the management of Balfe, and a committee of the then existing company. The Hall Porter was intended to show up the unreasonableness of a prejudice which existed very strongly at the time against engaging Irish servants. Advertisements instantly appeared with the concluding sentence, "No Irish need apply." It was a bold experiment, and an unsuccessful one; for though the piece was not absolutely condemned, and ran for some twelve or fifteen nights, the audience, to use a familiar phrase never "cottoned" to it warmly, although the Hall Porter himself was excellently played by Frank Matthews.

But Il Paddy Whack in Italia made ample amends. This was a kind of burlesque operetta, in which Balfe, Wilson, Duruset, Barker, Stretton, Miss Gould and Miss Walstein appeared together. The two latter were debutantes, new to the boards, and of great promise. Their withdrawal from the stage was a loss to the profession. The season had opened with Balfe's grand opera of Keolunthe, full of fine music, and sustained by the united talents of Madame Balfe, Miss Gould, Balfe, Henry Phillips, Wilson, Stretton, a good chorus, and an effective orchestra. But there was no lively afterpiece as a corps de reserve to support this and bring in halfprice that great help to the treasuries of most of the London theatres. This want was not remedied in time. Lover had suggested to Balfe that if he undertook the line of the singing Irishmen it would in all probability prove attractive. With this view he undertook the part of O'Donnell, for which the song of "Molly Bawn" was composed, and received with a positive furore. But the relief came too late to retrieve a failing campaign; and the doors of the theatre were suddenly closed on the seventeenth night of a very successful representation.

Of eight dramatic pieces enumerated above, three still keep the stage with eminent attraction, and are likely to remain long on the acting list. Rory O'More, The White Horse of the Peppers, and The Happy Man. One only, The Hall Porter, is not musical; with this exception, all were distinguished by the introduction and establishment of one or more popular songs. Lover is also the only dramatist we are at present aware of who has painted scenery for his own pieces. This he

VOL. XLVII.-NO, CCLXXIX.

did twice. In the White Horse he supplied a "bog"-a piece of landscape with which the scenic director of the Haymarket was not quite as familiar as with the farm-yards, and sylvan glades of "merrie England." In the Paddy Whack, the opening scene represents an artist's studio, which frequently recurs, and is therefore of importance. The painting department of the republic of the Lyceum happened to be short of hands, and pressed for time, though under a most efficient chief. The author of the forthcoming piece, in this emergency, urnished a colossal statue of the Venus of Milo, and a large framed picture of an old master. It may seem strange that a miniature-painter should venture to handle a pound brush, and dash away at square yards instead of minute inches; but Lover dabbled in private theatricals when a boy, and tried his "prentice hand" on brown paper, before he aspired to canvas.” It may also be mentioned here that on the drop-scene of the Theatre Royal, Hawkins-street, painted by the late William Phillips, and exhibited down to a very venerable antiquity, there were too full-length figures, regal and imposing in garb and attitude -Irish Kings of the old, old time, if we recollect rightly. These were voluntary contributions from the pencil of Samuel Lover. As we have already remarked, his reputation as a dramatist, is, in part, a reflection of his brilliancy as a writer of songs. In the one character, he cannot be separated from the other. If his plots are sometimes irregular, and not always in harmony with the strict rules of stage composition, his incidental melodies are always skilfully introduced, and his dialogue is seldom deficient in smart and telling points. Let it be remembered, also, that he wrote in general for a leading "star;" and pieces so constructed must, as an inseparable condition, partake of the exclusive features of monodrame. Your star is jealous of divided empire, and wants all the effects concentrated in his own part. In the bandying of jokes he looks for the first and the last blow. The rebound is all that is left for his toiling coadjutors who help him to keep up the ball. Every pigmy who is enlisted to lend his aid in upholding the tail of the giant, falls within the unenviable list

C 2

of what are technically denominated "bellows-blowers." They come in for more than a lawful share of the hard work, while they are permitted to appropriate but a small residuum of the fame and profit. In taking leave of Lover, viewed dramatically, we naturally ask, is he tired or slumbering, that he has done nothing lately? Why does his lyre hang undisturbed on the wall in a corner of his study, and wherefore is his humour in abeyance ?

