LIGHT. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."-Gen. i. ver. 2. Space labour'd-quicken'd by Almighty word, Rush'd amain from all the corners Of eternity. Each atom jostling Its fellow-in haste to follow Him-so form'd A turgid lump, which, surging to and fro On a black sea of thickening vapour, An unwholesome sweat oozed from the slimy depths Of this miscarried mass. Helpless-still with all It lay upon the bosom of great Space, Its mother, who could not help it into fair God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Of creation! Night, so late a tyrant, Shrank to some pit or grave within the bosom That sung and soothed it with a gentle breeze. Land sprung up to meet its benefactor, And straight shot forth its trees and shrubs, which sent up An odour-the only language they could speak,— To kiss and greet the light that warmed them Into life. Syren myrtles woo the fickle May-breeze with a rustling kiss filch'd of The lagging wind; while every trembling leaf The airy multitudes, distilling Sweetest music in their shrill tale of first Of this mellow choir, till beaming Nature Fortunately, Mr. Boucicault has never since attempted the stately speech of high art. He has distinguished himself by some capital dramas, and at least one tolerable comedy; but the extent of his culture may be guessed from the above poetic specimen." Mr. Westland * Still more extraordinary than the fact of such writing ever having got into print at all, is the fact that the poem from which we extract it is deemed worthy of incorporation in the collected edition of the "Bentley Ballads." So Mr. Boucicault is not Marston, although far inferior to Mr. Boucicault in constructive power, has real cultivation and a genuine ear; he is, indeed, one of the few dramatists who comprehend a noble suggestion and understand the music of verse; but he seems altogether deficient in creative power. Mr. Tom Taylor is an extremely clever play-wright, and a most cunning adapter; with more poetic faculty than he gets credit for, as he showed in his translation of Breton ballads. Mr. Robertson had great cleverness, and so has Mr. Albery. Mr. Charles Reade, though a great genius in other directions, has little or no dramatic faculty-at all events, his plays are always disappointing and almost "bad" in tone. Besides the gentlemen named, there are several others, who write with more or less success; not to speak of the persons-we can hardly call them dramatic authors-who furnish the wretched balderdash spoken by the half-naked women in tights and the gibbering male monkeys who act in ordinary burlesque. No living dramatist, however, seems to show any strikingly original faculty, save only Mr. W. S. Gilbert. This gentleman, young as he is, has already elevated himself to the top of his profession. Now, Mr. Gilbert's success is the best possible sign that public taste is not utterly debased; for, although we believe that success to have been out of all proportion to the author's desserts, it has been a distinct recognition of a very quaint and individual thinker. Mr. Gilbert inherits from his gifted father a strange oddity of conception, mingled with great irony. His faculty is not imagination, but common-place observation, as it were, inverted. He delights in seeing people and things upside down. He never writes a poetical line; his images are as common-place as the mantel-piece or the cruet-stand. His point of view is the incongruous, but, unlike Dickens, he never blends the incongruous and the tender. He is a hard realist with a twist in his brain; and that twist is genius. He commenced by writing trash for the women in tights. He has tried dramas, and they seem to have failed. His first real success, indeed, was the "Palace of Truth," a comedy in blank verse, produced at the Haymarket Theatre on November 19, 1870. The subject was a familiar one-based on the fairy fancy of a palace where everybody found himself compelled to speak the truth, consciously or unconsciously. The theme gave unlimited scope for Mr. Gilbert's odd, dry turns of thought. Take the following specimen, part of a love-scene where, in spite of himself, an enthusiastic lover speaks under the enchanted influence, to his sweetheart's amaze : But after all, is alone in his ignorance of what constitutes rhythmic blank verse. Mr. B. guilty of this tremendous poem? Almost as brilliant is the following bit of "gush" from "London Assurance: "-"I love," says Grace Harkaway, "to watch the first tear that glistens in the opening eye of morning, the silent song the flowers breathe, the thrilly choir of the woodland minstrels, to which the modest brook trickles applause!" O chaste Dion ! Must needs be fed, and with such love as yours; I have worked hard to gain it, Zeolide! You are not nearly as attractive as Five hundred other ladies I could name, Who, when I said I loved them, stopped my lips- Zeo. (astonished). I'm