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planets about the sun, but the revolutions of their satellites about themselves," and of " the organic description of curves, on which the genius of Newton flashed a sudden blaze." But enough on this subject. We should, however, be glad to know whether these elegancies are likewise to be faithfully translated into the French and German languages.

"It only remains," says Mr L., "for completing my plan, to produce a volume on Descriptive Geometry, and the theory of solids, comprehending Perspective, the Projection of the Sphere, and Spherical Trigonometry." Another volume, then, it seems, is to complete the Professor's Course of Mathematics. We are not conceited enough to suppose that he will endeavour, in his next, to avoid the faults we have pointed out in this and his preceding volume; we hope, however, shortly to see the completion of his plan, and sincerely wish that "repeated accidents" may not again intervene, so as to "repeatedly interrupt" his very laudable design.

LONDON THEATRICAL CORRESPONDENCE.

London, July 2.

OUR Winter Theatres, as they are called, and miscalled, both closed just before the commencement of the last month of Summer-July. The nobility and gentry of former times used to enjoy the luxury of clear air, fine prospects, and healthy exercises, long before the termination of May; but now, what with the late sitting of Parliament, and the consequent detention of the King and Court in the metropolis, nobody of any rank thinks of quitting London for the country, until it has, in truth, lost all its early beauty; that beauty which is the more delightful, because it is contrasted with the coldness and barrenness of winter. Mr Brougham (but what has his name to do with theatrical criticism?) in a late speech, incidently showed, that King William could not compel his Parliament to sit in June, in order that he might have supplies for the prosecution of his campaigns. It

is now most probable that the Session will not conclude till August. The town is thus kept full, and the Winter Theatres have been obliged to encroach, by degrees, upon the period hitherto considered the property of their summer rivals. Of course, this is a serious injury to the latter, especially as they will be compelled to shut their doors immediately after the former re-open theirs in October.

Neither Covent-Garden nor Drury-Lane produced any novelty worthy of notice between the date of my last letter and the end of their career. To the first, the season has been very profitable; and Mr Elliston, as lessee of the last, has at least been able to pay his rent, and to add about £.1,100 for extra-nights, not included in the engagement. Of course, the proprietors of both are in good spirits, and, if matters still proceed in this way, we shall have theatrical property at a premium. On the subject of novelties, I may mention, that one was promised on the night when Abbot took his benefit; but neither the promise nor the piece were performed. I allude to the announcement of the farce of "Mr H.," which was never played but once, having had the misfortune, some years ago, to be damned. It is the work of a man of very eccentric and original genius, Mr Charles Lamb, and it is printed in a late collection of his productions. It met its fate, not from any fault of the author, actors, or audience, but from an accident of the weather, which put every body out of humour. The plot turns upon a point, and if the audience is not disposed to be well satisfied, but to be fastidious and hypercritical, it could not succeed. The design of the piece is to shew the inconveniences, difficulties, and dangers, to which a man may be exposed, from having a hideous name, which induces him always to conceal it under the initial letter. If it had been revived on the fine evening when Abbot had his benefit, I would have answered for its success. Its expulsion from the stage was attended with one good consequence, at least, viz. that the author, in a periodical work of the day, wrote a most ingenious and amusing article, upon the singular blessing of being damned! Why Mr Abbot substituted another

farce for it, in the bills of the day, has not been explained, and I do not know that it is necessary it should be. I have heard it said in various quarters, that my criticism upon Mr Colman's "Law of Java," in the Edinburgh Magazine of last month, was somewhat too severe. I did not write it until I had seen the play twice; and by an accident, (for after discharging my duty, nothing but accident could have occasioned it,) I have seen it once since; and upon the re-perusal of the article, I feel satisfied that I have said in it no more than was deserved. People in London are very little used to read any thing freely written, regarding the stage. In general, they just skim over the theatrical articles in the daily newspapers, in order to see whether a piece or an actor has been well or ill received; but they have ceased, and properly, to have much reliance upon the opinions and impartiality of the writers. In this respect, the system is very different now, to what it was formerly, (I mean some eight or ten years ago,) and our journals are all more or less unwilling, or afraid, to speak out in the way of dispraise. They are by no means as independent in the affairs of the drama as they are in the affairs of the state; and it is certainly a great defect in the mode in which they are conducted. Boileau has a line,

