Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

times it is noticed only to be falsified, as in the case of Lady L, whose husband always inquires on her birth-day how old she will please to be on the following year. Sometimes the party stands doggedly at bay against time, like old C, who having arrived at eighty, refused to go any farther, and has remained there ever since, as if he could alter the hour by stopping the clock, or arrest the great wheel by refusing to count its rotations. A little boy of mine once lowered the index of a barometer to "much rain"-ran into the garden, and was astonished to find it as fine as ever. Old C- in his second childhood, is not much more reasonable.

My impertinent Chronicle assures me also that about the same period I detected myself in little paltry acts of stinginess, grudging half-pence, and looking suspiciously after "candle-ends and cheese-parings," though I never dreamt of making any alteration in my establishment; so true is Swift's remark, that five pounds a-year would save any man from the reputation of being a niggard. This propensity is of a very encroaching character: it is a sort of dry-rot, which, if it once gain admission, will creep along the beams and rafters of your mind, till the whole fabric is corroded. Much trouble did it cost me to eradicate this weed; and often have the latent seeds sprung up afresh, and demanded all my vigilance to prevent their gaining possession of the premises.

Exercise for the body, occupation for the mind-these are the grand constituents of health and happiness; the cardinal points upon which every thing turns. Motion seems to be a great preserving principle of nature, to which even inanimate things are subject; for the winds, waves, the earth itself, are restless, and the wafting of trees, shrubs, and flowers, is known to be an essential part of their economy. Impressed with this truth, I laid down a fixed rule of taking several hours exercise every day, if possible, in the open air, if not under cover; and to my inflexible adherence to this system do I attribute my remarkable exemption from disease, as well as from the attacks of low spirits, or ennui, that monster who is ever prowling to waylay the rich and indolent.

"Throw but a stone the giant dies."

What exercise is to the frame, occupation is to the mind. I portioned out my hours so as not to leave a moment unemployed: I commenced a systematic course of reading, and became pretty regularly engaged in composition, that most delightful of all recreations, so absorbing that it renders us unconscious of the lapse of time, so soothing that it lulls to rest all the sorrows of the heart. Never was I so busy as when I became an idle man; never was I so happy as when I was thus busy. Fortunately, I had success enough in my writings to give an interest to the pursuit, without arriving at that distinction which is apt to engender bitterness. Satisfied with the delight of composition, I cared little about present, and less about future fame. Fontenelle declared, that if he were dying, and knew that his desk contained papers which would render his memory infamous, he would not walk across the room to burn them. Had they no family or friends to be affected by their posthumous reputation, perhaps many men would be equally indifferent.

TIME.

A Canzone from the Italian of Torquato Tasso.
"Donne voi che superbe."

DAMES that in the dazzling glow
Of your youth and beauty go:
Ye who, in your strength, defy
Love with all his archery:
Ye who stand unconquer'd still,
Conquering others as ye will-
Ye shall bend at last before
The iron sceptre of my power.

Mine shall be your glories then,
Mine the triumphs of your train,
Mine the trophy and the crown,
Mine the hearts which have won;
ye
And your beauty's waning ray
Shall wax feeble, and decay,
And your souls too proudly soaring,
To see the prostrate world adoring.

Time, imperial Time, am I,

Time, your lord and enemy,

Time, whose passing wing can blight,
With the shadow of its flight,

More than Love in all his pride,

With his thousands by his side.

While I speak, the moments fly,
And my spirit silently

Creeps into your sparkling eyes,
And amidst your tresses lies-
Here the wreathed knots untwining,
There bedimming beauty's shining,
Blunting all the piercing darts
Which the amorous eye imparts,
And wearing loveliness away
To crumble with its kindred clay.

On I fly; I speed away,

On, for ever and for aye-
But, alas! ye take no heed
To the swiftness of my speed,
Bearing, like a mighty river,
In its downward course for ever,
All your gay and glittering throng,
Honours, Titles, Names along-
Mortal hopes and mortal pride,
With the stillness of its tide.

