Read Ebook: The Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor Vol. I No. 4 April 1810 by Carpenter S C Stephen Cullen Editor

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His speech to the senate was a piece of oratory worthy the attention of the critic and the senator. In the recital of his "feats of broils and battles," the courage of the soldier was seen in all the charms of gallantry and heroism; but when he came to those tender ejaculations of Desdemona,

"In faith 'twas strange--'twas passing strange! 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wond'rous pitiful!"

his voice was so melodiously harmonized to the expression, that the sigh of pity communicated itself to the whole house, and all were advocates for the sufferings of the fair heroine.

In the second act, when he meets Desdemona at Cyprus, after being separated in a storm, his rushing into her arms, and repeating that fine speech,

was the voice of love itself; describing that passion in so ecstatic a manner as seemingly to justify his fears

"That not another comfort like to this Succeeds in unknown fate."

"But there, where I had garnered up my heart, Where either I must live or bear no life,"

That this our opinion is not exaggerated, we refer to that of Colley Cibber, an unquestionable good judge of his art, and who, with all his partialities to Betterton, yet gave Barry the preference in Othello. In short, it was from first to last a gem of the noblest kind, which can be no otherwise defined than leaving every one at liberty to attach as much excellence to it as he can conceive, and then suppose Barry to have reached that point of perfection.

To this admirable description as true as it is eloquent, we subjoin the following extracts from the old Dramatic Censor of England.

Mr. Barry beyond doubt stands foremost in our approbation for this part, as possessing an adequate figure, an harmonious voice, and all the plausibility of insinuation that Shakspeare meant; however, we think that critic an enthusiastic admirer, who, speaking of him in the Rostrum, exclaimed that Paul never preached so well at Athens. It is certain, nature in this, as well as in all his dramatic undertakings, furnished him with irresistible recommendations.

To these extracts we will add one from the life of the celebrated John Palmer, already mentioned, in the Thespian dictionary.

"The following summer he was engaged at the Haymarket, when Mr. Barry was also engaged. The part of Iago was given to Mr. Palmer to study, but at rehearsal he was so awed at the presence of Mr. Barry, that in spite of all that gentleman's encouragement, he could not subdue his terrors, and was obliged to resign his part to Mr. Lee."

FOOTNOTES:

Our readers will partly judge what the powers of that roan must have been, who could beguile an erudite critic into such an enthusiastic, rapturous expression of approbation.

MISCELLANY.

THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS, OR SHAKSPEARE AS HE SHOULD BE.

Marcellus invokes the ghost almost in the words of Charon, who, too charitable to suffer a man to go to the devil in his own way, thus addressed the son of Anchises:

Quisquis es armatus qui nostra ad flumina tendis, Fare age venias: jam isthinc et comprime gressum.

The sybil in Virgil gives a civil answer to a civil question, and narrates the birth, parentage, and education of her proteg?. Not so "the buried majesty of Denmark." Disdaining to be tried by any but his peers, he withholds all parlance till he commences with his son, and having entered O. P. makes his exit P. S. . Marcellus, hereupon, moralizes after the following fashion:

I do not think that the modern actors who personate the ghost, pay a proper attention to the text. It is evident from the above passage, that the ghost in crossing between the speakers and the audience, should give a jump, taking special care to avoid both traps and lamps, otherwise he may "fast in fires," a little too fast. "Gone by our watch," should be divided thus, "Gone--by our watch;" meaning at this hour, as we compute the time. Marcellus should here pull out his watch. A man will never make an actor unless he is particular in these little matters. Horatio continues thus:

As for the eruption in the state, the reader will bear in mind the jump of the ghost, and coupling it with the aforesaid eruption, will no longer wonder that a modern writer couples the word jump with the Norman invasion:

Hop, step, and jump, Here they came plump, And they kick'd up a dust in the island.

Go hop my pretty pet along, And down the dance lead Bet along.