JOSEPH STIRLING COYNE, is a name that appears more frequently in the play-bills than that of any other in the battalion of living dramatists. His pieces are as multiplied and various as those of O'Keeffe or Kenney, and he has yet, in ordinary calculation, many years of vigorous work before him, during which he may add largely to a list already exceeding sixty in number, without including several that have never been published. Amongst these are sixteen comedies and three-act dramas of a mixed character, twentyfive farces, and above a dozen burlesques and spectacular romances. This author has ever been distinguished by a happy faculty of seizing any particular occurrence on the spur of the moment, and of turning it to account in a dramatic form, while the topic was fresh in every mouth. Such impromptu efforts often produce more immediate profit than permanent fame, and die, in nineteen cases out of twenty, when the momentary excitement of the subject is over. But they are easy as well as agreeable. They have ever had, and are likely to continue, their temptation to the writer, and their career of popularity with the audience. For examples of this class, from the ready and lively hand of Mr. Coyne, we may cite, The Caudle Lectures, Railway Bubbles, Our National Defences, The Pas de Fascination, An Unprotected Female, Box and Cox Married and Settled, Wanted One Thousand Milliners, Villikins and his Dinah, Marie Laffarge, This House to Let, Inquire Within, The Humours of an Election; and a most amusing and cleverly-turned piece de circonstance, now running at the Adelphi Theatre, entitled Urgent Private Affairs.

This style of composition has been sneered at, and condemned as trivial and common-place, by rigid censors who measure according to an imagi

nary and very exclusive standard Such authorities have laid down, and demanded as a moral and intellectual axiom, that the truest ambition aims at the future, and bestows no thought on current fame or profit. This may be all very grand in theory, but there is something in hearing your own praises, in pleasing while you are alive, in counting your own cash, and in feeling that you can live independently, comfortably, and honestly, by the produce of your own wits. To do this, you must sail with the tide. If you neglect or go against it, ten to one your boat will founder. The laurels which perchance may gather over your grave, afford a pleasant and flattering perspective, and mightily gratify your "remainders" in the third and fourth generation. But posthumous honours are of no comfort or avail to the insensible object on which they are lavished. "Doth he feel or hear them? -No." They come exactly in the place, where, as honest David says in The Rivals, " you can manage to do without them." When Pizzaro (as simulated by Sheridan) is severely rebuked and even bullied for his preference of present reputation to the shadowy chance of future glory, he answers, unheroically but logically, thus-" And should posterity applaud my deeds, think you my moulddering bones will rattle with transport in their tomb? This is renown for visionary boys to dream of! The fame I covet shall uphold my living estimation, o'erbear with popular support the envy of my foes, advance my purposes and aid my power!" Such &

course may not produce a model stoic, but it is very likely to lead to a successful man. Let high-sounding ethics proclaim canons as they may, here is good utilitarian philosophy, sanctioned by common practice, and much to be commended as a profitable rule. Writers, therefore, in general, and writers for the stage in particular, if they wish to pay themselves while they please the million, will do well and wisely, to cull their subjects from the passing incidents of the age in which they live, rather than hunt for them in musty chronicles, forgotten legends, and records of exploded manners. The leading object of farce, above all other departments of dramatic composition, is palpably to "shoot folly as it flies," to catch the eccen

tricity or absurdity of the moment, and to feed up the laugh before a "nine days" wonder has lost the charm and gloss of novelty.

Joseph Stirling Coyne was born at Birr, in King's County, Ireland, more recently euphonized into Parson's Town, in honour of my Lord Rosse; and now rejoicing in a celebrity from being the site of his unrivalled telescope, which has somewhat cast into the shade its former importance as a military station. There have been merry days spent in the barracks at Birr, and much good fellowship interchanged in the messrooms there, in days gone by. Young Coyne received his education in Dublin, and was intended for the legal profession, which, however, he soon abandoned for the more enticing paths of dramatic and political literature. His first attempt in the theatrical line appeared in the shape of a farce, called The Phrenologist, brought out at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, on the 2nd of June, 1835, for the benefit of James Browne, at that time a very popular actor of light and eccentric comedy, in the stock company; to whom it was presented by the author for the purpose, and announced, after the usual fashion in such cases, as being written by "a gentleman in this city. The farce was repeated five times, and then sank into oblivion. This was not much encouragement, certainly, for a young beginner, but there was no check in the form of positive condemnation. In the year following, 1836, Mr. Coyne supplied the Dublin manager with two more farces, The Honest Cheats and The Four Lovers, Browne, as befere, performing the principal character in both. These were received with moderate favour. In 1837, the author repaired to England to push his fortunes on a more extended field than the Irish metropolis seemed likely to supply. Several of his contemporaries and intimate associates had preceded him, and he saw by the result that they had chosen wisely. During that same year his farce of The Queer Subject first introduced him to a London audience, at the Adelphi Theatre, the leading part of Bill Mattock being sustained by that glorious and most original humorist, the late John Reeve. The flattering success of this opening, stamped him at once as a professed writer for the stage, and decided his future course.

