of the mock-heroic style, has enabled himself to do justice to nature, that is, to give all the force, truth, and locality of real feeling to the thoughts and expressions, without being called to the bar of false taste, and affected delicacy. We might particularly refer to Polly's description of the death of her lover, and to the song, Woman is like the fair flower in its lustre,' the extreme beauty and feeling of which are only equalled by their characteristic propriety and naivete. Every line of this sterling Comedy sparkles with wit, and is fraught with the keenest and bitterest invective.

With

It has been said by a great moralist, There is some soul of goodness in things evil;' and The Beggar's Opera is a good-natured, but severe comment on this text. The poet has thrown all the gaiety and sunshine of the imagination, the intoxication of pleasure, and the vanity of despair, round the short-lived existence of his heroes, while Peachum and Lockitt are seen in the back ground, parcelling out their months and weeks between them. The general view of human life is of the most refined and abstracted kind. the happiest art, the author has brought out the good qualities and interesting emotions almost inseparable from humanity in the lowest situations, and with the same penetrating glance, has detected the disguises which rank and circumstance lend to exalted vice. It may be said that the moral of the piece (which some respectable critics have been at a loss to discover), is to shew the vulgarity of vice; or that the sophisms with which the great and powerful palliate their violations of integrity and decorum, are, in fact, common to them with the vilest, most abandoned and contemptible of the species. What can be more galling than the arguments used by these wouldbe politicians, to prove that in hypocrisy, selfishness, and treachery, they are far behind some of their betters? The exclamation of Mrs. Peachum, when her daughter marries Macheath, Hussey, hussey, you will be as ill used and as much neglected as if you had married a Lord,' is worth all Miss Hannah More's laboured invectives on the laxity of the manners of high life!

The innocent and amiable Polly found a most interesting representative in Miss Stephens. Her acting throughout was simple, unaffected, graceful, and full of tenderness. Her tones in speaking, though low, and suited to the gentleness of the character, were distinct, and varied with great flexibility. She will lose by her performance of this part, none of the reputation she has gained in Mandane. The manner in which she gave the song in the first act, 'But he so teazed me,' &c. was sweetness itself: the notes undulated through the house, amidst murmurs of rapturous applause. She gave equal animation and feeling to the favourite air, Cease your funning.'

To this, however, as well as to some other of the songs, a more dramatic effect might perhaps be given. There is a severity of feeling, and a plaintive sadness, both in the words and music of the songs in this Opera, on which too much stress cannot be laid.

Oct. 30.

Miss Stephens made her appearance again last night at CoventGarden, in Polly, with additional lustre. Her timidity was overcome, and her voice was exerted in all its force and sweetness. We find so much real taste, elegance, and feeling, in this very delightful singer, that we cannot help repeating our praise of her, though, perhaps, by so doing, we shall only irritate the sullen fury of certain formidable critics, at the appearance of a new favourite of the public. We are aware that there is a class of connoisseurs whose envy it might be prudent to disarm, by some compromise with their perverted taste; who are horror-struck at grace and beauty, and who can only find relief and repose in the consoling thoughts of deformity and defect; whose blood curdles into poison at deserved reputation, who shudder at every temptation to admire, as an unpardonable crime, and shrink from whatever gives delight to others, with more than monkish self-denial. These kind of critics are well described by Molière, as displaying, on all occasions, an invincible hatred for what the rest of the world admire, and an inconceivable partiality for those perfections which none but themselves can discover. The secret both of their affection and enmity is the same-their pride is mortified with whatever can give pleasure, and soothed with what excites only pity or indifference. They search out with scrupulous malice, the smallest defect or excess of every kind: it is only when it becomes painfully oppressive to every one else, that they are reconciled to it. A critic of this order is dissatisfied with the embonpoint of Miss Stephens; while his eye reposes with perfect self-complacency on the little round graces of Mrs. Liston's person!

RICHARD CŒUR DE LION

The Morning Chronicle.

May 27, 1814.

Richard Cœur de Lion was brought out last night at CoventGarden, in which Miss Stephens made her appearance in the character of Matilda. She looked and spoke the part well, but the favourite pathetic air of 'Oh, Richard! oh, my love,' was omitted, we suppose in consequence of indisposition.

The new farce, called Tricking's fair in Love,' followed, but

with little success; for after being heard out with great fairness, it was decidedly condemned at last, notwithstanding some inimitable acting by Liston as Count Hottentot. We never saw his face in a

state of higher keeping. It was quite rich and unctuous.

A young lady (Miss Foote) afterwards made her first appearance in Amanthis. Her face and figure excited the liveliest interest as soon as she appeared; which her manner of executing the part did not diminish, but increased as she proceeded. Her voice possesses great clearness and sweetness, and her enunciation is exceedingly distinct and articulate, without any appearance of labour. Her features are soft and regular. She perfectly answered to the idea which we form of youth, beauty, grace, and artless innocence in the original character. She seemed to be, indeed, the Child of Nature, such as

'Youthful poets fancy when they love.'

Her reception throughout was flattering in the highest degree.