But if his own evidence is to be believed, he has no penchant for it. The farmer asks him to join the village dance, whereupon he indignantly exclaims, "What! I sport a toe among such a set of rustics!" Upon the whole I am inclined to believe that as a manufacturer of stays he takes his name from a part of those modish ligatures called jumps.

Another Eschylus appears--prepare For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair, In flame like Semel? be brought to bed, Whilst opening hell spouts wildfire at your head.

And let us in future see Shakspeare's ghosts adorned with the proper paraphernalia and of thunder, hautboys, and brimstone. But to return--For "eruption to our state;" some people prefer reading corruption, alleging that most states are corrupt but that eruptions are confined to the towns that border on Mount Vesuvius. But surely, allowing the observation its full swing, eruption is here the right reading. The ghost, in a subsequent scene, expressly informs us that he is "confined to fast in fires," and from his underground repetition of the word "swear," it is clear that those fires were immediately under Hamlet's feet. Yes, sir, this identical ghost was the Guy Faukes of Denmark, and but for the vent he discovered in a cranny near Elsinore enabling him to take a peep at the "glimpses of the moon," would doubtless have blown the crown prince, and all his court into the air, and thus have rendered unnecessary our late expedition for that purpose.

I find nothing upon which to animadvert till the re-entry of the ghost. He has evidently something upon his mind, which he wishes to communicate; but with the heart of a lion shows that he also possesses the fears of that royal beast, for upon the crowing of the cock the spirit evaporates as quickly as from a glass of champagne, in the drinking of a health.

Here performers, who move like blind asses in the manager's mill, usually raise the right arm, as though partisan meant the instrument in their grasp. O lame and impotent! As if a little bit of a truncheon could bruise a ghost! What says Ossian, speaking of a ghost? "The dim stars twinkled through his form." A plain proof of his want of substance. So of Pope's sylph:

Fate urg'd the shears and cut the sylph in twain; But airy substance soon unites again.

Some fanciful persons will have it that partisan signifies companion, as though Marcellus should say, "shall I strike at it with the assistance of Bernardo?" Listen to the real original meaning:

In plain English, "shall I throw a cheese at its head?" This agrees with what was before advanced relative to beef, and shows that the sentinels of those days antedating the couplet in the Bath Guide,

He that would fortify the mind, The belly first must fill,--

never mounted guard without a havresack well stuffed with eatables.

Coffee is the seed of a tree or shrub of the jessamine species, originally a native of Arabia, but now thriving in the West Indies, where it is become an important article of English commerce.

The flower is yellow, and the berry juicy, containing two seeds: these when gathered have a ferinaceous bitter taste, but are wholly without that peculiar smell and flavour imparted to them by fire, and for which an infusion or decoction of them is so much admired.

This fashionable beverage, almost a necessary of life to the merchant, the politician, and the author, on its first introduction in Asia, caused a violent religious schism among the Mahometan doctors, almost as early as the thirteenth century, although it was not till towards the middle of the sixteenth, that a coffee-house properly so called, was established at Constantinople: its discovery was announced by a miraculous legend which each sect relates in its own way.

A dervise, says a certain heterodox rational mussulman, if such there be, "a dervise overflowing with zeal or with bile, was sorely troubled on observing that his brethren were not animated by a spirit active as his own: he saw, with concern, that they were listless and drowsy in the performance of their religious exercises, their ecstasies, their howlings, their whirlings round, their vertigoes, their bellowings, and laborious breathings.

"Listen not to such profane heresies," says an orthodox doctor of Mecca, "it was in the six hundred and sixty-sixth year of the Hegira that Abouhasan Scazali, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of our most holy prophet, sinking under fatigue, extreme heat, and old age, called unto him Omar, a venerable Scheick, his friend and companion, and thus addressed him:

"Teacher of the faithful! the angel of death hath laid his hand upon me; cleansed from my corruptions in the waters of Paradise, I hope soon to be in the presence of our prophet; but I cannot depart in peace, till I have done justice to thy zeal, thy faith, and thy friendship; persevere in the path thou hast so long trod, and rely on him, who drove the infidels like sheep before him, to extricate thee from all thy difficulties: farewell, sometimes think of Abouhasan, pity his errors, and do justice to his good name:" he would have spoken further, but his breath failed, his eyes became dim, and pressing that hand he was to press no more, he expired without a groan.

