PAGE

Twelfth Night, Act 1. Sc. 5.
Dyer, Grongar Hill, 1. 103.

351. Die and leave, etc. 352. Ever charming,' etc. Jane Shore. January 2, 1817. Rowe's tragedy was first produced in 1713. In The Examiner Hazlitt concludes this article as follows:- We think the tragedy of Jane Shore, which is founded on the dreadful calamity of hunger, is hardly proper to be represented in these starving times; and it ought to be prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain, on a principle of decorum. Of Mrs. Alsop, who is said to have an engagement at this theatre, we have spoken at the time when she appeared at the other house. Those who have before not witnessed her performance, will now probably have an opportunity of seeing her in company with Mrs. Mardyn, and may judge whether the laborious comparison we attempted between her and that lady was well or ill-founded. We see little alteration or improvement in her. Her figure and face are against her; otherwise she is certainly a very spirited little actress, and her voice is excellent. Her singing, however, does not correspond with what you would expect from her speaking tones. It wants volume and clearness. Mrs. Alsop's laugh sometimes puts us a little in mind of her mother: and those parts of the character of Violante in which she succeeded best were the most joyous and exulting ones : her expression of distress is truly distressing. Miss Kelly played Flora; and it was the only time we ever saw her fail. She seemed to be playing tricks with the chambermaid: now those kind of people are as much in earnest in their absurdities as any other class of people in the world, and the great beauty of Miss Kelly's acting in all other instances is, that it is more in downright earnest than any other acting in the world. We hope she does not think of growing fantastical, and operatic. The new pantomime is very poor.'

The Theatrical Examiners of January 12 and January 19, 1817 are clearly Hazlitt's. The first is a notice of Cherry's The Soldier's Daughter, revived at Covent Garden, January 8, and contains a severe criticism of Miss O'Neill as a comic actress. The second is a notice of Cimarosa's Penelope and the comic Ballet Dansomanie at the King's Theatre, and concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber's Life on the introduction of opera into England.

353. The Humorous Lieutenant. In The Examiner the article from which this notice is taken begins with a long account (probably by Hazlitt) of Southerne's Oroonoko revived at Drury Lane January 20, 1817 with Kean as Oroonoko and Miss Somerville as Imoinda. The Humorous Lieutenant (January 18) was a bad alteration' by Frederic Reynolds. Celia was played by 'a Young Lady, 1st appearance on any stage.'

354.

Whose utmost skirts, etc. Paradise Lost, XI. 332-3.

1. 20.

The Theatrical Examiner of February 2, 1817 in which are noticed
John Philip Kemble's farce The Pannel, revived at Drury Lane January 29,
1816 and a melodrama (attributed to Pocock) The Ravens, or the Force of
Conscience, acted at Covent Garden January 24, 1817, is clearly Hazlitt's.
The article contains a comparison between the Drury Lane and Covent
Garden companies.

Two New Ballets. From a Theatrical Examiner which begins with an
account of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro not at all in Hazlitt's manner.
Like Virgil's wood. Eneid, 111. 37-40.

Whom lovely Venus,' etc. L'Allegro, 14 et seq.

"When you do dance,' etc. A Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 4.

Booth. Junius Brutus Booth (1796-1852), whose first important appearances

PAGE

in London are noticed in this and the two following articles. The last years of his life were spent in America.

What does he [do they] in the north.' Richard III., Act Iv. Sc. 4.

355. A weak invention, etc. Cf. 'A thing devised by the enemy.' Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3.

Figaro.
(1784).

Holcroft's The Follies of a Day; or, the Marriage of Figaro

356. The fell opposite. Vaguely Shakesperian, Cf. Twelfth Night, Act . Sc. 4, and Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2.

'I know my price no less. Othello, Act 1. Sc. 1.

"Give the world,' etc. Hamlet, Act 111. Sc. 4.

'My wit comes,' etc.

357. The O. P. rows.

in 1809.

Misquoted from Othello, Act 11. Sc. 1.

