30 CHAPTER XVI. The summer theatre-Antiquary assails the Red-cross Knights— Falls foul of poor O'Keefe's Peeping Tom-His anachronisms -Colman not to be moved by the Twaddler-The winter season of Drury could not begin with Pizarro-Kotzebue's monopoly of Seduction gluts the market-A fable of this kind dished up by Mrs. Inchbald, and called the Wise Man of the East-Fable of the East Indian, by Lewis-Miss Biggs assumes Mrs. Jordan's character, Zorayda-Mrs. Jordan's confinement in December, at Bushy-How managers suffer by these natural impediments-Kemble without heroines, resorts to monodrames-The Antiquary admires his Richard, --but has a long list of errors in the getting up of the play -France and Banting-King Henry not uncovered—The Missal to throw after the Mayor and Aldermen-No Armour in the play, but in the mouths of the actors-My friend Elliston, the real patron of true armour-His three splendid suits -The Civic festival-Gog and Magog-Kean-A basso relievo of Richard dying, pointed out to him-Duke of Buckingham's seat, Gorsfield Hall-Maria Giesweiler does Joanna de Montfaucon from the MS.-Cumberland censured by Kotzebue-Morton's Speed the Plough-Mrs. Jordan's return to Drury-Indiscretion-Danger of His Majesty George III.-Shot at by Hadfield, the maniac-Mrs. Jordan addresses the house-More annoyance of the King-His Majesty's calmness at the Palace-Hadfield's trial-flattering unction -Junius to Wilkes-Private language-Dilemma of Drury -Mr. Harris a favourite-The Haymarket Point of Honour -The Review-Emery and Johnstone, their excellences suggest to authors. THE Haymarket in the summer of 1799, was full of business, which I am not called upon particularly to notice, though I myself figured there among the authors who succeeded. The reader remembers the antiquary, who troubled Mr. Colman's Banquet Gallery with his presence; and, finding the manager, like Othello, not much moved, he resumed his visitations, simply as a sort of summer amusement, and submitted the Red Cross Knights of my late friend Holman, to a review, which they were little calculated to sustain. Thus flushed with victory over the defenceless, he paid his respects to Peeping Tom at Coventry, and read poor blind O'Keefe a lecture upon the History of England. A few of his discoveries may amuse the reader, till we can return to the opening of Drury Lane, in September, under a manager, somewhat of an antiquary himself. There was a proclamation at the Cross, Anno 1043, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, though Coventry was without one till the reign of Henry the Sixth—they jingle a peal of triple bobs for a leg of mutton and trimmings-An Apothecary's Pestle and Mortar-Old Corporal Standfast-the Clock struck twelve-Knife and Fork-Smoking Tobacco -wearing a Hat, and thinking of a Side Saddle, though, for Three-hundred Years after Tom and his peeping, the fair dames of England rode astride like the men. All these high crimes and misdemeanors swelled the impeachment of the manager's archæology. It would have been vain for any of us to plead the example of Shakspeare, before such a censorhe would have told us, that the bard of our early stage more than redeemed his errors, by his excellences; and that those who were without his nature, his pathos, his humour, and his character, might at least be exact in the manners and customs of the age they dramatised. As to Colman, he called him a twaddler, and has always held that description of accuracy very cheap indeed. But my principal reason for referring to the antiquary, and his discoveries by peeping into Coventry, is to deliver an opinion which I have long entertained as to the cause of the very meagre entertainment which modern poets have afforded, when writing upon classical subjects. We cannot think like an ancient, for we live in a different world, and all the illustrations from manners, with the metaphors in language, are either unknown to the writer, or inapplicable to a modern people and language. If we write from ourselves, we are perpetually unlike 'either Greeks or Romans, and can say little that does not involve some solecism. If we assume to be ancients, our best studies leave us but half formed: we must shroud our want of particular knowledge under general terms, which do not paint with sufficient force ;-we must either be unlike the characters presented, or really resemble nothing in NA TURE. The winter season of Drury Lane might have been expected to open with Pizarro, and run on with 500l. houses, from the unparalleled success of that piece; but Mrs. Siddons was not ready till the beginning of December for Elvira; in the meantime Kemble himself did what Hamlet, Zanga, and his Shylock enabled him to effect unsupported, with the ghostly aid of the Castle Spectre, and the usual importance of a Secret. We are now entered upon the most immoral period of the stage. Kotzebue had almost a monopoly of Seduction, and as he monopolized also the whole dramatic talent, we had a succession of agreeable incidents best discussed in a court of justice, and the only unity of action recommendable, is that of an action for damages. The reader will accept one of these fables, as Mrs. Inchbald improved it from the German of Kotzebue. Quite a jewel of a woman (as Foote would call her), a Lady Diamond plans the ruin of a young man, whose name is Clarenceforth. She has a dependant, Miss Ellen Metland, who has so much humanity, as to acquaint the young gentleman with the plot against him. She gives up her patroness, because she cannot receive favour from the unworthy; and begs the youth whom she has so obliged, to get a coach for her, and send her back to her friends. He is naturally tempted to seduce this guardian, and betray the creature who had saved him-he consequently lodges her safe in a |