174 of October, 1801. The serious Opera of Artaxerxes was chosen, as being an English composition, yet founded ou all the ele-¦¦ gancies of the Italian schools, added to the taste and genius of Arne, who is said, with great justice, in this piece "to have consolidated the beautiful melody of Hasse, the mellifluous richuess of Pergolese, the easy flow of Picini, and the finished can tabile of Sacchini, with his own pure and native simplicity." The effect which this was intended to produce was completely fulfilled, and a numerous and delighted audience were not only convinced of her merit and amazing powers, but actually electrified by some parts of her performance. On this occasion, in the songs of an Opera with which most of her audience were well acquainted, and even though not critics, yet sufficiently qualified to taste her beauties, and also to discover defects if they had existed, she may be said to have had a fair and impartial trial; it was unnecessary, however, to wait for the whole of the evidence before the musical verdict was pronounced, for in the first duelt of "Fair Aurora," in which she was accompanied by Incledon, she fully shewed her command of voice by the execution of the very difficult cadenzas of the first and second strain, to whose chromatic effect she added a degree of sweetness before unheard, and an accuracy of intonation superior to that of the best tuned and best touched instruments; whilst the sudden, yet almost imperceptible transition from the chromatic strain to the minor third, rendered it doubtful whether her taste or science were most predominant in that passage. It has been said that she was more profuse of her ornaments than formerly; but these cannot be profuse when they appear only to fill up their necessary places, and only allow us to wonder that we never felt the want of them before. This is particularly applicable to more than one of the airs which she sang on that first night of her retura, especially in "If e'er the cruel tyrant Love," at whose close she left the instruments far behind her, and soaring boldly yet sweetly to D in alt, dwelt upon it with a steadiness of tone almost incredible. If her execution was thus improved, so also was her expression; not so much in countenance and manner as in intonation; and this was fully exemplified by the air "Let not rage," in which she shewed that science might, on occasion, be but secondary to taste and feeling, though at the same time a powerful assistant. Great as were her powers throughout the piece, yet she was considered as even exceeding herself in the concluding bravura. "The Soldier tir'd of war's alarms," had been so often and so exquisitely sung before, particularly by Miss Brent, that it was scarcely possible that any person could expect either novelty or additional beauties: yet such was the effect produced; not indeed by adding to the beauties that song coutains, but by giving them with all the simplicity of truth, with a due regard to the design of the composer, by preserving the force of every passage, by keeping each pas age distinct, and by a most judicious hitting of the distances even in the most difficult parts, and thus preserving their simplicity without the help of intermediate graces. The only part in which she departed from the n tes of the composer, was whilst repeating the concluding division, when she was in some measure at liberty to introduce a variation that gave her an oppor unity of showing her command of voice, darting at once with the rapidity of an eagle to the key note in alt, and there stopping as if by enchantment; and producing an effect upon the audience which may be felt, nay, which a cool observer might have seen, but which none can describe. The later occurrences of her professional life are too well known to require further notice; she has indeed for some time been off the stage, but we hope not lost to it for ever. Notwithstanding her losses by the outrageous career of the French army, she has had the good fortune to be well rewarded by a generous public, and the good sense to preserve it safely in her own country, without risking it in any more Veue. tian purchases. THEATRICAL CHARACTER OF MRS. SIDDONS. THIS lady, who has so long been the ornament of the tragic drama, who has been accustomed so often to subdue the soul by fictitious terror, and elevate the heart by the strongest and noblest representations of distress; who has, in fact, prolonged the illusion of the poet, and contributed to the immortality of his genius by the most powerful exterual representations of those passions which he had only conceived, being about to quit the stage, we shall make an attempt in the present Number of our Magazine, to give a critical survey of her general merits, and to establish her title to preeminence in her art on the just and firm foundations of independent criticism. But he, who struts his hour upon the stage, It is not often that a female performer is capable of that wide range of characters, or is possessed of that versatility of talent, of which we have had examples in the other sex.-Garrick's comedy was equal to his tragedy; the glowing humour of his Scrub and Archer was equal, in point of truth and effect, to the grandeur of It is the misfortune of all great excellence that it never can be continued long amongst us; and it is yet a greater mis-his Macbeth, and the lofty serenity and fortune, when that excellence is of the pe- philosophic elevation of his Hamlet.