C'est un mechant métier que celui de médire;

but the writers to whom I refer seem to make no distinction between fair truth and unfair detraction. It may also be admitted, that it is better to err on the more favourable side; but the paltry squeamishness almost invariably displayed, on theatrical subjects, by the daily press, is undoubtedly highly injurious to the true interests of the drama. What if the Managers of Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden withheld their free admission, in consequence of the publication of a little wholesome censure? It could be a matter of no importance to such newspapers as the "Times" and the "Chronicle;" and they would gain infinitely more, by delivering themselves from the trammels under which they are at present placed. The free admissions operate in ano

ther way disadvantageously; for they point out the individual who is employed to write, and it is an awkward thing for him to make personal enemies of all the authors and actors upon whom he may publish remarks which they consider ill-natured and severe. I allow, nevertheless, that a critic, in a widely-extended journal, has a delicate and a responsible task to perform, and that some forbearance, and even tenderness, is required in its execution.

As I have yet some room left in my sheet, I may advert very briefly to another ground of complaint, applicable to both the last theatrical articles in the Edinburgh Magazine, viz. that they are written in the first person singular, and not in the critical, corporate, editorial first person plural. If this mode had not been thought an advantage, it would not have been adopted ; and it would have been quite as easy to have followed the ordinary course, of pretending that the separate opinions of an individual come from a body of men clubbing their knowledge, and comparing their judgments. What I write, I write on my own authority; and if, on any occasion, it displease, as no doubt it will, I ask nobody to be responsible for me. I shall always endeavour to be as little egotistic as possible, and never to make

"Little I the hero of each tale."

If this plan were pursued more generally, it would put an end to a great deal of the humbug of authordeal of it has been exposed. ship; and this is an age when a great Much yet remains.

London, July 4.

The title of "The Fortunes of Nigel" could not fail to draw me to the Surrey Theatre, and there I saw a drama evidently got up with great haste, but with no inconsiderable degree of skill, and knowledge of effect. One fault of the piece is the fault of the novel, viz. that we have no great respect or admiration, and, therefore, no great interest for the hero: heroine there is really none, though it seems pretty clear that the author originally meant to make much more of Lady Hermione than he has done. The writer of the adaptation has at

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tempted rather too much, by bringing in all the characters. The three volumes of the novel did not give the "Great Unknown" room for displaying, with full effect, all the personages whom he has made prominent in the outset of his werk; and it was not therefore to be expected, that they could all be brought within the limits of a play, occupying no more than two hours in the representation. In this respect, the dramatist has displayed some deficiency of judgment: he has, besides, dwelt upon incidents, that tell most excellently in the reading, but have not the same effect upon the stage. On the whole, they have collected a very good company of actors at this theatre, and the play of "The Fortunes of Nigel" has been very well got up.

Such as have not read "Halidon Hill," have been looking for its announcement in some of the bills of our theatres; but those who have read it, pretend to a great degree of sagacity, in finding out that Sir Walter Scott meant it to be considered a failure, in order the better to conceal his being the real author of the Scotch Novels. It has been over and over again said, that the author of the Scotch Novels must have great talents for the stage. This point is referred to in the introduction to Nigel, where the scraps of old plays, or pretended old plays, are mentioned; and it is asserted by those who affect "to penetrate into the depths of things," that Sir W. Scott is anxious to shew, on this account, that he has no talents for dramatic poetry.

While upon the subject of what are called our Minor Theatres, I wish to notice a piece now acting at the Coburg, and which merits great praise. It belongs to the class of melo-dramas; and it has plot, character, and situation, to recommend it. The title of it is "The Blind Mine," and the scene is somewhat injudiciously laid in Derbyshire. It is partly original, and partly translated; and the reason why the scene is injudiciously laid, is, because we know that in this county no such state of society exists, as to account for the boldness of some of the incidents. I am not about to analyze the production, because it is not absolutely new; but there is one dreadful scene, of a VOL. XI.

conflict between two men, both badly wounded at the bottom of the Blind Mine, and which was acted with astonishing effect, by two men of the names of Bradley and Blanchard. The former of these is perhaps unequalled in the part of a murderous ruffian. I may also mention, in terms of almost unqualified praise, a performer of the name of Beverley, who possesses great comic talent, although in a narrow compass. The actresses

at this house are not remarkable either for beauty or ability.