The old price riots at the new Covent Garden Theatre

358. Frightened to Death. A musical farce by Oulton.

359.

'From which,' etc. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

1. 19. The Theatrical Examiner for the following week (March 9, 1817) contains a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of The Heir of Vironi, or Honesty the Best Policy (Covent Garden, February 27), and of 'Mr. Booth's imitations of Mr. Kean.' With this exception The Theatrical Examiners down to March 13 are by Leigh Hunt.

Cibber. Cf. ante, pp. 160-2.

360. In hidden maxes,' etc. Misquoted from L'Allegro, 141-2.

361. Frontlet.' King Lear, Act 1. Sc. 4.

362. The Inn-Keeper's Daughter. By George Soane (1790-1860). 363. Airs from heaven,' etc. Hamlet, Act 1. Sc. 4.

364. And when she spake, etc.

.

The Faerie Queene, 11. iii. 24.

365. Signor Ambrogetti. Giuseppe Ambrogetti was in London 1817-1821. "Sense of amorous delight.' The spirit of love and amorous delight.' Paradise Lost, VIII. 477.

Signor Crivelli, etc.

Gaetano Crivelli (1774-1836), a tenor; Violante

Camporese (b. 1785), a soprano; Carlo Angrisani (b. circa 1760), a bass.

366. 1. 6. The Theatrical Examiner concludes with an 'Anecdote relating to the Overture of Don Giovanni,' and a reference to Elphi Bey, 'a tedious and insipid' romantic drama (Drury Lane, April 17).

Ex uno omnes. 'Ab uno disce omnes.' Eneid, 11. 65-6.

367. With all appliances, etc. Henry IV., Part II. Act m. Sc. 1.

"The golden cadences,' etc.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

'Golden cadence of poesy.' Love's Labour's Lost,

368. 1. 29. The Theatrical Examiner of May 4, 1817, clearly by Hazlitt, contains a notice of Johnny Gilpin (Drury Lane, April 28), and a brief reference to Mrs. Hill's Lady Macbeth (April 29). Johnny Gilpin is described as 'very poorly got up.' 369. Holland.

1820.

Charles Holland (1768-1849?) played at Drury Lane 1796

370. 1. 14. The Theatrical Examiner concludes as follows: We have not room to say much of the new tragedy of The Apostate, for which we are not sorry, as we should have little good to say of it. The poetry does not rise to the merit of common-place, and the tragic situations are too violent, frequent, and improbable. It is full of a succession of self-inflicted horrors. Miss O'Neill played the heroine of the piece, whose affectation and meddling 1 By Richard Lalor Sheil.

PAGE

The

imbecility occasion all the mischief, and played it shockingly well.
Mr. Young's Malec was in his best and most imposing manner.
best things in The Apostate were the palpable hits at the Inquisition and
Ferdinand the Beloved, which were taken loudly and tumultuously by the
house, a circumstance which occasioned more horror in that wretched
infatuated devoted tool of despotism, the Editor of The New Times,1 than
all the other horrors of the piece. The Dungeons of the Holy Inquisition,
whips, racks, and slow fires, kindled by legitimate hands, excite no horror
in his breast; but that a British public still revolt at these things, that that
fine word Legitimacy has not polluted their souls and poisoned their very
senses with the slime and filth of slavery and superstition, this writhes his
brain and plants scorpions in his mind, and makes his flesh crawl and
shrink in agony from the last expression of manhood and humanity in an
English audience, as if a serpent had wound round his heart!'

The Theatrical Examiner of May 18, 1817, in which is described a second visit to Don Giovanni, and Kean's Eustace de St. Pierre in The Surrender of Calais, is clearly Hazlitt's.

370. Something rotten, etc. Hamlet, Act 1. Sc. 4.

Mr. Sinclair. John Sinclair (1791-1857), tenor singer.

To split the ears, etc.

371. And of his port, etc. 372. None but himself, etc.

Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 69.
Lewis Theobald, The Double Falsehood.

