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IiKKORMAriON" of T'ii k Ouokuv.— A modem...
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SARAH BLANGI. Prom the melodrame of Sara...
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Cminittrrinl %Mxz. 1050 THE LEADER. [Saturday ,
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MONKY MARKET AND CITY INTKLUfi KW- 1 '" ...
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FOUKKJN l-'UNDH. Wi.icit HNl>' Nli (liAH...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Tii.H Dramatist's First Night..Ik Any In...
( Thursday ) has once more undergone the first night experiences . Here is a happy poet , who has seen many first nights , all more or less successful , —not one a failure ! He is not , perhaps , the best type I could select , for he—at least to-night—knows nothing of the tortures through which less fortunate poets have to pass . Strange situation for a man of delicate susceptibility , quick self-love , ardent self-confidence , and lofty aspirations ! He has written his play , let us suppose . He has worked at it in silence for several happy months . With the passionate patience of an inventor ' s love , he has wrought into shape the shapeless mass of tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon him ;
he has touched and touched , re-touched , then blotted every line out to begin anew . It has grown into shape , slowly , laboriously wrought ; the labour lightened by visions of success , the plaudits ringing in anticipative ears , and cheering him when his hand grows weary ! It has followed him throughout the waking day ; it has threaded his dreams throughout the night ; it has lived in his life , the passion and the sustenance of Jrs soul . The play is done . He believes it is a master-piece . Now begins the real difficulty , the unalloyed pain . He has first to get a manager to read it ; he has then to get a manager to accept it . All this seemed so easy to his innocence I He could foresee so little of the obstacles to such a
result I He could not suppose * that his master-piece would not be recognised as such—would not be " doable "—would " not draw a penny to the house . " He foresees , on the contrary , that it will make the manager s fortune and his own ! After , perhaps , some years of baffled hopes and fruitless application , he finds a manager willing to " risk it . " ( Poor self-love ! thy master-piece is " risked ! " ) Let me suppose—it is immensely improbable !—that our poet has been happy enough not only to find his manager , but that he has found one who does not insist upon his so twisting and turning the masterpiece with " alterations , " that , to bring it into conventional shape , all its organic life has been destroyed . Let me further , since I am on the line of improbabilities , suppose the " leading actors" satisfied with their parts , and requiring no alterations . The play is rehearsed . The first night
. The first night ! What a drama is acted on the unseen theatre of the poet's soul as the play proceeds ! The quick and eager risings of hopethe fluttering agitations of suspense—the keen sensitiveness to what goes wrong—and the feverish , uneasy , unhappy happiness , as the house-shaking plaudits tell him of a victory I JNot so fast , little Sir , —not so fast ! The victory is not gained yet : a brawling turbulence of friends , a generous enthusiasm of a public , following the lead of friends , may or may not be an ovation ; the first night is not a victory : it is the twentieth night you are a victor ! If you could only step into the lobby , just after bowing from your box , and overhear old playgoers and critics as they interchange their rapid comments , the applause of the audience will have another meaning : —
What flock of critics hover here to-day As vultures wait on armies for their prey , All gaping for the carcase of a play ! Ah ! those critics ! They are terribly " used up" with regard to pieces like your masterpiece , and see " nothing in it . " They know every one of your situations—they can name the prototypes of all your charactersthey are wearied with the " familiar faces" of your images ; what seemed new to you—because indistinctly remembered—is old to them who have soon it so often . Then these vicux routiers know all the secrets of the
metier you have missed . One of them has views on " construction , according to which he judges your piece ; another wants the drama to be a picture of modern life , and your antiquity wearies him . And after all this , yon wonder that wo , the critics , are not so enthusiastic about your play as friends arc ; ; uid you call us " enemies" if we say so , and pei'haps ¦ write n preface on the " envy of critics ! " That is one of your tortures . The victory is a glorious victory ; but it is not to be purchased without hard blow . s . The shouts that bewilder you , the praises that make you uncomfortably happy , the guerdons of success , in whatever shape they conic , hud need bo ample to repay all you endured to win them .