"Having performed the last office of friendship, Omar pursued his way: but, a few days after, lost in devout contemplation, or overwhelmed with sorrow, he wandered from his associates in the caravan, and was not sensible of his situation, till involved in one of those whirlwinds, which, raising into the air the sandy soil of that country, generally prove destructive. Falling on his face, the fury of the blast, and the thick cloud of sand passed over him: almost suffocated with dust, notwithstanding the precaution he had taken, separated from the companions of his journey, without water to moisten his parched mouth, and fainting for want of sustenance, he gave himself up for a lost man, the stream of life was propelled with difficulty, perception and sensation began to fail, and believing himself in the agonies of death, he poured forth a mental ejaculation to Allah.

"An angel of light immediately stood before him, waving his hand thrice towards the holy city, and pronouncing deliberately three mysterious words; a limpid stream suddenly gushed from the ground, and a luxuriant shrub sprung forth from the barren sand of the desert; bathing the temples, the eyes, and the lips of Omar, with the refreshing fluid, the celestial messenger disappeared.

"The cool stream, and the berries plucked from the miraculous tree, soon recovered the sinking man; he poured forth his soul in thanksgiving, and sunk into a deep sleep, from which he awoke in full vigour and spirits.

"Omar, with renewed strength, soon rejoined the caravan, and relating the supernatural circumstance, a mosque was erected on the spot, by the zeal and contributions of true believers; coffee, that wonderful shrub, the peculiar gift of our prophet, and more particularly the produce of his favourite country, still continues the solace, cordial, and comforter of his devoted followers."

This singular specimen of Turkish superstition, in which the Mahometan appears to have encroached on the prerogatives of the Vatican, is taken from a curious book, which, previous to the Gallic revolution, was in the library of the king of France, and presented to Louis the fifteenth, by Said, an ambassador from the Porte to the court of Versailles.

It is called in the title page, Dgihan Numa, that is, a description of the world, and was printed at Constantinople, in seventeen hundred and thirty-one, adorned with plates and illustrated by maps; the author, or rather the compiler, was Keatib Cheleli, a learned doctor of the Turkish law.

"Coffee," says this enlightened mussulman, who shaking off the stupidity and indolence of his countrymen, assumes the character of a medical inquirer, after he had quitted that of an implicit believer, "coffee is a rejoicer of the heart, an enlivener of conversation, a sovereign restorative after the fatigues of study, of labour or of love; its peculiar characteristic is, to comfort the stomach, nourish the nerves, and to protect the frame against the debilitating effects of a hot climate and a fiery atmosphere.

"Taken an hour after dinner, it prevents an accumulation of crudities in the first passages, is an infallible remedy for the horrors of indigestion, and the megrims."

It was not probable that so wholesome and agreeable an article of diet would be long confined to Asia; it is said to have been introduced to the fashionable circles of Paris by Thevenot, in 1669, but had been made use of in London as an exotic luxury before that time.

The first coffee-house opened in the British metropolis, was in George-yard, Lombard-street, by Rosqua, the Greek servant of a Turkey merchant, in the year 1652; its flavour was considered so delicate, and it was thought by the statesmen of those days to promote society and political conversation so much, that a duty of fourpence was laid on every gallon made and sold.

But Anthony Wood earnestly insists, that there was a house, for selling coffee, at Oxford, two years before Rosqua commenced the trade in London; "that those who delighted in novelty, drank it at the sign of the angel, in that university, a house kept by an outlandish Jew."

In another part of his works, he says that Nathaniel Conapius, a native of Crete, and a fugitive from Constantinople, but residing in the year 1648, at Baliol college, Oxford, made, and drank every morning, a drink called coffey, the first ever made use of in that ancient university.

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