DIDONE ABANDONNATA

But,

The Champion. August 14, 1814. The Opera closed for the season on Saturday last. We attended on this farewell occasion, without any strong feelings of regret for the past, or of sanguine expectations for the future. The Opera, from its constant and powerful appeals to the senses, by imagery, by sound, and motion, is well calculated to amuse or stimulate the intellectual languor of those classes of society, on whose support it immediately depends. This is its highest aim, and its appropriate use. without the aid of luxurious pomp, what can there be to interest in this merely artificial vehicle of show, and dance, and song, which is purposely constructed so as to lull every effort of the understanding and feeling of the heart in the soft, soothing effeminacy of sensual enjoyment? The Opera Muse is not a beautiful virgin who can hope to charm by simplicity and sensibility; but a tawdry courtesan, who, when her paint and patches, her rings and jewels are stripped off, can excite only disgust and ridicule. This is the state to which she has been reduced by dissentions among her keepers for the last season.— Nothing could be more unpleasant than the impression produced on our minds by the exhibition of Saturday last. Tattered hanging fragments of curtains, disjointed machinery, silver pannels turned black, a few thin y scattered lamps badly lighted, were among the various circumstances which threw a damp over our spirits. Bank

ruptcy every where stared us in the face. The general coup d'ail of the theatre had no affinity with gaiety or grandeur. The whole had the melancholy appearance, without any of the sublimity, of some relic of eastern magnificence.

The Opera was Didone Abandonnata, in which Madame Grassini performed the part of the unfortunate Queen, and Signor Tramezzani (appearing for the last time on the English stage), that of the faithless Æneas. During the greater part of the first act, there was hardly any body in the pit, and nobody in the boxes. The performance evidently partook of the apathy of the public. We do not know otherwise how to account for the undress manner in which Madame Grassini acted the part of Dido. She walked through it with the most perfect indifference, or as if she had been at a morning rehearsal before empty benches. The graceful dignity of the character never left her, but it was the habitual grace of a queen surrounded by her maids of honour, not the impassioned energy of a queen enamoured of the son of a goddess, and courted by Numidian kings. Even after the desertion of Æneas, and when the flames of her capital were surrounding her, the terror and agitation she displayed did not amount to the anxiety of a common assignation-scene; her trills and quavers very artfully mimicked the uncertain progress of the tremulous flames; and she at last left the stage, not as if rushing in an agony of despair to her fate, but with the hurry and alarm of a person who is afraid of being detected in a clandestine correspondence. In some passages, however, both of the recitative and the songs, the beauty of the movement or the force of the sentiment drew from her tones of mingled grace and energy, which might create a soul under the ribs of death. This effect seemed to be purely involuntary, and not to proceed from any desire to gratify the audience, or to do justice to the part she had to sustain.

The same objections cannot be applied to the acting of Signor Tramezzani, in which there was no want of animation or effort. We are not among this gentleman's enthusiastic admirers; at the same time we would not wish to speak of him more contemptuously than he deserves. There is, we think, in general, considerable propriety in his conception, and great spirit in his execution; but it is almost universally carried into grimace and caricature. His heroes have the fierceness of bullies; his lovers are the fondest creatures;-his frowns and his smiles seem alike fated to kill. We object most to the latter. Signor Tramezzani is really too prodigal of his physical accomplishments his acting is quite of the amatory kind. We see no reason why Æneas, because Dido takes him by the hand, should ogle the sweet heavens with such tender glances, nor why his lips should feed

on the imagination of a kiss, as if he had tasted marmalade. Signor Tramezzani's amorous raptures put us in mind of the pious ardours of a female saint, who sighs out her soul at some divine man at a conventicle. We hate such fulsome fooleries.

After the Opera 'God save the King' was sung. The first verse was given by Madame Grassini, with that ease and simplicity which are natural to her. The second was torn to tatters by Signor Tramezzani with every preposterous accompaniment of imitative action. Into the homely couplet,

'Scatter his enemies,

And make them fall,'

he introduced as much heroic action, as if Jove, in the first line, had had to shake a thousand thunderbolts from his hand, and in the next to transfix the giants to the earth. The bow with which this celebrated actor quitted the stage was endless and inimitable. The Genius of Scotland would have turned pale with envy at the sight! Of the other performers we shall say nothing. M. Vestris made an able-bodied representative of Zephyr in the ballet.

MISS O'NEILL'S JULIET

Oct. 16, 1814.

The Champion. We occasionally see something on the stage that reminds us a little of Shakespear. Miss O'Neill's Juliet, if it does not correspond exactly with our idea of the character, does not degrade it. We never saw Garrick; and Mrs. Siddons was the only person who ever embodied our idea of high tragedy. Her mind and person were both fitted for it. The effect of her acting was greater than could be conceived before-hand. It perfectly filled and overpowered the mind. The first time of seeing this great artist was an epoch in every one's life, and left impressions which could never be forgotten. She appeared to belong to a superior order of beings, to be surrounded with a personal awe, like some prophetess of old, or Roman matron, the mother of Coriolanus or the Gracchi. Her voice answered to her form, and her expression to both. Yet she was a pantomime actress. Her common recitation was faulty. It was in bursts of indignation, or grief, in sudden exclamations, in apostrophes and inarticulate sounds, that she raised the soul of passion to its height, or sunk it in despair.

We remember her manner in the Gamester, when Stukeley, (it