It is ever so in this combat we name Life . The shout of triumph ' after all , of little value , and it always comes too late . It is the batte *!/ soldier , on whom falls the peerage ! Were I a dramatic author , crown A by plaudits , and lauded by the press ( a most improbable supposition ! b ^ f I am liberal of improbabilities to-night—the gas , the excitement of th theatre having , as it were , " given the rein" to my imagination)— . were t a dramatic author , I say , shall I tell you , O poet , dreaming of a fiW night , what would amp ly reward me for all labour , for all neglect , for all vexation , and for all the agitation of doubt ? Not the bravos of an audience , not the flatteries of critics ; but the quiet , deep , and yearn ing look of two soft loving eyes , that told me S 7 ie was proud of my success ' O poet , believe this : they may crown us in the Capitol , and make our names " f amous in the newspapers , " but the only crown worth wearing is a woman ' s love ! This is a very long preface to what I have to say about
ANNE BLAKE ; but if you had to sit down to your desk immediately after quitting the theatre , and had to write an account of a new play , without time to sleep on your impressions , you would do as I do , and escape from the subject into any digression that offered , itself . This play , which cost Marstou months of thought , I am to criticise off-hand ; and if I am unjust to him what excuse is haste ? and if I say nothing about him , what excuse will you allow me ? If I were a dramatic poet I should not like to be so hastily judged . I should wish my critic to content himself with recording the fact that my play had moved the audience to ready tears , had moved them to long and genuine applause , had achieved what is called a " success" in all its approved forms—that whatever private opinions might
exist respecting certain details , the sum total of the general impression was , that I had skilfully moved the passions , and had unequivocall y amused the public ! That is what I should call upon my critic to do in fairness . " Do unto poets as you would be done by . " Therefore , with your permission , lector benevole , I will enter into details next week ; and confine myself for the present to the acting and the mise en scene , there being no such need of criticism a tete reposee there . Of the acting , however , little need be said , except that Charles Kean ( who was vilely dressed , by the way ) played with that effective quietness he has recently learned from Fechter , and which makes us forget how he can play Shakspeare ; and in the fine situation of the fourth act he only wanted a little less ungainliness of manner to have been perfect . Mrs . Kean I did not like . M . r . Addison spoiled , by buffoonery , a real bit of character ; and Mrs . "Winstanley was quieter , and consequently more
effective than usual . I find this a very unsatisfactory notice , but indeed I am rather chronicling than criticising . Next week , after reading the -play , I shall be more at my ease .
Iikkormarion" Of T'Ii K Ouokuv.— A Modem...
IiKKORMAriON" of T ' ii k Ouokuv . — A modem bishop , not lon < . £ : i tfo , congratulated his clergy on the genera ' improvement , in ( heir order , when compared with the pictures preserved by Kidding out of the last century . II , was a congratulation lor which there was hci'ioum reason . I'Yom tin ; restoration of the , Stuarts to the I'Yene . h revolution , the upper Classen of this country , the uristoeracy , the . country gentlemen , anil tlie clergy , exhibited all the symptoms of a , rapid moral consumption . The first were vicious , the second brutal , the third ignorant and vulgar ; and , if they li ; ul been left to themsdves , they would have followed the course on which they had so long been travelling to its natural jind only termination . Happily for them and for all of uh , another destiny was in store for tlus Knglish nation . Side ; by side with them , forms of thought and action and liie had been springing into being alien to them , if not antagonistic , yet beyond their influence , and to which the portents of the American and the French revolution imparted a fearful significance . Although the industrial temper in the modern Knglish rcpreHcntativos of this movement made it Ichu immediately threatening t him it had been under its earlier form of I ' urit . aniHm , yet there was ho much niorul resoluteness about it ,, so much of the old English character , which was lost by those who once possessed it , bad taken refuge there , that , the no-culled upper cIuhkcs were roused by danger , and by the stern eye which now they fell upon them , and , conscious that their existence depended upon it , they were driven into a reformation , the progress of which iu now before uh . Too lato . indeed , to tiiivo the
exclusive predominance of their order , yet in time to save their own souls , which is , happily , never too late , the clergy have at least endeavoured no longer to be a disgrace to the munc , and the noblemen and country gentlemen have felt the necessity of a real education . — " The Oxford Commission , " Westminster Review . JIow a'liK Statutes aiu < : Kkpt . —They are to say daily masses for the ; souls of the founders . The echo of the old service ; i « to bo heard in the Latin thanksgiving grace which precedes the hall dinner , the form and sound of which are contrived to bear the . nearest permissible resemblance to the enjoined supplication ; but masses themselves are forbidden by the law of the land . They arc to reside in the university , in most cases under penalty of forfeiture . Two-thirds of them never come near the place , except to receive their dividends ; and their absence is pronounced better than their presence ; their idleness at a distance from the university less injurious to it , than their idleness within its walls . They are in study ; " yet nothing , " it , is said , " can be more absurd than to cull them students , " except , perhaps , the endeavour to mnlio them such . IjiikI ; of all , the worst , most grievous sin , the most seducing , and therefore most enveloped in anathemas , the dividing the surplus revenues ; this in universal . Is it possible to conceive anything bearing Hinaller resemblance to what was contemplated in tlio wishes of the founders ? Yet these are the gentlemen who cry sacrilege on the attempt to interfere with the single statute which they observe - the statute which Bccurcs them in their monopolies . — " The Oxford Cvtnmuision , " Wtslmimlvr liovicw .
