The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

by T. Smollett

  Pickle engages with a Knight of Malta, in a Conversation upon theEnglish Stage, which is followed by a Dissertation on the Theatres ofthe Ancients, by the Doctor.

  The rest of the company proceeded to the arsenal, which having viewed,together with some remarkable churches, they, in their return, went tothe comedy, and saw the Cid of Corneille tolerably well represented. Inconsequence of this entertainment, the discourse at supper turned upondramatic performances; and all the objections of Monsieur Scudery tothe piece they had seen acted, together with the decision of the FrenchAcademy, were canvassed and discussed. The knight was a man of lettersand taste, and particularly well acquainted with the state of theEnglish stage; so that when the painter boldly pronounced sentenceagainst the French manner of acting, on the strength of havingfrequented a Covent Garden club of critics, and been often admitted, byvirtue of an order, into the pit; a comparison immediately ensued,not between the authors, but the actors of both nations, to whomthe chevalier and Peregrine were no strangers. Our hero, like a goodEnglishman, made no scruple of giving the preference to the performersof his own country, who, he alleged, obeyed the genuine impulses ofnature, in exhibiting the passions of the human mind; and entered sowarmly into the spirit of their several parts, that they often fanciedthemselves the very heroes they represented; whereas, the action ofthe Parisian players, even in their most interesting characters, wasgenerally such an extravagance in voice and gesture, as is nowhere tobe observed but on the stage. To illustrate this assertion, he availedhimself of his talent, and mimicked the manner and voice of all theprincipal performers, male and female, belonging to the French comedy,to the admiration of the chevalier, who, having complimented him uponthis surprising modulation, begged leave to dissent in some particularsfrom the opinion he had avowed.

  "That you have good actors in England," said he, "it would be unjustand absurd in me to deny; your theatre is adorned by one woman, whosesensibility and sweetness of voice is such as I have never observed onany other stage; she has besides, an elegance of person and expressionof features, that wonderfully adapt her for the most engaging charactersof your best plays; and I must freely own that I have been as highlydelighted and as deeply affected by a Monimia and Belvidera at London,as ever I was by Cornelia and Cleopatra at Paris. Your favourite actoris a surprising genius. You can, moreover, boast of several comic actorswho are perfect masters of buffoonery and grimace; though, to be freewith you, I think in these qualifications you are excelled by theplayers of Amsterdam. Yet one of your graciosos I cannot admire, in allthe characters he assumes. His utterance is a continual sing-song,like the chanting of vespers; and his action resembles that of heavingballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment he seems tohave confounded the ideas of insolence and the dignity of mien; acts thecrafty cool, designing Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector;in the character of the mild patriot Brutus, loses all temper anddecorum; nay, so ridiculous is the behaviour of him and Cassius at theirinterview, that, setting foot to foot, and grinning at each other,with the aspect of two cobblers engaged, they thrust their left sidestogether, with repeated shoots, that the hilts of their swords may clashfor the entertainment of the audience; as if they were a couple of merryandrews, endeavouring to raise the laugh of the vulgar, on some scaffoldof Bartholomew Fair. The despair of a great man, who falls a victim tothe infernal practices of a subtle traitor who enjoyed his confidence,this English Aesopus represents, by beating his own forehead, andbeating like a bull; and, indeed, in almost all his most interestingscenes, performs such strange shakings of the head, and other anticgesticulations, that when I first saw him act, I imagined the poor manlaboured under the paralytical disorder, which is known by the nameof St. Vitus's dance. In short, he seems to be a stranger to the morerefined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression is of thevulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet; so thathe has recourse to such violence of affected agitation, as imposes uponthe undiscerning spectator; but to the eye of taste, evinces him a mereplayer of that class whom your admired Shakespeare justly compares toNature's journeyman tearing a passion to rags. Yet this man, in spite ofall these absurdities, is an admirable Falstaff, exhibits the characterof the eighth Henry to the life, is reasonably applauded in the PlainDealer, excels in the part of Sir John Brute, and would be equal to manyhumorous situations in low comedy, which his pride will not allow him toundertake. I should not have been so severe upon this actor, had I notseen him extolled by his partisans with the most ridiculous and fulsomemanifestations of praise, even in those very circumstances wherein (as Ihave observed) he chiefly failed."

  Peregrine, not a little piqued to hear the qualifications of such acelebrated actor in England treated with such freedom and disrespect,answered, with some asperity, that the chevalier was a true critic,more industrious in observing the blemishes than in acknowledging theexcellence of those who fell under his examination.

