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Leader (1850-1860), 19th June 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 23

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      The Vampire And The Nngush Draw A. Perso...

      com to the ponclusipn that the dramti , as a poetical art , js ajl hut lost . The ^ ing and gUdi ^ g of the frame havp hecome more exquisite , but the pic ^ urp It lias adorned has generaUy heeji indifferent . Few men who can gain eminence in aT ) y other branch of Hterature , have recourse to dramatic writing ; and eyen those flrho have made some figure in it , slink away as spoil as they find a new opening for their talents . The laurels gained ; on the stage are $ o transient in their nature , that they fade ahnpst as soon as th . ey have reached the brow of the author . ! jo gain a found of applause for a single night , to occupy a playbill for a few' weeks , and then to repose till some turn of fortune s ^ all bring another prize 6 f equal dimensions , seems to be all that a dramatic author expects in tb . e relations between himself and the public . Jn modern days , audiences go to the theaire simply to

      be amused , just as they would go to see a phantasmagoria , and their ; applause conveys no verdict that can bei acceptable to a man of intellect . It simply , denotes that for an hour or two they have been kept in a certain state of ^ excitement , and it is often inconsistent with itself . We have no dpubt that on many Occasions when we have reported the ' thunders of applause' that have accompanied the first production of a work , and the visitor on a subsequent night has found a chilly , thin assemblage , chary of its approbation , this visitor has imagined the recorded success has existed less in fact than in pur own imaginations . But the reverse has been the case . We read that in former times a triumphant first night was a victory gained . In the present day , the bouquet of the Monday may but augur the empty bench of the Saturday .

      " The iact is not so much that 'friends' go to a theatre on pertain critical occasions , for these would seldom bear up against the general voice of a house ; but the persons who attend a theatre on the . first night of a new play , take with them a far less amount of judgment than they would bring to hear upon a book , a picture , or a statue . Let any student of humanity observe the hearty roar of laughter that wiU be excited by a very small joke spoken pn the stage , and the applause vviiich will reward some exaggerated expression of sentiment , and ask himself whether any parallel result would be obtained from the reader of a novel or a

      magazine tale . It is no wonder that the magnates of literature are frightened away from the stage , when the highest honours—~ such as they are—are gained by mean ? they would not condescend / - 'to usew Have we enlarged our psychological knowledge through the dramatist ' s personal experience ? -r-have we seen any type of actual or ideal humanity ? - —have we seen the personages of history grouped together so as to give a significant visibility to the past ? These are questions which are never asked by the ordinary class of playgoers . Have we been amused , is all they ask , and they ask it in , the same sense as if they questioned themselves after a display of fireworks .

      " The chief reform that is needed in audiences and critics ( for the latter will often be more or less influenced by the former ) , would be effected by a determination to judge of theatrical productions by some other standard than that of stage conventionality . The course of literature has accumulated a large repertoire pf old dramas , frpm which anTexpression'may be found for almost every position incident to humanity . Love , hatred , jealousy , ambition—what you will—can be pourtrayed by a ready writer , without the slightest knowledge of actual nature , or without more imagination than is requisite to reproduce a metaphor—merely liy the possession of a store of stage experience . Hence , through a series of years , has arisen a sort of spurious human nattiriEl ' pecnliai t 6 the stage , and scarcely at all modified by the changes in life outside the theatre walls . The conventions that exist in this imaginary world were laid down in the midst of circumstances that no longer exist , and the portraitures that in the first instance were real , because they were drawn from nature , or from creative imagination , cease to be so

      altogether when they become portraitures from other portraitures . Nor is ' the spirit of convention confined to one side of the lamps . The audience are as much imbued with it as the dramatic writers . The rule of comparison by which they judge any transaction in life , or even any incident in a hovel , is laid aside . They will honour a hero for expressions which , anywhere but on the stage , would suggest the notion of a strait jacket ; and they will regard a valet or an abigail as entitled to their esteem for a pert recklessness , which , if it figured in their own domicile , would earn nothing but a month ' s warning . The whole thing has declined , the acting drama has become little more than the expression of stage conventionality ; and a thorough revolution of some sort is required . The conventional drama has been drained to the very dregs , and to have a new living dramatic literature we must begin from a now beginning . " Some critics who have wished to talco a high ground with respect to the drama , have been especially severe on pieces of the Corsican Brothers' school . We doubt whether they have hit the right nail on the head . The Corsican Brothers ^ pre - tended to excite the shudder produced by a ghost story , and as thp g hdst-dffeets

