no very ambiguous character. Mrs. HARLOW, to do the part justice, chose to play it in scarlet. We did not know Mrs. CHATTERLY's merits before; she plays, with downright sterling good acting, a prude who is to be convinced out of her prudery by Miss KELLY'S (we did not catch her stagename) assumption of the dress and character of a brother of seventeen, who makes the prettiest unalarming Platonic approaches; and in the shyest mask of moral battery, no one step of which you can detect, or say this is decidedly going too far, vanquishes at last the ice of her scruples, brings her into an infinite scrape, and then with her own infinite good humour sets all to right, and brings her safe out of it again with an explanation. Mrs. CHATTERLY's embarrassments were masterly. Miss STEVENSON her maid's start, at surprising a youth in her mistress's closet at midnight, was quite as good. Miss KELLY we do not care to say any thing about, because we have been accused of flattering her. The truth is, this lady puts so much intelligence and good sense into every part which she plays, that there is no expressing an honest sense of her merits, without incurring a suspicion of that sort. But what have we to gain by praising Miss KELLY? Altogether this little feminine republic, this provoking experiment, went off most smoothly. What a nice world it would be, we sometimes think, all women! but then we are afraid we slip in a fallacy unawares into the hypothesis; we somehow edge in the idea of ourselves as spectators or something among them. We saw WILKINSON after it in Walk for a Wager. What a picture of Forlorn Hope! of abject orphan destitution! he seems to have no friends in the world but his legs, and he plies them accordingly. He goes walking on like a perpetual motion. His continual ambulatory presence performs the part of a Greek chorus. He is the walking Gentleman of the piece; a Peripatetic that would make a Stoic laugh. He made us cry. His Muffincap in Amateurs and Actors is just such another piece of acting. We have seen charity boys, both of St. Clement's and Farringdon without, looking just as old, ground down out of all semblance of youth, by abject and hopeless neglect-you cannot guess their age between fifteen and fifty. If Mr. PEAK is the author of these pieces, he has no reason to be piqued at their reception. We must apologize for an oversight in our last week's article. The allusion made to Mr. KEAN'S acting of Luke in the City Madam was totally inapplicable to the part and to the play. We were thinking of his performance of the concluding scenes of the New Way to Pay Old Debts. We confounded one of MASSINGER'S strange heroes with the other. It was Sir Giles Overreach we meant; nor are we sure that our remark was just, even with this explanation. When we consider the intense tone, in which Mr. KEAN thinks it proper (and he is quite as likely to be in the right as his blundering critic) to pitch the temperament of that monstrous character from the beginning, it follows but logically and naturally, that where the wild uncontrollable man comes to be baffled of his purpose, his passions should assume a frenzied manner, which it was altogether absurd to expect should be the same with the manner of the cautious and self-restraining Cantwell, even when he breaks loose from all bonds in the agony of his final exposure. We never felt more strongly the good sense of the saying,-Comparisons are odious. They betray us not seldom into bitter errors of judgment; and sometimes, as in the present instance, into absolute matter of fact blunders. But we have recanted. FOUR REVIEWS (1819-1820) I.-FALSTAFF'S LETTERS (1819) Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends; now first made public by a Gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from genuine MSS. which have been in the possession of the Quickly Family near four hundred years. London: Robinsons, 1796 A COPY of this work sold at the Roxburgh sale for five guineas. We have both before and since that time picked it up at stalls for eighteen pence. Reader, if you shall ever light upon a copy in the same way, we counsel you to buy it. We are deceived if there be not in it much of the true Shakspearian stuff. We present you with a few of the Letters, which may speak for themselves : : FALSTAFF TO THE PRINCE “I pr'ythee, Hal, lend me thy 'kerchief. An thy unkindness have not started more salt gouts down my poor old cheek, than my good rapier hath of blood from foemen's gashes in five and thirty years' service, then am I a very senseless mummy. I squander away in drinkings monies belonging to the soldiery! I do deny it -they have had part-the surplus is gone in charity-accuse the parish officers-make them restore-the whoreson wardens do now put on the cloak of supplication at the church doors, intercepting gentlemen for charity, forsooth!-"Tis a robbery, a villainous robbery! to come upon a gentleman reeking with piety, God's book in his hand, brimfull of the sacrament! Thou knowest, Hal, as I am but man, I dare in some sort leer at the plate and pass, but as I have the body and blood of Christ within me, could I do it? An I did not make an oblation of a matter of ten pound after the battle of Shrewsbury, in humble gratitude for thy safety, Hal, then am I the veriest transgressor denounced in God's code. But I'll see them damned ere I'll be charitable again. Let 'em coin the plate-let them coin the holy chalice. . . . THE SAME TO THE SAME "Ha! ha! ha! And dost thou think I would not offer up ten pound for thee? yea, a hundred-more-but take heed of displeasing in thy sacrifice. Cain did bring a kid, yea, a firstling upon the altar, and the blaze ascended not. Abel did gather simple herbs, penny-royal, Hal, and mustard, a fourpenny matter, and the odour was grateful. I had ten pound for the holy offertory-mine ancient Pistol doth know it--but the angel did arrest my hand. Could I go beyond the word?-the angel which did stretch forth his finger, lest the good patriarch should slay his son.-That Ned Poins hath more colours than a jay, more abuse than a taught pie, and for wit -the cuckow's dam may be Fool of the Court to him. I lie down at Shrewsbury out of base fear! I melt into roods, and acres, and poles! I tell thee what, Hal, there's not a subject in the land hath half my temperance of valour.