Since that time his pen has not rusted in an empty inkstand. Some few o his dramatic works are adaptations from the French, but by far the greater number, and the best, must be treated as entirely original. The Haymarket and the Adelphi appear to have been his favourite fields of action, but he has occasionally skirmished at the Lyceum and the Adelphi. He has never yet soared to the height of regular tragedy, but many of his serio-comic pieces, of an important class, combine both power and pathos, with striking effect and the characteristic humour of the writer. Amongst these we may enumerate Helen Oakleigh, The Merchant and his Clerks, The Queen of the Abruzzi, The Signal, Valsha, The Vicar of Wakefield, Presented at Court, The Hope of the Family, The Old Chateau, The Secret Agent, and The Man of Many Friends.

One of the most delightful and ima ginative spectacles ever produced was The World of Dreams, acted throughout a long and attractive run of more than eighty nights at the Haymarket, in 1843, and which many of our readers may recollect at the Dublin Theatre in the year following, during the Easter engagement of Mr. Webster and Madame Celeste.

66

Coyne's farce of How to Settle Accounts with your Laundress, originally produced at the Haymarket in 1847, was translated into French, and acted at one of the Parisian theatres, under the title of Une Femme dans ma Fontaine." It has also made its appearance in a third language, on the German stage. The circumstance calls for mention, as furnishing almost a solitary instance of an English piece of this class being sought for and adapted by our continental neighbours. We are much more free in our appropriation of their dramatic offspring. Many and loud lamentations have been poured forth, from time to time, on this imputed degeneracy in our national taste, as regards the stage; and the comparative inferiority of our own living dramatists when paralleled with the more ingenious and exciting playwriters of the French and German schools. If the charges be true, and the evidence conclusive, the abolition or continuance of the evil lies with the public voice alone, which imperatively governs authors, managers, and actors; all of whom are impotent to lead, and

can only follow the controlling dictator, fashion; moving in submissive accordance with the ever-shifting current of popular caprice.* In 1852, Charles Mathews addressed a most amusing letter to the dramatic authors of France (well written, in their own language, too) to explain to them how their market in this country was on the decline, and the reasons why; accompanied by a calculated table, showing that out of two hundred and sixtythree new pieces performed in Paris in 1851, only eight were transplanted to the twenty-two London theatres. The fact, then, has been greatly exaggerated, and we are not in such a famished state for home supply as has been supposed. Then, again, the French importations are sometimes rejected by our licenser, on the ground of moral delinquency. The Dame aux Camelias may be quoted as an example, and presents a fair type of the prevailing species. We are not Puritans, or perhaps, in reality, more moral than our neighbour; but we are by many degrees more externally decent. If we do improprieties, we are not fond of blazoning them. Mr. C. Mathews is blunt, but sincere, when he says that the French theatrical repertoire is" too full of indecency, anachronism, immorality, and dirt."

In the long list of Mr. Coyne's dramas, we find but a single illustration of Irish character, Lanty Scrimmage, in the farce called The Tipperary Legacy, produced at the Adelphi in 1847; and he is not a real Celt, but merely a Saxon in disguise. Perhaps the writer looked upon that peculiar ground as worked out, or he may have mistrusted the many so-called successors of Power, who, on the loss of that great actor, came and departed like shadows, with visionary rapidity.

During the seasons of 1839, and 1840, two tragedies, entitled Zaraffa, the Slave King, and The Painter of Italy, were written expressly for representation in the Dublin Theatre, by Mr. J. F. Cockran, an Irish gentleman engaged in literary avocations, and at that time a resident in the city. In the first, the leading character, a black prince, was well acted by Ira Aldridge, usually designated in the bills

as the African Roscius. The plots of both these plays are entirely original and fictitious, although the historical character of the celebrated painter, Julio Romano, is introduced as the hero of the second. Schiller had already exhibited him on the boards, in a subordinate position, in his drama of Fiesko. In the year 1841, Mr. Cockran wrote a third play, under the title of The Fueros of Arragon, but this was not acted. His two first were eminently successful and abounded in passages of poetical beauty. Had he continued to write for the stage, judging by this early promise, he would have produced pieces of a high order of merit.