Soon shall come that fatal hour

When, beneath my arm of power,
Lowly shall ye bend the knee.
Soon shall Love the palace flee,
Where he sits enthroned on high
In the lustre of your eye;
And their victor standard there
Age and chill Reserve shall rear.

Soon, like captives, shall ye learn

Ways less wild, and laws more stern;
Gone shall be your smiling glances,
Hush'd your carols and your dances;
And your golden robes of pride
All, too soon be laid aside

For the vesture gray and sere,
Which my humbled captives wear.

And I now proclaim your fate,
That reflecting ere too late,
How, when youthful years are gone,
Hoary ills come hasting on,
Ye may stoop your pride of soul,
Holding earth in strong control,
Deeming that the world contains
None deserving of your chains.
Bend ye then to Reason's sway,
Go where Pity points the way;
While with wing unflagging I
Keep my course eternally.

Days and Nights, and Years, and ye,
My swift winged Family,
Whom the All-creating Hand

Framed ere earth itself was planned,

Up, and still untiring hold

Your triumphant course of old,

And still your rapid cars be driven

O'er the boundless path of Heaven!

ON THE GREEN-ROOM OF THE FRENCH THEATRE.

THE world progresses somewhat like a snail: it makes an immense journey of some inches during the day, and falls back at night to its original position, that it may set out with the same vigour on the same path the next morning. Both animals leave behind them vestiges of their travel-the one its slimy, the other its inky annals; and it is hard to say which, in its proper proportion, is the more lasting, or the more perishable. Look at the history of revolutions, their commencement, and termination at the very point whence they set out.-Does not this universe resemble a slate, on which some Tyro of a spiritual order, mightier than ours, has been learning his arithmetic, drawing thereon huge sums in multiplication and division, and anon blotting all out in an instant with his fore-finger and spittle? But a truce with simile:What have all these upsets and overthrows of nations left us? They have left to us essayists the neatest heads of chapters;-to chronologists the most convenient epochs imaginable. There is no knowing what history would do without them: they are its goals and starting-posts, and resemble the ancient temple on Cape Colonna-once the mighty object of worship and witness of great events, now but a beacon to guide the solitary mariner.

Every one that wishes to take a survey of France, political or literary, places himself in the year 1789, and casts his view over the preceding or the subsequent age, as circumstances induce him. We shall do both, merely throwing a glance back, but thenceforward giving

more in detail the history of the French stage. The year 1789 is complete as a stage epoch in France, since it not only marks the commencement of the revolution, but is the very year of the rise of Talma, who has ever since held his station of pre-eminence. Extreme convenience in the arrangement of epochs and eras is, indeed, remarkable all through the literary history of France, and is principally owing to the three great reigns, during which the literature of the country was brought nearest to its perfection; as also to the long lives and regular succession of its men of genius. In tragedy the names of Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, occupy, with little interruption, the whole extent of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moliere marks the rise of comedy; but as France never found a successor worthy of their great comic writer, this portion of their literary history is more confused. Moliere died in 1673, and it was not till twenty-three years subsequent that the Joueur of Regnard appeared, which play was considered to revive the glory of comedy. Since Regnard, French comedy has not risen (we speak according to the estimation of their own critics) above the rank of mediocrity, with, however, a few exceptions; such as Gresset's Mechant, which Gray has recorded to be the best comedy he ever read, Piron's Métromanie, and, perhaps, the lively productions of Beaumarchais.

The most eminent of their tragic actors before 1789 was Le Kain, a singular coincidence of name with our present theatric genius; but we shall find stronger marks of coincidence than that of name. "Le Kain," says Mademoiselle Clairon, "a simple artisan, of mean and unprepossessing appearance, below the middle height, hoarse in voice, and weak in temperament, leaped from the workshop to the stage, without any other guide than genius;-without any assistance beyond his own powers, became the greatest of tragedians, and, in spite of all his defects, appeared the finest, the most imposing, the most interesting of men."

