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The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor
Such an appeal, delivered with all the powers of an excellent speaker, and enforced by the genuine and unfeigned feelings of a father’s heart, told home – peals of applause gave assurance that her entrance was strewed with flowers, and that at least, her reception, would correspond with his fondest wishes.
The accounts that have been given by spectators of the events of that night are extremely interesting. Many, no doubt, went there with a prepossession, raised by the unfavourable reports of her personal appearance; and if lofty stature were indispensibly necessary to a heroine, no external appearance could be much less calculated to personify a Thalestris than Miss Brunton’s – but the mighty mind soon made itself to be felt, and every idea of personal dimensions vanished. “The audience (says a British author) expected to see a mawkin, but saw a Cibber – the applause was proportionate to the surprise: every mouth emitted her praise, and she performed several parts in Bath and Bristol, a phenomenon in the theatrical hemisphere.” Though the trepidation inseparable from such an effort diminished her powers at first, the sweetness of her voice struck every ear like a charm: the applause that followed invigorated her spirits so far that in the reciprocation of a speech or two more, her fine clear articulation struck the audience with surprise, and when, more assured by their loud approbation, she came to the speech:
“Melanthon, how I loved, the gods who saw“Each secret image that my fancy formed,“The gods can witness how I loved my Phocion,“And yet I went not with him. Could I do it?“Could I desert my father? – Could I leave“The venerable man, who gave me being,“A victim here in Syracuse, nor stay“To watch his fate, to visit his affliction,“To cheer his prison hours, and with the tear“Of filial virtue bid each bondage smile.”she seemed to pour forth her whole heart and soul in the words, and emitted such a blaze as filled the house with rapture and astonishment. In a word, no actress at the highest acmé of popularity ever received greater applause. Next day her performance was the topic of every circle in Bath. Horatia in the Roman Father, and Palmyra in Mahomet, augmented her reputation, and in less than a month the fame of this prodigy, for such she appeared to be, had reached every town and city of Great Britain and Ireland.
It was natural to imagine that such extraordinary powers would not be long suffered to waste themselves upon the limited society of country towns. Mr. Harris, as soon as he received intelligence on which he could depend, upon the subject of Miss Brunton’s talents, resolved to be himself an eye-witness of her performance, and set off to Bath with a view, if his judgment should concur with that of the public of that city, to offer her an engagement at Covent Garden. To see her was to decide; he resolved to have her if possible, and lost no time to make such overtures at once as could not well be refused. These included an engagement at a very handsome salary for her father; her own of course was liberal – when one considers how long Mrs. Siddons had appeared upon the stage before she got a firm footing on the London boards, one cannot but be astonished at the rise of this lady at one leap from the threshold to the top of her profession. It is worthy of observation that the real children of nature generally burst at once upon the view in excellence approaching to perfection; while the mere artists of the stage lag behind, labouring for years, before they attain the summit of their ambition; when their consummate art and their skill in concealing that art (ars celare artem) if they have it, entitles them at last to the highest praise. Mrs. Bellamy was one of those children of nature. Before she appeared, Quin decidedly gave judgment against her: yet the first night she performed he was so struck with her excellence, that, impatient to wipe away his injustice by a candid confession he emphatically exclaimed, “My child, the spirit is in thee.” Garrick it is said never surpassed his first night’s performance: and the Othello of Barry’s first appearance, and the Zanga of Mossop’s never were equalled by any other actors, nor were ever surpassed even by themselves.
Such was the impression made by this phenomenon, even before she left the country for London, that the presses teemed with tributes to her extraordinary merit, in verse and prose. Learning poured forth it praise in deep and erudite criticism – Poetry lavished its sparkling encomium in sonnets, songs, odes, and congratulatory addresses, while the light retainers to literature filled the magazines and daily prints with anecdotes, paragraphs, bon-mots, and epigrams. In a word, there was for sometime no reading a newspaper, or opening a periodical publication without seeing some production or other addressed to Miss Brunton. From the number which appeared the following is deservedly selected, for the elegance of its Latin and the beauty of its thoughts:
AD BRUNTONAMe granta exituramNostri præsidium et decus thartri;O tu, Melpomene severiorisCerte filia! quam decere formæDonavit Cytherea; quam MinervaDuxit per dubiæ vias juventæ,Per plausus populi periculosus; —Nec lapsam – precor, O nec in futuramLapsuram. Satis at Camœna dignisQuæ te commemoret modis? AcerbosSeu præferre Monimiæ dolores,Frater cum vetitos (nefas!) ruebatIn fratris thalamos, parumque castoVexabat pede; sive JulietæLuctantes odio paterno amoresMaris: te sequuntur Horror,Arrectusque comas Pavor. VicissimIn fletum populus jubetur ire,Et suspiria personant theatrum.Mox divinior enitescis, altrixAltoris vigil et parens parentis.At non Græcia sola vindicavitPaternæ columen decusque vitæNatam; restat item patri BritannoEt par Euphrasiæ puella, quamqueAd scenam pietas tulit paternam.O Bruntona, cito exitura virgo,Et visu cito subtrahenda nostro,Breves deliciæ, dolorque longus!Gressum siste parumper oro; tequeVirtutesque tuas lyra sonandasTradit Granta suis vicissim almunis.The following very elegant poem, published as a version of this ode, is rather a paraphrase than a translation. What Gibbon said of Pope’s Homer may with some truth be applied to it: “It has every merit but that of resemblance to the original.” Might not a version equally elegant, but adhering more closely to the original, and preserving more of its peculiar genius be found in America. We wish some of our readers who feel the inspiration of a happy Muse would make the experiment.