      vrereweU managed , it answered its purpose . They were , at any rate , new pf their k ^ d ; the ghostly personages were not a whit more unreal than the chevaliers , gallant peasants , nobles , knights , and what not , who so often in modern plays pretend to represent humanity , and the sympathy between the brothers g ^ Mpme * thing like :. $ poetical tone to the whole . A raclodrapaa , in . which an idea is definitel y worked out , is , after all , if well managed , a very respectable affair . v "We wish we coug extend this praise to . the new melodrama pf The Vampire , in whichis */ superstition ,. not unfiuniliar to the stage , is worked up after a fashion recently attempted at Paris . The ^ circumstance that a gentleman preserves his long lite by sacking a young lady ' s blood once every hundred years , is of itself

      nqt very pleasing , but as we tolerated that " Eastern notion thirty years ago , when it was represented as indigenous to the Highlands of Scotland , we do not see that we have any right to be squeamish now when it is located in Wales . Waving , then , all dislike to the Vampire ' s constitutional propensities , we rest our objection to the modern treatment on the want of development which is its result . The play is cut into three ' dramas '— -as the acts are oddly named—which are separated frpm each other by intervals of an hundred years , so that the story extends frpm 1060 tQ I 860 , i . e ., eight years hence j but the functions performed by the Vampire and his manner of performing them ^ remain so precisely the same , that the fate of Alice , who becomes his victim in 1760 , is almost the same as that of Lucy , who

      perishes in 1660 , and the end of Ada in 1860 would be the same again did not the ghosts of Alice and Lucy burst from the ?? tombs , and protect their young relative-In the way of scenery , everything has been done for the piece , and the complete change of costume and the aspects of a Welsh village , produce an agreeable variety . The effect of laying the deceased Vampire on a moonlit mountain—a warning dream of Alice , in which she beholds Lucy and other ancestors step from their portrait frames on the stage , and the rising of the two ghosts at the end , after the Rolert le Dicfrle fashion , are all admirably contrived . But in spite of accessories , the piece suffers from . its plan ; the characters being different in each act , with the single exception of the Vampire himself , are all slight and imperfectly developed , so that horrors

      there is no concentrating point of interest . Thus the accumulation of , which is pretty thick , becomes somewhat wearisome in the long run , and several ofthe audience evinced displeasure when the shroud-clad Lucy and Alice showed their grim figures in the moonlight . The only scene really worthy the pen of Mr . Bpurcicaiiit , who is , after all , one of the best of our modern comic writers , is a scene between a lawyer iand an old lady , in the ' I 860 ' act , when they discover by certain documents , that a mesmeric gentleman stopping at their house , is the same as the unpleasant member of the ^ ab y family , who turned Vampire two hundred years before . The lawyer was capitally played by Mr . Harley , and the terror of the couple was amusing enough .

      "The . success of Mr . Bourcicaulfc as an actorr—for he made his debut as the Vcmpire—was far more unequivocal than that of the piece . The attitudes were well studied , the chilly aspect was carefully made up , and the fqw words of dialogue were judiciously spoken , so that throughout the whole piece he fully preserved his supernatural distinctiveness . He was generally called at the fall of the curtain . "

      ^E J^ L&5&] ¦ ¦¦ . . . ;/,::.. | T : | ....

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      Ovn Foreign Pompy On The Hustings,—What ...

      Ovn Foreign Pompy on the Hustings , —What is wanted in England at present is a larger proportion of public and parliamentary men , animated with what may bo called the international spirit . Wo must have more men in Parliament , possessing a cdmpetenfc knowledge of foreign questions , and deeply interested in thorn . Let this bo remembered at the next elections . The right men to return at these elections are not those who know and protend to care only about what i « passing within England ; but those who , besides Ifnowing what is passing within England , observe and "ppreeiuto tho great movement which is gathering without hor , and gradually closing in upon her . Let tostH and questions bo devised for candidates , embodying the vital points of foreign politics—questions retrospective and questions prospective . Botrospeotivo —us , for oxumplo , a question eliciting a candidate ' s "pinion as to tho Napoleojiian coup d'Uot ; a question eliciting his opinion as to tho conduct of tho British Government in the negotiations with France whicji preceded the occupation of Romp , and tho restoration of tho Pope by French troops ; and a question , similarly framed , with regard to Hungary . . Prospective—aa , for example , a question pledging a candidato to u cortain cotirtio of conduct , in tho case pf a repetition of tho foroign demands with respect to refugees ; o ; r a Hu . ostion pledging him to a certain course of conduct should England over again bo in a position to vindicates practically in behalf of ft foreign nation , hor boasted