1. 9. The article in The Examiner concludes: 'Drury Lane. The farce of
The Romp 2 was revived here, and we hope will be continued, for we like
to laugh when we can. Mrs. Alsop does the part of Priscilla Tomboy, and
is all but her mother in it. Knight is clever enough as Watty Cockney;
and the piece, upon the whole, went off with great éclat, allowing for the
badness of the times, for our want of genius for comedy, and of taste for
farce.'

Barbarossa. By John Brown (1715-1766), author of An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757). Barbarossa was produced in 1754, Athelstane, the author's other tragedy, in 1756.

Paul and Virginia. A musical drama by James Cobb (1756-1818), produced in 1800.

And when your song, etc.
The Tatler, No. 163 (by Addison).
'In our heart's core, etc. Hamlet, Act 111. Sc. 2.

last line. The Theatrical Examiner concludes as follows: Covent Garden.
Mr. Kemble played Posthumus here on Friday. At present, to use a
favourite pun, all his characters are posthumous; he plays them repeatedly
after the last time. We hate all suspense and we therefore wish Mr.
Kemble would go, or let it alone. We had much rather, for ourselves,
that he staid; for there is no one to fill his place on the stage. The
mould is broken in which he was cast. His Posthumus is a very successful
piece of acting. It alternately displays that repulsive stately dignity of
manner, or that intense vehemence of action, in which the body and the
mind strain with eager impotence after a certain object of disappointed
passion, for which Mr. Kemble is peculiarly distinguished. In the scenes
with Iachimo he was particularly happy, and threw from him the imputations
and even the proofs of Imogen's inconstancy with a fine manly graceful
scorn. The burst of inconsolable passion when the conviction of his

1 Dr. John Stoddart, who had left The Times early in 1817, and started The Day and New Times, afterwards known as The New Times.

2 Founded on Bickerstaffe's Love in the City, and first produced 1781.

treacherous rival's success is forced upon him, was nearly as fine as his smothered indignation and impatience of the least suggestion against his mistress's purity of character, had before been. In the concluding scene he failed. When he comes forward to brave Iachimo, and as it were to sink him to the earth by his very presence-Behold him here'—his voice and manner wanted force and impetuosity. Mr. Kemble executes a surprise in the most premeditated and least unexpected manner possible. What was said the other day in praise of this accomplished actor, might be converted into an objection to him: he has been too much used to figure 66 on tesselated pavements, when a fall would be fatal" to himself as well as others. He therefore manages the movements of his person with as much care as if he were a marble statue, and as if the least trip in his gait, or discomposure of his balance, would be sure to fracture some of his limbs. Mr. Terry was Bellarius, and recited some of the most beautiful passages in the world like the bellman's verses. Apollo's lute," but "harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose." His voice is not" musical as is Young made a very respectable Iachimo, and Miss Foote lisped through the "1 Mr. part of Imogen very prettily. The rest of the characters were very poorly cast.-Oh! we had forgot Mr. Liston's Cloten: a sign that it is not so good as his Lord Grizzle, or Lubin Log, or a dozen more exquisite characters that he plays. It would, however, have been very well, if he had not whisked off the stage at the end of each scene, "to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh." The serenade at Imogen's window was very beautiful, and was encored,-we suspect, contrary to the etiquette of the regular drama. But we take a greater delight in fine music than in etiquette.' 373. Mrs. Siddons's Lady Macbeth. The Theatrical Examiner, from which this notice is taken, opens with a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of Paer's opera Agnese, at the King's Theatre. Mrs. Siddons played Lady Macbeth on June 5, 1817, with J. P. Kemble as Macbeth and Charles Kemble as Macduff. After this date the theatrical criticism of The Examiner was taken over by Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt began to write for The Times.

374. Thank God, etc. The Merchant of Venice, Act 11. Sc. 1.

Mr. Kemble's retirement.

Covent Garden, June 23, 1817.

375. Like an eagle, etc. Coriolanus, Act v. Sc. 6.

'My mother bows,' etc.

376. Nothing extenuate,' etc.

377.

378.