Maid of unboastful charms, whom white-rob’d Truth,Right onward guiding through the maze of youth,Forbade the Circe, Praise, to witch thy soul,And dash’d to earth th’ intoxicating bowl;Thee, meek-eyed Pity, eloquently fair,Clasp’d to her bosom, with a mother’s care;And, as she lov’d thy kindred form to trace,The slow smile wander’d o’er her pallid face,For never yet did mortal voice impartTones more congenial to the sadden’d heart;Whether to rouse the sympathetic glow,Thou pourest lone Monimia’s tale of wo;Or happy clothest, with funereal vest,The bridal loves that wept in Juliet’s breast.O’er our chill limbs the thrilling terrors creep,Th’ entranc’d passions still their vigils keep;Whilst the deep sighs, responsive to the song,Sound through the silence of the trembling throng.But purer raptures lighten’d from thy face,And spread o’er all thy form a holier grace;When from the daughter’s breast the father drewThe life he gave, and mix’d the big tear’s dew.Nor was it thine th’ heroic strain to roll,With mimic feelings, foreign from the soul;Bright in thy parent’s eye we mark’d the tear;Methought he said, “Thou art no actress here!A semblance of thyself, the Grecian dame,And Brunton and Euphrasia still the same!”O! soon to seek the city’s busier scene,Pause thee awhile, thou chaste-eyed maid serene,Till Granta’s sons, from all her sacred bow’rs,With grateful hand shall weave Pierian flow’rs,To twine a fragrant chaplet round thy brow,Enchanting ministress of virtuous wo!It was on the 17th of October, 1785, that Miss Brunton made her first appearance at Covent Garden theatre in the character of Horatia. The public had anxiously looked for her, and the house was crowded to receive her. The venerable Arthur Murphy wrote a prologue for the occasion, in which he displayed his accustomed delicacy and judgment. It was as follows, and was well spoken by Mr. Holman:
The tragic Muse long saw the British stageMelt with her tears, and kindle with her rage,She saw her scenes with varied passions glow,The tyrant’s downfall and the lover’s wo;’Twas then her Garrick – at that well-known nameRemembrance wakes, and gives him all his fame;To him great Nature open’d Shakspeare’s store,“Here learn,” she said, “here learn the sacred lore;”This fancy realiz’d, the bard shall see,And his best commentator breathe in thee.She spoke: her magic powers the actor tried;Then Hamlet moraliz’d and Richard died;The dagger gleam’d before the murderer’s eye,And for old Lear each bosom heav’d sigh;Then Romeo drew the sympathetic tear,With him and Cibber Love lay bleeding here.Enchanting Cibber! from that warbling throatNo more pale Sorrow pours the liquid note.Her voice suppress’d, and Garrick’s genius fled,Melpomene declined her drooping head;She mourn’d their loss, then fled to western skies,And saw at Bath another genius rise.Old Drury’s scene the goddess bade her choose,The actress heard, and spake, “herself a muse.”From the same nursery, this night appearsAnother warbler, yet of tender years;As a young bird, as yet unus’d to flyOn wings, expanded, through the azure sky,With doubt and fear its first excursion triesAnd shivers ev’ry feather with surprise;So comes our chorister – the summer’s ray,Around her nest, call’d forth a short essay;Now trembling on the brink, with fear she seesThis unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze.But here, no unfledg’d wing was ever crush’d;Be each rude blast within its cavern hush’d.Soft swelling gales may waft her on her way,Till, eagle-like, she eyes the fount of day:She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voiceMay please each ear and bid the grove rejoice.It would be superfluous, and indeed only going over the same ground already beat at Bath, to describe Miss Brunton’s reception on her first appearance in London. Suffice it to say that plaudits and even exclamations of delight were, if possible, more rapturous and more incessant at Covent Garden than at Bath. Of the reputation thus quickly acquired, she never, to the day of her death, lost an atom; but continued to perform, in different parts of England, with accumulating fame, till her marriage deprived the people of England of her talents.