→ culiar kind and degree which belongs Nature seems to have gifted him, as she had merely to the person, and is essentially in- already gifted Shakspeare, with endowherent in the single object which produces ments as extensive as her own creation, and it. The poet leaves his works behind him, powers as various as her own productions. the painter his picture, and the sculptor To penetrate with an eagle eye through his statue. They expect, according to the the whole expanse of nature; to be able to merits of their several productions, to levy conceive, and express all the exterior of contributions of fame in distant ages, and manuers, as modified by innumerable cusreceive the acclamations of future crowds. toms and modes, and estranged and disIndeed almost every kind of genius has its torted from the simplicity of an elemental peculiar instrument and operation by passion; to be able to paint them with that which it continues its fame to posterity, by astonishing effect, that the portrait was which it works for immortality, and flou- brought home to every bosom, is a very rishes to the improvement and delight of rare talent indeed, and was never found in succeeding generations. This, however, any performer, with the exception of Garis not the lot of the actor; his genius, how-rick. The female actress is necessarily ever eminent, produces no substance or limited in her art by her limited and narrow permanent effect; he is indeed the creature survey and knowledge of human life. A of momentary joy, the phantom of perish-female painter, of any remarkable eminence, able applause; the recollection of him is has never hitherto appeared to adorn and daily wearing away, and a few years must extend that pleasing study; and the reason inevitably consigu him to oblivion, or at least leave nothing behind but the bare sound of his name. Garrick himself has admirably touched upon this oblivious quality of his art in the following elegant lines in his Prologue to the Clandestine Marriage; he alludes to the death of Quin and Mrs. Cibber:-- "The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye; While England lives his fame can never die. is found in the restricted means of the female sex to acquire the necessary knowledge for general and universal art. Mrs. Siddons, therefore, is to be considered, and crit cised only, as a tragic actress. In the early part of her professional life she did, indeed, attempt comedy; but Comedy soon deserted her, and Tragedy claimed, and has hitherto possessed her wholly, The three leading passions of tragedy with which the actress is particularly conversant, are terror, pity, and love. The first passion is best exemplified in the lofty and heroic dramas, in which are painted characters such as Lady Macbeth, Alicia, &c. The second passion is shewn, either in the circumstances of regal or domestic distress; in characters such as Queen Catharine, Constance, Isabella, Belvidera, Jane Shore, Euphrasia, and Lady Randolph. The third is confined to a Juliet, a Calista, a Monimia, and heroines of the like description. To obtain excellence in the two former branches of the art is much more difficult, and of infinitely rarer occurrence, than in the latter. Mrs. Siddons has surpassed every female performer of the stage unquestionably, and without competition, in the two first and grandest divisions of the Tragic Drama. We shall examine her in some of the characters of the first line. In her Lady Macbeth, which has long been the just pride of the British Stage, we behold a character of firm and determined courage, in which humanity, loyalty, hospitality, and female sensibility, are made to bend to a stern and invincible ambition. But we do not see in the portraiture of Mrs. Siddons the pride and ambition of a mean and vulgar mind. The passion ascends to its object, and measures the altitude of the crime to which it aspires. It is the ambition of a Queen; the bloody and remorseless enterprise of a woman, as much elevated above her sex by the daring character of her crime, as by the object on which her ambition fixes. Who, that has seen this exhibition once, will ever forget Mrs. Siddons in the banquetting scene; the lofty courtesy with which she receives her guests, and the haughty, hurried, and apprehensive manner in which she dismisses them. When she addresses her husband, and commands him to recollect himself; bids him summon up the courage of his manhood, and be no longer misled by the || visions and courage of the brain; and the "air drawn dagger" of his imagination,she throws into the character such an irony and sarcasm, such a proud, and disdainful raillery, that Macbeth seems himself even to doubt his senses. In the chamber scene, in which she walks in her sleep, Mrs. Siddons' conception of the propriety and demeanour of the character of Lady Macbeth marks the superior and unrivalled qualities of her genius. The body sleeps, but the imagination wakes, and conjures up all those dreadful phantoms which prey upon her disordered frame. This punishment, which conscience, alone and unassisted, is made to inflict upon the murderer, is shewn to produce more bodily and mental suffering than the most ingenious torture which refined cruelty ever invented and practised. Mrs. Siddons' performance of this part becomes therefore a fine moral lesson, and the guilty stings of conscience are shown to be severer accusers than human laws, the iron crow of Luke, and the steel bed of Damien. Again, let us examine Mrs. Siddons in the character of Alicia, in Jane Shore. All the passious of a slighted womau, the friend and benefactress of her rival, concur to embitter the pangs of disappointed love, and excite a phrensy in the soul, which tosses and agitates the mind, till it seeks relief in madness. Whoever has seen Mrs. Siddous' performance of Alicia will readily acknowledge that a more perfect picture of insanity was never produced upon the stage. Yet, with all the violence of passion, and mournful eccentricity of madness, Mrs. Siddons' Alicia never once offends against nature and propriety. There is the medium which truth prescribes in the burst and violence of her passion; there is the chastity and keeping of nature in the wildness of a broken mind. Her passion is without extravagance; and nature still presides over the ruins of reason.-We shall continue this criticism in our next. 177 ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HYMENEA IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND. (Continued from Page 119.) "Your friend, you mean," replied I; pray do not transfer him over to me." Well, we will not quarrel about him," said my cut; "but to make short of the matter at once, he is sent out of the country. He was arrested yesterday by a warrant from the Office of the Secretary of State, and I understand from undoubted authority, that he is now on his journey to Harwich, whence he is to be sent to Heligoland, and thence to his own country. Is it not a shocking thing to treat a man of his consequence and appearance in this way?" "It is a more shocking thing," said I, "that people of fashion and distinction, by the indiscriminate admission of every thing foreign, and monstrous, and odd, should have given this consequence and appearance to an adventurous foreigner who, according to all credible accounts, is but a German Jew." "No, that is impossible," said my aunt; "for was he not at Court? was he not at Carlton-house? was he not at all the first parties in town? and was he not every where an acquisition?" "Yes," said I, "he had the wit to procure himself admission into one of the houses of the English nobility, and thence forwards every house and family was open to him. It is really astonishing to me that there should be this contradiction in the English character. We have the reputation of being the most shy and the most reserved people on the face of the earth, No. XXXI. Vel.V.