actors but from theatres? John Kemble-Sarah Siddons

North. Don't get prosy, Tim. Mr Kemble then says that many of the smaller London theatres have acted the legitimate drama in defiance of all law, but that we do not see those results which the advocates for minor theatres seem to calculate onwe have not seen that great actors have arisen in them.

Tickler. A manifest sophism. Those theatres have indeed occasionally acted the legitimate drama (some of them never have), but in defiance of law; and is it to be expected that, under such uncertainty and peril, and even discredit, great or good actors are to arise?

North. Mr Kemble even goes the length of denying that there is any demand for any other theatres. If the public call for them, there is good reason, he allows, for answering the public; but the present demands are got up, he asserts, by a set of interested adventurers and speculators, who have nothing to lose, and think the best course they can pursue is to ruin those whom they think have. Some have already become bankrupt.

Tickler. In that case, then, he has little to fear. But great theatres, alas! become bankrupt too—

"The paths of glory lead to the Gazette."

North. Mr Charles Kemble, however, though arguing throughout under a strong bias, is a man of honour; and on this question being forcibly pressed upon him, "Do you not think that the cultivation of a taste for the Drama, which would be favoured by the increased number of theatres having the power to exercise the legitimate Drama, would more than make up for any loss you might sustain by competition ?" He answers, with laudable candour, "If I speak conscientiously, which I wish to do, I should think they might prove a nursery; that it is probable that in a length of years, if the number of theatres were restricted to a reasonable number, and those theatres were only allowed to act the legitimate Drama, and that there might be none of those spurious entertainments

MATTHEWS' EVIDENCE.

373

given"-(no, no, my dear Charles, that would be a most unfair restriction, while spurious entertainments were allowed in the Great Theatres)," then I agree that the Drama might be improved, and in course of years we might expect to have elèves, who would fully replace the good actors we have now.” Tickler. What says Matthews?

North. To my utter astonishment and dismay, that permission to perform the legitimate drama at other theatres besides the two patent ones and the Haymarket, "would, in the course of a very short time, brutalise the drama."

Tickler. I am dumfoundered. How feel you at that discharge?

North. As if a bullet had gone through my head.

Tickler. In at one ear and out at the other, without touching the brain.

North. Nevertheless, I would fain try a fall with this Charles; but I feel fatigued with my tussle with the other strong man, so must retire from the ring; though it forces me to eat my heart to see the castor of such a customer flung up without my pitching in after it my vernon.

Tickler. I take.

North. The Drama, I fear, is in a bad way, Tim, in London; and if so, it cannot be very flourishing in the provinces. Mr Matthews acknowledges that fashion is fatal to it. "I meet young gentlemen now," says he, "who formerly used to think it almost a crime not to go to the theatre; but they now ask, 'whereabouts is Covent Garden Theatre?' although the same people would faint away if they thought they had not been to the Italian Opera. If they are asked whether they have seen Kean or not lately, they will say, 'Kean? Kean? No. Where does he act? I have not been there these three years.' Formerly, it was the fashion to go to the theatre; but now a lady cannot show her face at table next day, and say she has been at the theatre. If they are asked whether they have been at Covent Garden or Drury Lane, they say, 'Oh, dear, no! I never go there it is too low!'

Tickler. Taglioni, I am told, is a seducing Sylph-Heberlé a dangerous Dryad. They dance you into a delirium. North. And the German opera is divine.

Tickler. Those morning, forenoon, afternoon, evening, and midnight concerts, private and public, are sadly against play

374

OLD GEORGE COLMAN.

going. To say nothing of déjeunés prolonged from meridian to twilight, and dinners of countless courses

North. Gaming-tables in drawing-rooms, parlours, boudoirs, bed-rooms.

Tickler. O Lord! not in bed-rooms

North. Yes, even so. There is nothing too good or too bad, too beautiful or too ugly—

Tickler. Ugsome.

North. That Fashion and Folly will not fix on with a mad desire, till all at once the passion sickens and dies, and "off to some other game they both together fly!"

Tickler. Matthews is right here-if wrong there.

North. "I remember the time," saith the green and glorious veteran (he has been nearly forty years on the stage), "when it was no shame to go to see the legitimate drama; but it is now." But, asks one of the Select, "do you not think that may be the result of the acting not being sufficiently good?" "I want to know when the actors have not been sufficiently good FOR THEM?"

Tickler. Spoken like a man.

North. "It was the fashion," he adds, "to go and see Miss O'Neil for a season; and Mr Kean for a season; if they were real and sincere admirers of those actors, they would have followed them; but we found that theatres, at which they acted, dropt down from £600 to £200."

Tickler. There are lamentably few sincere admirers of anything admirable in this world.

North. You know old George Colman ?

Tickler. No.

North. You have read his Broad Grins?

Tickler. No. Eye and nose shrunk from the dunghill in disgust.

North. He holds under the Lord Chamberlain the Office of Examiner of all theatrical entertainments.

Tickler. That is sufficient of itself to damn the drama. North. He was sworn, he gravely tells us, in February 1824, "to take care that nothing should be introduced into plays which is profane or indecent, or morally or politically improper for the stage."

Tickler. I see no use, in his case, of such an oath. I presume were he to suffer anything of the sort to defile a play—

COLMAN ON ANGELS.

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profanity or indecency I mean he would be dismissed, and lose his salary; and that fear, being of this world, would be likely to be as operative on the hoary-headed perpetrator of the filth of Broad Grins, as the reverence of any oath regarding merely the life to come. 'Twas a needless profanation of the Prayer-book or Bible.

North. The dotard has become intolerantly decent in his old age; so pious, that he shudders at the word "angel” in a play! "The Committee have heard of your cutting out of a play the epithet 'angel' as applied to a woman ?”

Tickler. Nay-that must be calumny on Colman.

North. No. George, as Mawworm, cantingly, and yet, I doubt not, leeringly replies, "Yes, because it is a woman, I grant, but it is a celestial woman. It is an allusion to the scriptural angels, which are celestial bodies. Every man who has read his Bible understands what they are; or if he has not, I will refer him to Milton."

Tickler. Well, I did not know till now that there is a man in England who denies that a human woman—a female woman, as the sailors say—is an angel. Is the old sinner

North. We are all old sinners.

Tickler. True. Is the old sinner serious when he insinuates that a human female is not a celestial creature?

North. He seems so stupidly and doggedly serious. Tickler. Does the aged docken deny that she is a "celestial body?"

North. He does.

Tickler. Fie on the old Eunuch!

North. He utters a falsehood when he says that every man who has read his Bible understands what the scriptural angels are no man understands what they are; they are a mystery. But note the impudence of the hypocrite. "If he has not, I will refer him to Milton." That is, "if he has not read his Bible;" and this language is used sarcastically to the Member of the Select Committee who was courteously interrogating the Broad-Grinner.

Tickler. I trust not courteously.

North. His impudence is only less than his ignorance, in referring his questioner to Milton, in proof of the scriptural angels being celestial women. That gentleman mildly remarks, "Milton's angels are not Ladies." Instead of blushing,