The writer of this notice had often urged WILLIAM CARLETON to try his hand at theatrical composition, fully impressed with a conviction that his strong descriptive powers, either in the pathetic or the humorous, joined to his keen perception of national character, would shine with additional lustre in the dramatic form. In compliance with this request, constantly repeated, he hastily put together a comedy in three acts, called Irish Manufac turer, or Bob MacGawley's Project; first acted on the 25th of March, 1841. The subject and incidents were local, and the tendency most patriotic; the whole being constructed with reference to passing events. Such a pen as Carleton's could produce nothing with out evidences of genius. His great celebrity as a novelist added to the general expectation with which the announcement of this play was hailed. The difficulties of an experienced writer, when he enters upon a new walk, are much augmented by his own previous reputation. In this comedy, the humour was less prominent than the pathos. A scene of a family starving for want of work, was wrought up with an appalling strength which absolutely startled the audience; but the reality was too painfully applicable to existing facts to prove either agreeable or attractive. The author was so little satisfied with his own effort that he never could be induced to repeat the experiment; not that he could not write plays, but that the topic and time he had selected for his coup déssai

were ill-chosen, although this opinion certainly did not suggest itself until after the event.

We approach the close of our series. The last name that appears is, as it ought to be in such a position, one of most distinguished eminence-JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES. What can we be expected to say now of a writer who has been so often the theme of critical eulogy, whose works will live while the language in which they are written shall last, whose best plays will continue to be acted while dramatic taste endures, and the leading incidents of whose life are already familiar to every reader in multiplied forms of biographical notice? A short synoptical view of his career as a dramatist is all that applies immediately to our present purpose. He has never himself been particularly communicative on points of personal anecdote or history. Gibbon, in writing of the Emperor Heraclius, has divided his public life into three distinct phases -the opening, the meridian, and the decline. The first and last, comparatively insignificant, the central, effulgent in greatness. It is so with Knowles, in reference to the order of his plays. The earliest and the latest are not those by which his genius can be estimated. The produce of his mature manhood has elevated him to his exalted rank in the temple of fame, and by this posterity will test his comparative excellence. It is interesting to the curious enquirer as a study, that all the productions of a great writer should be preserved, but the accompanying reflection, nemo fuit unquam sic impar sibi, presents itself with almost inseparable certainty. Even Homer slumbered sometimes, and there are passages attributed to Shakespeare which we should like to feel convinced he had never written. Knowles, born at Cork in 1784, began to write at twelve years of age. His first essay was a play for a company of boys. At fourteen he produced an opera called The Chevalier de Grillon; then followed a tragedy, entitled The Spanish Story, and Hersilia, a drama. Neither of these three were acted or printed, so that it is impossible to judge of their merit or promise. When he had reached the age of twenty-five his play of Leo; or, the Gipsy, was performed at Waterford, by Cherry's

company, the principal actor being Edmund Kean. Barry Cornwall, in his life of the latter, has preserved a portion of this work, but the extracts he gives, cast no shadows before them of the coming greatness of the author. A few years more passed on, and Brian Boroihme was acted in Belfast. The audience received it warmly, but the genius of Knowles was still dormant. Early in 1815, Caius Gracchus, performed by Talbot's company in the same town, considerably added to the reputation he was slowly acquiring ; but although this play contains vigorous passages, and the characters are sketched with a bold hand, there was not enough in it to win literary immortality. It was a step, but there were many more to be surmounted. Knowles must date from Virginius, as Napoleon did from Montenotte. Sanguine ambition could scarcely desire a sounder pedestal. The production of that play at Covent Garden, on the 17th of May, 1820, established the fame of the writer, determined the future course of his talents, and called forth their exercise to the full development which success encourages. The following is a correct list of Knowles' dramas, with the order in which they appeared in London :-1. Virginius 1820); 2. Caius Gracchus (1823); 3. William Tell (1825); 4. Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green (1828); 5. Alfred the Great (1831); 6. The Hunchback (1832); 7. The Wife (1833); 8. The Daughter (1836); 9. The Love Chase (1837); 10. The Maid of Mariendorpt (1838); 11. Love (1839); 12. Old Maids (1840); 13. John of Procida (1840); Rose of Arragon (1841); 15. Secretary (1843). In addition to these, he has written a comedy, and an opera, still in abeyance. Of the fifteen plays enumerated above, four are historical, John of Procida partly so, The Maid of Mariendorpt taken from Miss Porter's novel of the same name, and the remaining nine, including plots, characters, and incidents, entirely emanations of his own fancy. They will all live in the author's collected works, and seven at least, Virginius, William Tell, The Hunchback, The Wife, The Daughter, The Love Chase, and Love, are likely to keep possession of the stage as long as the stage lasts in the United Kingdom. After the production of Love,

14.