Henri-Louis Le Kain was born in Paris in 1729, and made his first appearance on the Théatre Français in September 1750. He had previously matured his powers on the boards of the Théatre Rue Traversière, where he received and profited by the lessons of Voltaire. His first success raised against him, as usual in such cases, a crowd of enemies, who decried and opposed him. "How," said Louis the Fifteenth to one of those, "how can you speak thus of Le Kain? He has made me weep-me, who scarcely ever shed a tear." With great defects of voice and figure, and with nothing external to support his genius, except his eye and action, Le Kain met with the most rapturous success. He could not play Corneille, "Racine was too simple for him," but in the plays of Voltaire he shone forth and electrified the audience. That poet never enjoyed the pleasure of seeing Le Kain on the Théatre Français: he had set out on his visit to Russia just before the actor's debut, and on his return to Paris from Ferney, Le Kain was no more:-He died in 1778.

It is impossible not to mention Baron, the rival and predecessor of Le Kain, whom every reader will instantly compare with Kemble. The French critics, however, do not consider their rival actors to have been so much on a par as we do Kemble and Kean. Baron had the advantage of being educated for the stage by Molière. He possessed great

[ocr errors]

dignity and beauty of person, and, though at first declamatory, "yet as he mingled with the most illustrious ranks of society, true and simple grandeur became familiar to him." "As soon as he appeared," says Marmontel, "one forgot alike both actor and poet: the majestic beauty of his features and action spread an illusion over the scene. When he spoke, it was Mithridates or Cæsar: every tone and gesture was that of nature," &c. "In fine, he first displayed the perfection of his art-a simplicity and nobleness united-a manner tranquil without being cold, and spirited without being immoderate; marking the nicest shades of sentiment, at the same time concealing the art which produced them." Baron died of a mortification, in consequence of a wound which he received in the foot while performing.

Mademoiselle Clairon, in her Memoirs, asserts, that it is more diffi cult to procure good actors than good actresses. So competent a judge in the case could not have been mistaken as to the fact, so far as it related to the stage of her own country. She does not, however, make the principle very general; nor does she attribute it to the peculiar nature and genius of the sexes, so much as to the different manner in which they are brought up. "Male actors," says she, "require to bring to their art a degree of education which the generality of men do not possess. Women have more advantages, for, commonly speaking, education is much the same for all ranks of their sex, that are not decidedly of the lower order." There does not seem to be much force in the reasoning, as it is likely that the education of men in general was not much inferior to that average information, which, she tells us, was possessed by all ranks of her sex. Indeed we should be inclined to adopt the opinion contrary to that of Mademoiselle Clairon. In persons of different sexes, possessing the common run of talent, we should suppose a superior portion of tact and sensibility on the female side; and a view of our stage will not contradict the opinion, considering how much more numerous the breeches-parts (to speak the dialect of the green-room, are than the others. In genteel comedy, the ladies ought to have the palm; in low comedy, the gentlemen: for, not to mention the inaptness of a female face for grimacing, there are certainly more originals among the lords of the creation. In the secondrate parts of tragedy, and all beneath, female talent has decidedly the advantage; and as to the genius capable of filling our first-rate characters, it is a quality so rare, and our experience in the case is, unfortunately, so confined, that no general conclusion can be drawn, save that of being thankful wherever we meet it.

The tragic actresses contemporary with Le Kain, were Dumesnil and Clairon. They have both published Memoirs, in which each severely criticises, yet, at the same time, does justice to the merits of her rival.t Mademoiselle Dumesnil had the possession of the stage first, and for a long time left Clairon but the inferior parts, which the latter never forgave. They were of pretty equal merit, but Clairon, not possessing the same advantages of face and person with her rival, claims higher praise for her success. Dumesnil retired from the stage in 1776, and

* Mémoire de Mademoiselle Clairon.

Any person that is fond of ghost-stories will find a very curious, and a very well attested one, at the commencement of the Mémoires de Mademoiselle Clairon.

« VorigeDoorgaan »