  It was not to be supposed that one actor could shine equally in allcharacters; and though his observations were undoubtedly very judicious,he himself could not help wondering that some of them had always escapedhis notice, though he had been an assiduous frequenter of theplayhouse. "The player in question," said he, "has, in your own opinion,considerable share of merit in the characters of comic life; and as tothe manners of the great personages in tragedy, and the operation ofthe grand passions of the soul, I apprehend they may be variouslyrepresented, according to the various complexion and cultivation ofdifferent men, A Spaniard, for example, though impelled by the samepassion, will express it very differently from a Frenchman; and whatis looked upon as graceful vivacity and address by the one, would beconsidered as impertinence and foppery by the other; nay, so opposite isyour common deportment from that of some other nations, that one ofour own countrymen, in the relation of his travels, observes, that thePersians even of this age, when they see any man perform unnecessarygestures, says he is either a fool or Frenchman. The standard ofdemeanour being thus unsettled, a Turk, a Moor, an Indian, or inhabitantof my country whose customs and dress are widely different from ours,may, in his sentiments, possess all the dignity of the human heart,and be inspired by the noblest passion that animates the soul, and yetexcite the laughter rather than the respect of an European spectator.

  "When I first beheld your famous Parisian stage heroine in one of herprincipal parts, her attitudes seemed so violent, and she tossedher arms around with such extravagance, that she put me in mind ofa windmill under the agitation of a hard gale; while her voice andfeatures exhibited the lively representation of an English scold. Theaction of your favourite male performer was, in my opinion, equallyunnatural: he appeared with the affected airs of a dancing-master; atthe most pathetic junctures of his fate he lifted up his hands above hishead, like a tumbler going to vault, and spoke as if his throat hadbeen obstructed by a hair-brush: yet, when I compared their manners withthose of the people before whom they performed, and made allowancefor that exaggeration which obtains on all theatres, I was insensiblyreconciled to their method of performance, and I could distinguishabundance of merit beneath that oddity of appearance."

  The chevalier, perceiving Peregrine a little irritated at what he hadsaid, asked pardon for the liberty he had taken in censuring the Englishplayers; assuring him that he had an infinite veneration for the Britishlearning, genius, and taste, which were so justly distinguished inthe world of letters; and that, notwithstanding the severity of hiscriticism, he thought the theatre of London much better supplied withactors than that of Paris. The young gentleman thanked him for hispolite condescension, at which Pallet excited, saying, with a shake ofthe head, "I believe so, too, Monsieur;" and the physician, impatientof the dispute in which he had borne no share, observed, with asupercilious air, that the modern stage was altogether beneath one whohad an idea of ancient magnificence and execution; that plays ought tobe exhibited at the expense of the state, as those of Sophocles were bythe Athenians; and that proper judges should be appointed f
or receivingor rejecting all such performances as are offered to the public.

  He then described the theatre at Rome, which contained eighty thousandspectators; gave them a learned disquisition into the nature of thepersona, or mask, worn by the Roman actors, which, he said, was amachine that covered the whole head, furnished on the inside with abrazen concavity, that, by reverberating, the sound, as it issued fromthe mouth, raised the voice, so as to render it audible to such anextended audience. He explained the difference between the saltator anddeclamator, one of whom acted, while the other rehearsed the part; andfrom thence took occasion to mention the perfection of their pantomimes,who were so amazingly distinct in the exercise of their art, that acertain prince of Pontus, being at the court of Nero, and seeing one ofthem represent a story, begged him of the emperor, in order to employhim as an interpreter among barbarous nations, whose language he didnot understand. Nay, divers cynic philosophers, who had condemned thisentertainment unseen, when they chanced to be eye-witnesses of theiradmirable dexterity, expressed their sorrow for having so long debarredthemselves of such national enjoyment.

  He dissented, however, from the opinion of Peregrine, who, as a proof oftheir excellence, had advanced that some of the English actors fanciedthemselves the very thing they represented; and recounted a story fromLucian, of a certain celebrated pantomime, who, in, acting the part ofAjax in his frenzy, was transported into a real fit of delirium, duringwhich he tore to pieces the clothes of that actor who stalked beforehim, beating the stage with iron shoes, in order to increase the noise;snatched an instrument from one of the musicians, and broke it over thehead of him who represented Ulysses; and, running to the consular bench,mistook a couple of senators for the sheep which were to be slain. Theaudience applauded him to the skies: but so conscious was the mimic ofhis own extravagance when he recovered the use of his reason, that heactually fell sick with mortification; and being afterwards desired tore-act the piece, flatly refused to appear in any such character, sayingthat the shortest follies were the best, and that it was sufficient forhim to have been a madman once in his life.

  CHAPTER LII.