Sarah Blangi. Prom The Melodrame Of Sara...
SARAH BLANGI . Prom the melodrame of Sarah la Creole , Mr . Morris Barnet has made a five-act melodrame , which rivetted the Olympic audience by its progressive story and strong situations . Of late years , in France , there has been a strong disposition to make the drama a novel in action . Instead of taking a character and developing it in action , or a passion and illustrating its various phases , the dramatists have sought , by the progressive interest of a story riainff into a series of culminations ( " situations ) , to keep curiosity alive during a whole evening—in the case ot Monte L-nsto , during three whole evenings . This is done by Mr . Morns Barnet , and done with considerable skill ; for although the heroine is odious , the audience are breathless in their anxiety as to whether she will succeed or fail . To tell you the story would be to spoil your enjoyment , unless you are of that class which cannot enjoy a novel until the close ot tJu > third volume bo consulted as to the denouement . Go and sec the . drama . It is not new , it is not true , it is not witty , nor ia it wise ; but it am " interest you , and what do you want more ? About Henry V ., triumphant at Sadler ' s Wells , next week !
Cminittrrinl %Mxz. 1050 The Leader. [Saturday ,
Cminittrrinl % Mxz . 1050 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Monky Market And City Intklufi Kw- 1 '" ...
MONKY MARKET AND CITY INTKLUfi KW- '" 1 UUT 1 SIL FUNDS FOR T 1 IK 1 'AST VV IOKIv . ( Ci . onino 3 ' uicns . ) Satur . Mo , ul . Tuck . IVr . du . ' M' ™ - Ffili iinukstock 2-xi aw * ••• ' i i , : ; :::: ; i rC ™ i , W i )' . » 3 Hit ' s »»¦! »« j jr 3 , « r (> ...,. O ..... A .. H . 10 U 10 OJ 100 Sjj ; i r (> ul . Con ., Ao . 100 * H «>| ! * m \ j 3 i j >« r CVnt . An HW . t KM * ' <«* I < U * . . " ( N < w fi ixir CimU "L"lr . ,- '" rr " Mi l \ 7-W Lon A ,, h .. 1 H « O « S « 7- ' « ^ " \ , India Hl . ook ~ "' a H 7 Ditto UoikIh , . C 1000 ... H 5 - , ;; . t , 7 Ditto , uii ( lor . fc 1000 ... H 5 H 5 Hi , JJ" 7 t ., Kx . HillH , JL'IOUO 7 < l l > £ ' .. | Ditto , . t'fioo : ••¦¦• ''¦ ... I Ditto , N . m . ll 7 H |» 7 ' » |> 7 !> l > .
Foukkjn L-'Undh. Wi.Icit Hnl>' Nli (Liah...
FOUKKJN l- 'UNDH . Wi . icit HNl >' ( liAHT Oi ' l'uiiai , Quotation immunu run W ' J » TmiHHDA Y KVItNINO . ) o .. llumiuH Aynw Konils HI H | Mhi | m 1 i : « 1 » . < ' ^ - £ •;* „; ,, / iffl iii ::: : ¦;; ::::: . m s , ** £ . ' $£% & : * * K ^ t ™' ,, ™ ,.: 3 . »« - « . « rr- .. ItuHHiun 4 i pur OontH . ... J « r » i 1 WM tiurdiiiiuu 0 iior Uoutu . ... l > 2
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30101852/page/22/
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