COVENT GARDEN.

6

Richard the Third-(according to the text of Shakspeare.)-The restoration of Shakspeare to the stage, is an event worthy of commemoration. He had been maltreated, and deposed, for many years; and, though themob of gentlemen' were content with his gloomy successor, the few,' whose opinions are worth having, pretty generally lamented the usurpation of Cibber; and some were even bold enough to avow it.-Mr. Charles Lamb many years ago objected strongly to the interpolations of Tate and Cibber, in the tragedies of Richard the Third, and Lear.(See his works, vol. ii. p. 20, et seq.) Among other excellent things, he -says truly, when speaking of Cibber's alterations, that "the poetry of the part" is gone;" the buoyant spirit, the vast insight into human character" is no where perceptible. "Nothing but his crimes, his actions, is visible they are prominent, and staring; the murderer stands out, but where is the lofty genius, the man of vast capacity,-the profound, the witty, the accomplished Richard?

"

Nor is Mr. Charles Lamb the only eminent writer who has opposed the innovations of Cibber; for Mr. Hazlitt, in his " Characters of Shakspeare's Plays," has done the same thing, and has even suggested a plan for the revival of the original tragedy. As his observations are much to the point, we shall take leave to transcribe them here." The character of his hero is almost every where predominant, and marks its lurid track throughout.-The original play, however, is too long for representation; and there are some few scenes which might be better spared than preserved, and by omitting which it would remain a complete whole. The only rule, indeed, for altering Shakspeare, is to retrench certain passages which may be considered as superfluous, or obsolete; but not to add or transpose any thing. The arrangement and developement of the story, and the mutual contrast and combination of the dramatis personæ, are in general as finely managed as the de

velopement of the characters, or the expression of the passions."

"This rule-" Mr. Hazlitt is now speaking of the altered play by Cibber-" This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of the most important and striking passages, in the principal character, have been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts from other plays; the only intention of which seems to have been, to make the character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible."(Hazlitt's Character of Shakspeare's Plays, p. 231.)

The public are indebted for the play of Richard, as it is now acting, to Mr. Macready. Whether the suggestion of Mr. Hazlitt, or the animadversions of Mr. Charles Lamb,' instigated him to this good work, we do not profess to know, nor is it material. The introduction of Shakspeare to the theatre merits our hest approbation, whether done from previous hint or not. The plan adopted by Mr. Macready, however, is not precisely the same as that suggested by Mr. Hazlitt; for some material transpositions have been made, and some of the language of Cibber has been retained. We could have wished, certainly, that the whole of what Cibber introduced, had been omitted; for it is rather hard that he should suffer, while any advantage is made by the matter which he himself wrote, or collected: but, perhaps, it was not easy to avoid this. There are certain points, in an old established play, which an audience is wont to look forward to; and the omission of which it will not easily permit. There are things, indeed, for the sake of which people put up with a good deal of tediousness at times; and it might be perilous to omit them. Such, for instance, is the "Chop off his head: so much for Buckingham." . Our friends in the gallery would not tamely endure that this should be lost to them. If a soliloquy, or a fine piece of poetry, were omitted, they might feel themselves resigned, and cry, "content:" but an effect, as it is called on the stage, is material to both actor and auditor; and must

neither be set aside unwittingly, nor trifled with. With the exception of the fact of retaining about two hundred lines of Cibber's, we entirely approve of Mr. Macready's adaptation of Richard, and think that he deserves his success.