Davis, who has taken Astley's Amphitheatre, relies almost exclusively for success upon the excellence of his quadrupeds, not merely horses, but dogs and bears. His bipeds are, without exception, the worst in Lon don. Man, with all his boasted reason and genius, appears here to infinite disadvantage :

"We cannot call a brute a man,

That language would not suit; But here most certainly we can Call every man a brute," though not without considerable injustice to the latter.

London, July 7.

The Haymarket Theatre having opened for its season, at the end of last month, a new comedy, in three acts, was brought forward on Wednesday last: it has met with considerable success, and is announced in the bills for " every evening until further notice." It bears for title, "John Buzzby, or a Day's Pleasure;" and is from the pen of Mr Kenny, author of "Raising the Wind." This farce is always connected with his name, because, as it was his earliest, so it was his most successful production. A young author, making a first attempt for the stage, should always be careful to write for a summer audience. Certain it is, that the spectators at a summer theatre are never so ceremonious, punctilious, and scrupulous, (all which epithets come under the term genteel,) as those at a winter theatre, who, in general, seem to think it a sort of imputation upon their understandings to be too easily pleased. It is not to be denied that the higher nobility and leading gentry are rarely present in summer; but it is perhaps

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equally certain that the fineness of the weather has its effect in keeping the audience in good humour, and prepared (like a man with a good appetite) to relish whatever is set before them. Many authors have held, and among them Milton and Cowper, that they could write better in clear sunny weather, than on dull foggy days; and there seems no reason to confine the difference to writers only. It is often a great source of pleasure to watch the countenances of a summer audience: they are all so determined upon being merry, so resolutely good-natured, so predisposed to be satisfied with the entertainment afforded them, and so free from that fault-finding spirit which prevails in colder weather, and makes the undertaking of a play-writer infinitely more hazardous. A summer audience always seems to feel exactly what Rabelais expresses in the two last lines of the sonnet (excuse the old French) prefixed to his Garagantua:

“Mieulx est de rire que de larmes escrire, Pource que rire est le propre de l'homme. Nature seems to have intended man for enjoyment, by giving to him only, of all creation, (the Hyena excepted,) the faculty of laughing.

John Buzzby was written to produce laughter, and it accomplished its purpose completely on the night when I went to see it. It contains the adventures of a citizen who takes a journey to Richmond, on a fine July day-an excursion probably made at some time or other by every one of the spectators. The characters are all of a familiar, every-day kind, with only such exaggerations as serve to make them effective; and the incidents, if not always quite probable, are at least entertaining, and follow each other with such rapidity, that the attention never flags. On his arrival at Richmond, John is accosted by a lady, with whom he had travelled in the stage-coach: she throws herself, somewhat præter spem, upon his protection; and out of this circumstance, and the secret cause of her journey, (which, by the bye, is never sufficiently explained,) arises nearly the whole structure of the piece. There is, however, an under-plot made out of Mrs Buzzby,

(a scold, who followed her husband John, the latter having made his escape,) her son by a former husband, (a vulgar cockney dandy,) and a lady named Cecilia, the ward of John Buzzby, who had fallen in love with a dragoon officer, quartered at Richmond. There is great variety of character in the play, indeed too much to be clearly developed; for Mr Kenny seems to have been desirous of including the whole dramatic strength of the House. Oxberry played the part of an inn-keeper, who bawls out to his talkative daughter, (who says very little on the stage,) "Hold your tongue, hussy!" Mrs Chatterley, as the daughter, with all her talent, could of course make but little of her part. Terry was rather too much of a gentlemen for John Buzzby, the haberdasher and hosier, and Jones not enough of a gentleman for Capt. Greville of the 18th Dragoons. He mistakes flippancy for ease, and whisking about the stage for spirit and alacrity. Mrs H. Johnston performed the heroine, the mysterious incognita-and sufficiently well; but she begins to want the two great_requisites she formerly possessed as an actress-youth and beauty. Mrs Pearse performed the scolding wife of the citizen as noisily and vulgarly as could be wished-indeed more so than the author wished, for she drew down the only hisses heard, from the rising to the falling of the curtain. I must not omit to notice Mr W. West's representation of the vulgar, conceited cockney: Liston (for whom the part was originally intended) could not have done it much better. The cock of his hat was worth his whole salary.