-N. S. || and yet in despite of all this shyness and reserve, we are the most frequent dupes. We have just now, for example, sent one sharper home; but how many foreigners are at this moment at large, who have nothing to say or do in this country but to procure intelligence for their good friend in Paris. It is a subject of frequent ridicule with the foreigners, that it requires but a very moderate portion of politesse to render an Englishman a dupe." "I am afraid what you say is true," said my aunt; "but what say you, shall we go to-night to Lady Cowslip's rout." "Now there is a woman," said I, "who lays herself out for procuring the admiration and good report of foreigners, and who in consequence (though herself an excellent patriot for all that I know), ought to attract the eyes of the Police and Alien Office at her house. She is possessed with some absurd notion of what she calls belle esprit, or wit, and has an idea that it is no where to be found but in the nobles and gentles of the German and French old Courts. She has always Frederick the Great and some of his sayings on her tongue, and any one who will talk to her about the King of Prussia, and Potsdam, and Sans Souci, may make a fool of her with all imaginable ease and advantage. Her routs are like an aviary; there is an animal from every part of the globe, and every oue seems to wonder how the other got there. I certainly will go to her rout, because it is a kind of free admission to what is certainly a very good spectacle, for her Ladyship makes it a sine qua non with her foreign friends, that they all appear in the costumes of their own country." Accordingly at the appointed time, my aunt, myself, and two or three young ladies who were visitants with us, ascended our carriage, and drove for Lady Cowslip's. As this lady is a dowager, and has an immense jointure, every thing around her be Ꮓ spoke wealth, splendour, ease, and luxury. The mansion in which her Ladyship lived was such as did honour both to the fashionable builder and to the fashionable upholsterer. It did honour to the former, inasmuch as few could have conceived how so much money could have been expended on such a small surface. And it did honour to the upholsterer upon the same grounds, as it was really surprising how so much furniture could be crowded in such a narrow compass. Every thing was in the same style of disproportionate grandeur. The lights were those of a public theatre, and the servants were almost as numerous, and as much in the way as the visitants. "Do you see that gentleman?" said my pre "Yes," said my aunt; "the gentleman has the good fortque to have a wife whose merits compensate for her husband's misdemeanours, and the one is borne because it is deemed necessary to have the other. Nor is this indeed all; for the gentleman knowing his wife's influence, so far sumes upon it, that he does not bear his good fortune even with decent moderation. He has received two or three public rebuffs; but how does he take them? why, he has had the assurance to send a challenge to an English gentleman of the first distinction, who rebuked his wife's professional insolence." "If the English laws will endure this," said I, "they will endure any thing." "But who is that other gentlemen, who looks about him as if he defied both gods and men." "You have hit his character at once," said my aunt.-" Some foreigners carry every thing before them in this kingdom by their cringing and their versatility; and they retain this humility till they have taken good root, and fixed themselves. But this fellow seems to have made his. debut upon totally a reverse plan. He rears his head aloft, and breathes defiance around. He affects something more thau the same bluntness of manners for which we are uaturally distinguished. He has made his bets upon two or three pugilistic combats, and thus identified himself with some of our nobility. And yet with all this assumed manhood, he is as arraut a coxcomb as Italy ever sent us. His English habits, however, have recommended him to the encouragement of some of our noblemen, and under this disguise, I have a very strong notion that the Emperor Napoleon has another very good friend. It is a matter of regret, indeed, that our fashionable parties are not more closely watched than the public houses of St. Giles's, &c.; for if there be any places where we should really seek for the spies and emissaries of the enemy, it is in these citadels of fashion. The French Ministers know our foibles, aud send us over instruments of every form, shape, and use." "But I have seldom seen a more lovely face than that of the lady yonder; she is an Italian, I presume," said I," by the contour of her features." 66 "Yes," replied my aunt, "that Lady is a Sicilian; and to my mind (if there be any thing dangerous in foreign emissaries) a more dangerous person than her Ladyship does not at present exist in this kingdom." "I really should not have thought so," said I,-"may I be permitted to ask your meaning." "Yes," replied she. "That Lady is the Countess, or Principessa (for she is occasionally termed both) of C——— J—; and she comes over to this country professedly to see the manners of the Euglish Court, and by reason of her cousequence has a ready introduction into every society. Lady is her patroness in England, and the Sicilian Ambassador is instructed to pay her the highest honours. In this manner she certainly has it in her power to be a very useful friend both to her Majesty, the Queen of Sicily, and to his Imperial Ma jesty of France. The Countess, as you see, is one of the handsomest women you have ever beheld; she is, moreover, the most accomplished, and above all (a character |