The character of Richard the Third, as drawn by Shakspeare, differs perhaps less from his own Macbeth than from Cibber's Richard. It is true that Macbeth and Richard are very different persons; the one being an active, and the other (if we may use the expression) a passive agent. Macbeth is the puppet of his wife, and of circumstances; but Richard seems to ride on the waves of Fate, and to make circumstances almost subservient to himself. Yet both are (comparatively) pleasant and companionable people at first setting out; it is only in their progress through repeated crimes, that they catch shadow after shadow, and are finally toned down into a deep and melancholy hue, as dark as the pictures of Rem brandt.-The Richard of Cibber is a fierce and gloomy monotony: but Shakspeare's is sparkling, and active, and witty, full of high intellect and deep design, a soldier, a prince, and a man of the world; full of the blunt'ness of the one, yet with something of the courtly dignity of the other; replete with lively sayings, and shrewd remark. He is a perfect piece of biography, as it were, in Shakspeare; but in Cibber, he seems to have already lost his youth: he speaks and acts like one grown grey in crime, and banquets on nothing but blood and tears.

One very great merit which the historical plays of Shakspeare have, is, that they are national; and not only national, but they are necessarily of the period to which they relate:thus, what a reality does the following speech of Gloster give to the play; it stamps it of the time wherein the facts were supposed to happen, and is highly characteristic of Richard also.

Buck. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,

William, Lord Hastings, had pronounced your part,

I mean, your voice-for erowning of the king.

Glos. Than my Lord Hastings, no man might be bolder;

Now, in Cibber, there is little or nothing of this: we do not recognise his cheerful look, nor do we feel his alacrity of spirit. He is not the mounting character of Shakspeare and of truth, but he seems to have reached the "midway air" already, and keeps floating on (there is scarcely an exception to this) like a bird of prey, fearfully and alone, sweeping every thing out of his road as it meets him, but ascending no more: he no longer bounds from point to point, clearing every successive difficulty as it presents itself, and taking his station at last amidst tempest and gloom. There is no necessity for this, for Cibber places him there at once; and all that we have to do is to wonder that there could have been so wicked a man; we have no notion how he became so. The Richard of Shakspeare, in short, may be compared to the series of pictures, called the "Rake's Progress of Hogarth; and Cibber's, to the last scene only. It might make that terrible picture the more valuable, in one sense perhaps, were any person to destroy the others; but it would still be a mere fragment of the original design, and every true lover of that most delightful art would execrate the folly of the destroyer.

The principal scenes which have been restored are-the scene between Richard, Clarence, and Brakenbury, in which the wit and irony of Richard shines out so excellently; the one

the last age. It seems an opera that might have been acted at Hampton-court, or Buckinghamhouse, at the time when those square and unrelenting likenesses of the (former) Palace and St. James'spark, which have since been engraved, were taken for the amusement of posterity. We do not care much for young Meadows, and but little for Rosetta, excepting only when Miss Stephens is the representative. She is indeed a pleasant quean, and we shall not readily forgive ourselves for not having discovered until lately her comic talent. Her naïveté is quite delightful, and she throws off a piquant saying as if she had a true relish for it. Her manner of saying, I'll strike you dead," (she means with her eyes,) in Don John, is excellent; and her unnecessary piece of explanation, after having threatened to put it out of her power to love again" that is, kill myself,"-was delivered in a way that entitled her, amongst fifty other things, to the best thanks of the author.

DRURY-LANE.

Conscience, or the Bridal Night.This tragedy is by Mr. James Haynes, and we feel much pleasure in recording its complete success.-The principal merit of this play lies in the poetry, which is generally very delightful. There is, perhaps, scarcely passion enough in it, though we forget this, as well every trivial objection, in the perusal.--"Conscience" is written in a pure and unaffected style, equally free from the pompous and the mean, and unassisted by (and requiring no assistance from) those ordinary helps of phraseology, "all sound and fury signifying nothing," which some of our moderns have had recourse to, to buoy up their little stock of thought, and carry their names down the tide of popularity. We like to see a man meeting fairly the difficulties of his task, and telling in plain and downright language what he means to say. It is ten times as good as the gaudy nothings which are thrown out, like empty tubs to a whale, on the ever-moving ocean of literature. They will not stand wear and tear long. We would not be understood to be insensible to the poetical graces of Mr. Haynes's play, however, of which there are many. We mean

only to say that they are not thrust in, where they should not appear, nor are his ornaments swoln out beyond their proper and wholesome bulk.