The dialogue has but little to recommend it, excepting its general appropriateness; wit would have been out of place, not less in the mouth of the hosier than of the dragoon. However, Mr Kenny's talent does not lie this way, and it would be difficult to name a single author of the present day who does possess it. It may not be amiss here to notice, that this play contains two or three double entendres, not of the most delicate kind; and "The Bill of Fare," a sort of introduction brought out on the first opening of this theatre, without being puritani

cal, we may pronounce to be highly censurable in this point of view. Congreve had great wit to compensate for his great grossness.

A new farce, called "Love-Letters," has also been brought out here, and with quite as much success as the piece merited. It is but justice to the Managers to say, that they appear to have exerted themselves with considerable success to amuse the public. The company of performers is, on the whole, very respectable, and possesses a great deal of comic talent. In one respect, nevertheless, it is deficient excepting Charles Kemble, there is not a man belonging to it, who looks like, walks like, or talks like a gentleman. For many obvious reasons, a gentleman is very rarely met with on any stage.

London, July 11th.

The Manager and Proprietor of the English Opera House, when it opened, very recently, for the season, announced, that no exertion had been wanting to secure a most efficient company. It is to be regretted he has been so unsuccessful, for, recollecting that the peculiar province of this theatre is music, a list of more inefficient performers, both male and female, has seldom been produced. Mr Wrench, who cannot sing at all, and Miss Kelly, who can sing a very little, are really the most distinguished members of the company. I admit Mr Wrench's excellence in certain departments of comedy, and Miss Kelly's first-rate talents in her particular line; but it is asking a great deal too much of them, that they should appear in almost every piece. The Manager himself will find, nay, he has found it in previous seasons, that the public gets tired of seeing, time after time, the identical actors and actresses, however admirable. Miss Kelly is under peculiar obligations to Mr Arnold, and she willingly exerts herself to the utmost; but she cannot do every thing, and it is very unreasonable to expect that she should go so far as to make the audience tired of her. For myself, it would be very long before I grew tired of her, in any part, however often repeated; but the public in general require more than the Mana ger seems disposed to afford.

In the musical department, Miss Carew is a very powerful assistant; but she will need support; and what adequate support can such a singer as Mr Pearman give? The Manager of a place of amusement styling itself par excellence, the English Opera House,-thereby setting it in opposition to, and comparison with, the Italian Opera House, ought to engage all the best English singers upon the boards of our Winter Theatres.

What is usually understood by the words English Opera, is commonly a piece of a description that requires very eminent musical talent to render it at all successful; and it has not unfrequently been seen, that the less it resembles the class of the drama to which it professes to belong, the more profitable it has been to the Manager. The best of the serious productions in this kind have been musical comedies; both of them plays, interspersed with singing, the songs generally having little or nothing to do with the subject-matter of the story. The "Beggars' Opera" is almost the only performance on the stage that really merits the name of an English Opera, because there, as in the French Vaudeville, what the actors sing is essentially connected with the progress of the plot: it assists, instead of retarding it. The dialogue of such productions as are too frequently brought out at this theatre, is the most mawkish stuff imaginable.

The best thing represented here are what have acquired the title of Musical Farces, and of this kind is a piece acted for the first time a few nights ago. It is called "Love among the Roses, or the Master-key" and it is a very pleasant piece of playfulness, full of bustle and business, with some pretty songs, and dialogue above the common level. If not witty, it is sprightly, and, what is more, it is adapted to the characters, and the characters to it. It has been announced, in our daily prints, to be from the pen of Mr Beazley, as if he were an author of some reputation. If he be, it may shew great ignorance on my part, but I do not recollect that he has written much before. Let this point be as it may, judging from this After-piece, I think him perhaps the most promising

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