glad they did. Phil. With kisses, ere I could Repeat the sentence ! and it hurt me much That you, who are comparatively plain, Should give me so much trouble Zeolide! Zeo. (aside). What can he mean? (Aloud) Oh, you are Phil. Mocking you, Zeolide? You do me wrong! (With enthusiasm.) Oh, place the fullest value on my words, And you'll not over-value them! I swear As I'm a Christian knight, I speak the truth. Zeo. Why, Philamir, you've often told me that You never loved a woman till we met ! Phil. (with all the appearance of rapture). I always say that. To all the women that I ever woo'd! Zeo. And they believed you? Certainly they did They always do! Whatever else they doubt To waste its time in seeking precious stones Zeo. Why, Philamir! dare you say this to me? "The Palace of Truth." (Lacy, London.) We quote this as a fair sample of Mr. Gilbert's unmelodious blank verse-a form of writing adopted by him, not for its poetic effect or rhythm, but because it suits his close crisp sort of dialogue. "The Palace of Truth" succeeded, although supported only by such performers as Mr. Kendal, Mr. Buckstone, and Miss Madge RobertStill more remarkable, since then, has been the success of the same author's "Pygmalion and Galatea," a piece more poetical in feeling, but hardly as neat as its predecessor. Here, again, the subject is treated in a dry, droll, grim way, often subtle, never imaginative; and the writing is in the same ten-syllable verse. Here again, also, we see only Messrs. Kendal and Buckstone, and Miss son. Robertson. But the thing is so carefully done, and is so really firstclass of its kind, that all London goes to see it. It relies for its attraction on legitimate sources of interest. It is, in fact, as nearly poetical as anything we have had upon the stage for some years; yet we do not find it rejected on that account; on the contrary, its reception is almost beyond its merits. We cannot deny, therefore, that the public is ready to welcome a real dramatist, when it receives with such favour and understands so well a writer so odd, and in a certain sense so unsympathetic, as Mr. Gilbert. And the public goes to see "The Bells," which it certainly would not do if it were a wholly deluded public, deaf to the appeal of good taste. The critics have averred that Mr. Irving's acting is wonderfully fine, although strikingly horrible; and the public sacrifices its nerves to its duty, and accepts the awful nightmare. There is, indeed, merit in Mr. Irving, but not such merit as leads us to expect great things from him as an actor. His suppressed agony, his stagey starts, his conscience-stricken looks, are overdone; and the last part of his performance-where he is carried on the stage in a fit, with the clammy perspiration on his brow, and the ghastliness of death on his face--is inartistic in the direction of pure horror. Still, our point is that the performance has merit, and that the public does not flinch from patronising merit, even when slightly disagreeable. If we except the two performances just alluded to, and the performance of "Caste" at the Prince of Wales's, there is perhaps no passable evening's entertainment to be found at present in London; and Mr. Gilbert's piece, Mr. Irving's acting, and the general acting in "Caste," are drawing by far the best houses. It is absurd, on the face of it, for managers to say that the public taste is rotten. The truth is, that managers are for the most part unintelligent men, with a very low gauge of art altogether. They encourage trashy pieces, and amateur acting, and they allow their stages to be covered with the sweepings of the Argyll Rooms and St. John's Wood. They do all they can to debase the public taste; and the critics do much to assist them. Our only hope, therefore, lies with the actors and the dramatists. Let the actors imitate Mr. Irving, and at least attempt powerful representation. Let the dramatists imitate Mr. Gilbert, and instead of following in the stale rut of tradition, run the risk of a little individuality. Of course, in its despised state of decadence, the drama can never again take its old place among the Arts that honour mankind. It is, moreover, too far gone ever to recover. It may, nevertheless, pass away decently, and be followed to its last home by a few respectable mourners, rejoicing to feel that it died penitent, and that, if it could have been spared a little longer, it might have tried to turn over a new leaf. WALTER HUTCHESON. FACES ON THE WALL. BY ROBERT BUCHANAN. I. LONE HOUSE. LONE HOUSE amid the Main, where I abide, They are the Faces of the strong and free ; On some frail raft, and pray on bended knee. Lone House! for comfort, when the nights are long, II. STORM AND CALM. The lone House shakes, the wild waves leap around; Yet are there golden dawns and glassy days With nights of peace, when, in a virgin haze, God's Moon wades thro' the shallows of the west. high; |