There is great equality in this tragedy, and we scarcely know where to make our selections. Arsenio, the father of the heroine, Elmira, thus addresses his supplicating daughter: What wouldst thou have?

me more,

Elm. What I have lost-thy favour. Ar. A prouder bearing would become If I could so deport me; but thy tongue Hath still the sound of home. May be thy mother,

Though from the grave, comes warm into my heart;

Or thou so like thy mother dost present
Her pleading eyes before me. Which it is
And cannot be to thee as unto others.
I know not, but I feel thou art my child,

Lorenzo, Elmira's husband, soothes his shrinking bride very delightfully: his language is fit to be spoken beneath the soft blue of an Italian heaven.

Lor. Lean on me, love, for we have far

moon,

And the pale foliage of the midnight scene,
Their sympathies afforded; and the bird,
That in the silver hour of solitude,
When Italy sleeps in light, sings to the star
That loves her music, sang to us the while;
And this was all the merry-making passed
To grace the nuptials of a fonder pair
Than ever feasting hailed!-Lean on me,
love.

The reader may now take the following reflections on death, which well please us, saving only the line which refers to that much abused class of honest persons-the lawyers.

And at the summons, quit Castalia's spring,
To plunge amid the gloom of Erebus.
'Tis to the wretch alone that he denies
The solace of his sleep.

But, it is impossible to give the reader any idea of a tragedy from a few extracts: one part depends so much upon the other, the passion, or moody abstraction which is developed in a speech, requires that what has gone before should be read in order to justify it. This may seem tame, and that ridiculous, when looked at singly, which, in reference to the other parts of the drama, is excellent and appropriate.-There are some felicitous turns of expression, which we may, however, be enabled to select.

A Villain is thus depicted:

Rinaldo was a villain, Cast like a blemish on humanity. An Invocation:

Lend me, thou great One,

The brave religion of the martyr's heart.

The following is a pleasant instance of the love of fame. A robber speaks of his companions. Such men

Have characters to lose, and will rob altars Rather than come back empty.

Our readers will like (at least they ought to like) the following: it is excellent. A wife begins to suspect her husband.

Elm. There is a darkness in thy speech,
Lorenzo,

Through which the light of reason dimly breaks,

To show what strange and frightful com

pany

Thy thoughts are to each other. Still I am Thy wife

The expression of " The night has lost its silence," is to our minds simple and really fine; and the following (with the exception of the epithet" silver," which is, perhaps, rather applicable to a pleasant than to a painful image) is even betterHis hoary head, Where every silver hair complain'd of Time.

We now take our leave of Mr. Haynes, with the sincerest congratulations on his good and deserved

success.

My money paid-my book bought -here goes for the "feast of Belshazzar."-Sir, you must wait a full hour-it is the fashion, and surrounded three deep with the exquisites of criticism.-Alas! poor Sterne, 'tis well thou art in thy grave-the cant thou hatedst most is here triumphant. -Alas! poor Belshazzar-upon one wall thou sawest thy fate, and here thou art upon another enduring thy purgatory! Well sir, "I can wait." -But I also am both a painter and a critic." The dog must have his day."-Are there no other pictures? Oh, yes sir, there are 305 of them:

and one-two-three-eight pieces of masonry under the title Sculp ture.' Wouldst thou more of them? Well then-landscape predominates;

not (with a few worthy exceptions to be hereafter noticed) the landscape of Tiziano, of Mola, Salvator, of the Poussins, Claude, Rubens, Elsheimer, Rembrandt, Wilson, and Turner; but that kind of landscape which is entirely occupied by the tame delineation of a given spot; an enumeration of hill and dale, clumps of trees, shrubs, water, meadows, cottages, and houses: what is commonly called a View, little more thau