-Did I not see thee combating the man-queller, Hotspur; yea, in peril of subduement? Was it for me to lose my sweet Hal without a thrust, having my rapier, my habergion, my good self about me? I did lie down in the hope of sherking him in the rib-four drummers and a fifer did help me to the ground-didst thou not mark how I did leer upon thee from beneath my buckler? That Poins hath more scurrility than is in a whole flock of disquieted geese. "For the rebels I did conceal, thou should'st give me laud. I did think thou wert already encompassed with more enemies than the resources of men could prevent overwhelming thee: yea, that thou wert the dove on the waters of Ararat, and didst lack a resting-place. Was it for me to heap to thy manifold disquiets? Was it for me to fret thee with the advice of more enemies than thou didst already know of? I could not take their lives, and therefore did I take their monies. I did fine them, lest they should scape, Hal, thou dost understand me, without chastisement; yea, I fined them for a punishment. They did make oath on the point of my sword to be true men :-an the rogues forswore themselves, and joined the Welchman, let them look to it 'tis no 'peachment of my virtue.. AGAIN "Oh! I am setting on a nest of the most unfledged cuckows that ever brooded under the wing of hawk. Thou must know, Hal, I had note of a good hale recruit or two in this neighbourhood. In other shape came I not; look to it, Master Shallow, that in other shape I depart not. But I know thou art ever all desire to be admitted a Fellow Commoner in a jest. Robert Shallow, Esq. judgeth the hamlet of Cotswold. Doth not the name of judge horribly chill thee? With Aaron's rod in his hand, he hath the white beard of Moses on his chin. In good sooth his perpetual countenance is not unlike what thou wouldst conceit of the momentary one of the lunatic Jew, when he tumbled God's tables from the mount. He hath a quick busy gait-more of this upright Judge (perpendicular as a pikeman's weapon, Hal,) anon. I would dispatch with these Bardolph; but the knave's hands-(I cry thee mercy) his mouth is full in preventing desertion among my recruits. An every liver among them haven't stood me in three and forty shilling, then am I a naughty escheator.-I tell thee what, Hal, I'd fight against my conscience for never a Prince in Christendom but thee.-Oh! this is a most damnable cause, and the rogues know it-they'll drink nothing but sack of three and twopence a gallon and I enlist me none but tall puissant fellows that would quaff me up Fleet-ditch, were it filled with sack-picked men, Hal-such as will shake my Lord of York's mitre. I pray thee, sweet lad, make speed-thou shalt see glorious deeds." How say you, reader, do not these inventions smack of Eastcheap? Are they not nimble, forgetive [? fugitive], evasive ? Is not the humour of them elaborate, cogitabund, fanciful? Carry they not the true image and superscription of the father which begat them? Are they not steeped all over in character-subtle, profound, unctuous? Is not here the very effigies of the Knight? Could a counterfeit Jack Falstaff come by these conceits? Or are you, reader, one who delights to drench his mirth in tears? You are, or, peradventure, have been a lover; a "dismissed bachelor," perchance, one that is "lass-lorn." Come, then, and weep over the dying bed of such a one as thyself. Weep with us the death of poor Abraham Slender. VOL. I.-13 DAVY TO SHALLOW "Master Abram is dead, gone, your Worship, dead! Master Abram! Oh! good, your Worship, a's gone. A' never throve, since a' came from Windsor-'twas his death. I called him rebel, your Worship-but a' was all subject-a' was subject to any babe, as much as a King-a' turned, like as it were the latter end of a lover's lute-a' was all peace and resignment-a' took delight in nothing but his Book of Songs and Sonnets-a' would go to the Stroud side under the large beech tree, and sing, 'till 'twas quite pity of our lives to mark him; for his chin grew as long as a muscle. -Oh! a' sung his soul and body quite away-a' was lank as any greyhound, and had such a scent! I hid his love-songs among your Worship's law-books; for I thought, if a' could not get at them, it might be to his quiet; but a' snuffed them out in a moment. Good, your Worship, have the wise woman of Brentford secured-Master Abram may have been conjured-Peter Simple says, a' never looked up after a' sent for the wise woman. -Marry, a' was always given to look down afore his elders; a' might do it, a' was given to it-your Worship knows it; but then 'twas peak and pert with him, marry, in the turn of his heel.-A' died, your Worship, just about one, at the crow of the cock.—I thought how it was with him; for a' talked as quick, ay, marry, as glib as your Worship; and a' smiled, and looked at his own nose, and called 'Sweet Ann Page.' I asked him if a' would eat-so a' bad us commend him to his cousin Robert (a' never called your Worship so before) and bad us get hot meat, for a' would not say 'nay' to Ann again. But a' never lived to touch it—a' began in a moment to sing 'Lovers all, a Madrigall.' "Twas the only song Master Abram ever learnt out of book, and clean by heart, your Worship-and so a' sung, and smiled, and looked askew at his own nose, and sung, and sung on, till his breath waxed shorter, and shorter, and shorter, and a' fell into a struggle and died. Alice Shortcake craves, she may make his shroud. * اله Should these specimens fail to rouse your curiosity to see the whole, it may be to your loss, gentle reader, but it will give small pain to the spirit of him that wrote this little book; my fine-tempered friend, J. W.-for not in authorship, or the spirit of authorship, but from the fullness of a young soul, newly kindling at the Shakspearian flame, and bursting to be delivered of a rich exuberance of conceits,-I had almost said kindred with those of the full Shakspearian genius itself,-were these letters dictated. We remember when the inspiration came upon him; when the 1 Vide, Merry Wives of Windsor, latter part of Ist scene, Ist act. |