Ibid. Act v. Sc. 3.

Othello, Act v. Sc. 2.

"Is whispering, etc. A Winter's Tale, Act 1. Sc. 2.
Every [each] corporal agent. Macbeth, Act 1. Sc. 7.
"There was neither variableness, etc. St. James, i. 17.

"The fire i' th' flint,' etc.

My way of life, etc.

Timon of Athens, Act 1. Sc. 1.
Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 3.

"The fiery soul,' etc. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 156-8.

"You shall relish,' etc.

Cf. Othello, Act 11. Sc. I.

379. The tug and war? Cf. Great, Act IV. Sc. 2.

'Fate and metaphysical aid.

Then was the tug of war.' Lee, Alexander the

Invita Minerva. Horace, Ars Poetica, 385.

1 Comus, 476-7.

Macbeth, Act 1. Sc. 5.

2 Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM THE LONDON

PAGE

MAGAZINE, 1820.

383. Semper varium et mutabile. Virgil, Æneid, iv. 569.

"The stage, the inconstant stage.' Cf. The moon, the inconstant moon." Romeo and Juliet, Act 11. Sc. 2.

384. To dally with the wind, etc. Cf. Richard III., Act 1. Sc. 3.

·

With coy [sweet] reluctant, etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 311.

385. Should God create, etc.

Paradise Lost, IX. 911-13.

386. Play the hostess. Cf. Ourself will mingle with society, and play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state,' etc. Macbeth, Act 1. Sc. 4.

387. Eclipsed the gaiety, etc. Cf. ante, note to p. 270.

Beau Mordecai. In Macklin's Love à-la Mode, brought out in 1760.

Lord Sands. In King Henry VIII.

With nods and becks, etc. L'Allegro, 28.

388. Secret Tattle.' In Congreve's Love for Love.

389. Made a sunshine,' etc. The Faerie Queene, 1. iii. 4.

"Talked far above singing.' Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, Act v. Sc. 5. "Her bounty, etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act 11. Sc. 2.

Her Nell. In Coffey's The Devil to Pay (1731).

392. Extenuate, etc. Othello, Act v. Sc. 2.

"There were two, etc. Cf. St. Luke, xvii. 31 et seq.
'A consummation,' etc. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 1.
"To our moist vows denied. Lycidas, 159.
Slippery turns, etc. Coriolanus, Act iv. Sc. 4.
'Mr. Limber ham, etc.
(1680).

With its worldly goods,'

Dryden's The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham

etc. The Book of Common Prayer, Marriage Service.

The list of weeds, etc. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, Chap. 1. § 2.
'In monumental mockery.' Troilus and Cressida, Act II. Sc. 3.

394. The Surrey, etc. The Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road, opened in 1782; The Cobourg Theatre, Waterloo Bridge Road, opened in 1818; The Sans Pareil, better known as The Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand, opened in 1806.

395.

'Gentle and low,' etc. King Lear, Act v. Sc. 3.

397. Like to another morn, etc.' Paradise Lost, v. 310-11.

'Moody madness, etc. Gray, Ode, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 79-80.

398. Mar [scar] that whiter skin,' etc. Othello, Act v. Sc. 2.

399. Gallantry, or Adventures at Madrid. Jan. 15, 1820; acted only once. 'Had its brother,' etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays, Iv. 117-8.

6

400. As it was set down for him. Hamlet, Act . Sc. 2.

'The courtier's or the lover's melancholy.' Cf. As You Like It, Act iv. Sc. 1. Gilray. James Gillray (1757-1815), the caricaturist.

Mrs. Edwin. Elizabeth Rebecca Richards (1771?-1854) first appeared at Covent Garden 1789; married in 1791 John Edwin the younger. 401. Magis pares, etc. Cf. Similia omnia magis visa hominibus, quam paria.' Livy, XLV. 43.

402.

Note 1. Pope's Essay on Criticism, 1-2.

'All is grace above, etc. Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.' Dryden, Epistle to Congreve, 19.

To relish all, etc. The Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1.