tificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our stage. Congreve and Farquo be exploded and put doantly. times cannot bear t for a feogetic cers stand test. e screo t. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, t of an evening, startles us in tions of profligacy in a son or le a parent or guardian. e ions as dramatic interests left. e see a stage libertine playing er consequence, real vices ators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to t of strict morality) and take it all for trutitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge ry s, from is personae!, sentimental comedy but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures , t is every tead of titious age (toms of old comedy) s, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, enemies, -- terest in antial, t afford our moral judgment, in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise or slumber for a moment. is transacting, by no modification is made to affect us in any ots or cers ionso tre go tors, to escape from ty, so muco confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. e must live our toilsome lives t o descend to t neutral ground of cer, ue; or to neition; t ual moral questioning -- tuary and quiet Alsatia of ed casuistry -- is broken up and disfranco terests of society. taken a dally sion from tation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety t our morality s take cold, up in a great blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine.
I confess for myself t ( delinquencies to anso take an airing beyond trict conscience, -- not to live als of ts, -- but noo imagine a riction -- to get into recesses, follow me -
-----------Secret shades
Of grove,
there was no fear of Jove --
I come back to my cage and my restraint t. I edly for kno I feel tter al add even of yc least for it; and I could never connect ts of a ty fancy in any s to be drao imitation in real life. t as mucake one of ters, male or female (ions t in a modern play, and my virtuous indignation s te cos of t could desire; because in a modern play I am to judge of t and tandard of police is tical justice. tmosp it, it cannot live into a moral needs fall and, as a S t o t in its oure is so very bad ? -- ts and touc offend my moral sense; in fact t appeal to it at all. t. tious restraints. t out of Cendom into t s ? -- of cuckoldry -- topia of gallantry, freedom. It is altogetive scene of tever to t is. No good person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person suffers on tage. Judged morally, every cer in tions only are mistakes -- is alike essentially vain and art of Congreve is especially s irely excluded from tle generosities in t of Angelica pered, -- not only any tless cer, but any pretensions to goodness or good feelings ively, t is as o trange poeresting you all along in ts of cers, for e nor love is oo t you endure tion of moral lig, rations; and before you distinction or preference. roduced a good cer, a single gus to actual life and actual duties, tinent Gosed to ties, whem none.
translated into real life, ters of es and strumpets, -- tence, t of lary. No otion, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; principles reduce to a c ranslating ts are produced in t a cic people. e are not to judge titutions are insulted by ted -- for no family ties exist among ty of tained, -- for none is supposed to ions are disquieted, -- no ions dept of t soil. t nor itude or its opposite, -- claim or duty, -- paternity or sons consequence is it to virtue, or all concerned about it, eal as children.
t, t a battle of t, like Don Quixote, ake part against ts, and quite as impertinently. e dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a sc of ransitory ease excluded. e to imagine a state of t. e cling to ties of s our very dreams.
Amidst tifying circumstances attendant upon gro is someto s glory. t of Congreve and yc gatimental comedy it sed, t continues, at long intervals, to be announced in ts at least, ep, ting voice -- to express it in a acted villany of t, so different from tual ical assumption of e in t cer, I must needs conclude t generation of play-goers more virtuous t ter brot, in fact, I liked e as but t, for instance, tance to a poor relation, incongruities to join tificial imental comedy, eit destroy t over tructions Jacks manner floated ly, t a refusal from y any pleasure; you got over try question as quickly as you could, to get back into tificial manner of Palmer in ter counteracted every disagreeable impression , supposing t believe in Josepter reality, t poetical foil to it. ture of Congreve imental incompatibilities: ty upon t; but it required te art of Palmer to reconcile t elements.
A player alents, if o do t in tinctively avoid every turn end to unrealise, and so to make ter fascinating. take ators, o eacrasted in ts, . Pauls Cion as venerable as t cat coeval) of t tly appreruly tom y of a toasting fork is not to be despised, -- so finely contrast kissing of taking it in like ter, -- ter submits to tle bleeder, time, fles covet to meet roke of suce moor in te part. o you all t er and intimation of a sentiment before it to you, and you o suppose t itious co-flutterers on tage perceived not all of it. to you if t y, try -- or teazles reputation) unes of Ot concerned in it. Poor Jack from tage in good time, t live to t old teazle King, too, is gone in good time. current in our day. e must love or e -- acquit or condemn -- ensure or pity -- exert our detestable coxcombry of moral judgment upon every to go do be a do sies, y greetings, kno no ic to come of t inspire a cold and killing aversion. Cing person of ts ulterior legitimate ends, but centre in doion) must be loved, and Joseped. to balance one disagreeable reality er teazle must be no longer tful old baceasings () ly as muc you, as t to concern any body on tage, -- be a real person, capable in laaining an injury -- a person too be acknoagonist of to realise unate matc pungency of life -- must (or s mirt uncomfortable, just as t , must affect you in tation of a dear female friend attacked in your real presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin -- t live but in t be ripened by t-bed process of realization into asps or ampful! become a . O remembers Parsons and Dodd -- tterfly of t gentleinguister part -- rue scenic delig of t Reflection -- turnalia of to sit instead at one of our modern plays -- to forsoot not be left for a moment) stimulated ual appeals -- dulled rated, as a faculty repose must be -- and y pampered ional justice, notional beneficence, lives saved tators risk, and fortunes given a cost thing?
No piece in all its parts as to Mrs. Abingdon in Lady teazle; and Smitired, . t of ters, exceptions, remained. I remember it o cry do of Cer Smit, I t, very unjustly. Smitook tain gaiety of person. ions of tragedy. to expiate t of y declamation. or of Rico atone for. s to success in one of so opposite a tendency. But, as far as I could judge, ty sense of Kemble made up for more personal incapacity to ansones in t came steeped and dulcified in good s a grace. declamatory manner, as , only served to convey ts of seemed to s to carry t one of ences . I remember minutely by any effort imagine ered for tter. No man could deliver brilliant dialogue -- tood it -- ine, in Love for Love, o my recollection, faultless. imes in tervals of tragic passion. s of an er. o nod. But o me to be particularly alive to pointed and ty dialogue. ties of tragedy been touc-bred spirit in -- tive relief orpors -- but ting-stones and resting-places of ragedy -- politic savings, and fetcure pointed o be an economist -- rat. t , less painful ternal tormenting unappeasable vigilance, t;lidless dragon eyes,quot; of present fasragedy.