      attachment to tho doctrine of non-inter & rencc , as she might have done in the case of Borne ; or a question involving tho prospects of an alliance of England and America in behalf of liberty , and demanding an express answer as to how a candidato would act or advise , if , at any future time there wore ( nich and such a chance of a service to freedom , to be rendered by the common word or tho common determination of both countries . It is desirable that such questions should bo well studied and carefully framed beforehand , and * also that there should bo a common understanding among tho friends of freedom over the country , as to the precise questions to bo put everywhere , and the precise form in which they should bo put . —Monthly Record of the Frietids of Italy . , Both in the Wwoira . —Aff ; er all it is a pit i ful controversy , thin about tho . relative vices of rich and poor . Two Hchool-boyH taunting each other , with faults of which they were equally guilty , would best parody it . i Whilst indignant lladicalism denounces " tho vile aristocrats , * ' those in thoir turn onlnrgo with horror on tho brutality of tho mob . Neither party hoch its owji sjnp . Neither party recognises in tho other , itself in a different dress . Neither party enn beliovo that it would dp all the other does if placed in | jko circumstances . Yot a cool bystander flndw nothing to choose between them ; knows that those class recriminations are but tho inflammatory symptoms of n uniformlydiflusod immorality . — 'Social Statics ,

      Notes Theatrical. In A Paragraph 1 Must ...

      NOTES THEATRICAL . In a paragraph 1 must groiip the remainder of the theatrical news of the week . § ignor Pettini , a rpbust , or , rather robustipua , tenqr , made Ha appearance at Heb Majesty ' s , in JErttani , with mediocre success . JNot much , more can be said pf Mdlle . Angiolina Bosiq , who appeared at the Eoyal Italian Opeba , in L'JElisir a'Amove , without exciting more than tepid enthusiasm . She is pretty , graceful , and at ease on the stage . Her voice agreeable , though uncertain in its intpnation ^ her execution facile without brilliancy . Signor Galvani , in q , part Mario makes enchanting , was heard with silence , and what Mirabeau said of Icings may be applied to actors— " The silence of the people is the lesson to kings . " Signor BartoUni was very incompetent to Belcore . Boncpni alone carried the opera through ; anything more vivaciously , spontaneously grotesque than hip Dulcamara cannot be imagined . Miss Laura Keene quits the Lyceum this week , and tho drama at the same , time . I hear she has a fine contralto voice , and is going to Italy for study . l £ er part in the . Chain of Events will be sustained by Misg M . Oliver . Buckstone took his benefit on Wednesday , and produced a live-act comedy , The Foundlings , on the occasion . I will report next wqek . On . the same , pyening Henry Farren also took a benefit , and played Richelieu , for the first time . T ? hc season of benofits announces a close of tho dramatic season , Hurrah ! Vivian .

      Cntnmmiitl Sffim

      Cntnmmiitl Sffim

      Money Market And City Intelligence. Brit...

      MONEY MARKET AND CITY INTELLIGENCE . BRITISH FUNDS FOR THE PAST WEEK . . ( Closing Pbicjss . ) iJ

      Satur. Mond. Tuet. Wodn. Thu.Ru. Xvid. B...

      Satur . Mond . Tuet . Wodn . Thu . ru . XVid . Bank Stock 223 * 2221 2221 223 * 3 por Oonfc . Rod J 001 100 | 1001 100 | 1009 3 per Oout . Con . Ana . lOOjf 100 $ ahiu shut shut 3 per Oont . Con ., Ao 09 J 3 * por'Ocmt . An 10 » 102 J 103 103 103 Now 6 por Oonta shut ahut Lour Ann ., I 860 Bhui ; ahut shut OJ « J India Stock Hhut shut ahnt shut Ditto Honda , MOOa ... HD 80 HO Ditto , under U 1 Q 0 O ... 80 81 ) 80 SO Ex . Hills , £ 1000 08 p 70 p 70 p 71 p Of ) p Dilto , £ 500 68 p 70 p 71 p 08 p Ditto , Small 08 p Of ) p . 71 p 08 p

      Foreign Funds. (Last Oirptaiai! Quotatio...

      FOREIGN FUNDS . ( Last OirptaiAi ! Quotation- flvniNa ran Wmuk mwdiko TnUUHBAY IIVJONINO . ) Auatriim Scrip , fl p . Ot ., 8 | pin . Moxionn ( 5 p . Oontu ., 1840 381 Auafcriun Bonds 811 Moximm 3 por Oenta J }» Uraailian 6 por Oouta . ... 100 j Poruvlim lionda . 1 » 49 ... 105 Buenos Ayros 77 Peruvian » t > or Ota . Dof . W Buenos Ayrep , A « oqunt , , PoriugaoaeiperOcnts ... 38 Junoiiq :. 77 KwB 8 la . n 4 k per Oentfl . ... 1 W Dutoh 24 per Cents . ...... Oil BpwuBh a ^ erOont * . ' 1 ...... < tttf Dutch 4 por Cent . Cortil ' . »« SpaniBh 3 p . Oonta . New Qr » nftd » Dofoixea W Deferred 21 *

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 19, 1852, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19061852/page/23/