Mr. Robert Merry, a gentleman well known in the literary world, and rendered conspicuous by some pretty poetry published under the name of Della Crusca, had the honour of rendering himself so agreeable to Miss Brunton that she suffered him to lead her to the altar. He was of a gentleman’s family, and received his education under that mass of learning, doctor Parr, was a man of brilliant genius, amiable disposition, elegant manners, with a fine face and person. Being a bon vivant and a little addicted to play, as well as to other fashionable and wasteful frivolities of high life, his affairs were in a very unpleasant state, but for this there was an abundant remedy in his wife’s talents; and perhaps (with her aid) a little in his own too. Family pride, however, forbid it. He was much swayed by his relatives, particularly by two old maiden aunts, who were, or affected to be wounded at his marrying an actress. Nothing but his withdrawing his wife from the stage could assuage their wrath or heal the wound, and Mrs. Merry, in a spirit of obedience to her husband, and of amiable feeling for his situation, which will ever do honour to her memory, complied; and as soon as her engagement at Covent Garden expired (in 1792) left the stage, to the great regret, and a little to the indignant contempt for the old ladies, of the whole British nation.
Mr. and Mrs. Merry soon after paid a visit to the continent, where they lived for a little more than a year, when they returned to England, and settled in retired life in the country and there remained till the year 1796, when they removed to America. Mr. Brunton, the father of Mrs. Merry, was, no less than the old ladies alluded to, and on much more substantial grounds, averse to her marriage with Mr. Merry, and still more to her coming to America. In obedience to a higher duty, however, she followed the fortunes of her husband, and with the most poignant regret left her native country and her father, to sojourn in a strange land. On the 19th of September, 1796, they sailed from the Downs, and on the 19th of October following landed at New-York.
Few country theatres in Great Britain have been able to boast of so good a company as that which assembled at Philadelphia on the season which succeeded Mrs. Merry’s arrival. The theatre opened on the fifth of December, with Romeo and Juliet, and the Waterman. The elegant and interesting Morton played Romeo – Mrs. Merry Juliet; all the characters had excellent representatives, and Mrs. Merry appeared to the audience a being of a superior kind. That winter she played all her best parts, but though supported by such a company it often happened that the receipts were insufficient to pay the charges of the house, and the season was, on the whole, extremely unsuccessful; a circumstance which at first view will excite surprise, but at the time might reasonably have been expected. This will be understood when the general financial condition of the city is called to recollection. Every one who has known the country but for a few years back must remember the almost general bankruptcy occasioned by the failure of land speculating men of opulence and high credit. During that time commerce in all its classes sensibly felt the shock, and business languished in all its branches. No wonder that the theatre, which can only be fed by the superflux of all other departments of society, should droop, neglected and unsupported. The prices then too were higher than now – the boxes a dollar and a quarter – the pit a dollar. And here we cannot help expressing a wish, founded we believe on justice and common sense, that admittance to the pit were raised: – first, because it is, at least, equal if not preferable to the boxes; and next because it would in some degree tend to exclude many who, though fit to sit only in the upper gallery, make their way into the pit to the great annoyance of those decent well behaved people who go to enjoy and understand the play, and not to blackguard and speak aloud.
When the theatre was closed, according to civil regulation, the company, went to New-York. At that time Hallam and Hodgkinson had possession of both the theatres of that city – the old one in John-street, and the new one at the Park. The Philadelphia company, still bleeding from the wounds of the unsuccessful season, and urged by necessity for future support, applied to Hallam and Hodgkinson to rent them the theatre in John-street. Guided by a policy, rational enough and perhaps justifiable on principles of self-defence, though certain not very liberal, and in the end greatly injurious to themselves, the York proprietors peremptorily refused. The circus of Ricketts, the equestrian, in Greenwich-street then presented itself, and the Philadelphia company opened in full force. In order to oppose them, Hallam and Hodgkinson invited Mr. Sollee with his company to John-street. The Philadelphia company, however, made a very successful campaign of it. Sollee also had his visitors, and the consequence to H. and H. was that when they came to open the new house they played to thin or rather empty boxes; the town being saturated with theatrical exhibitions, and a little exhausted too of the cash disposable for such recreations.
In New-York as well as Philadelphia, and indeed in every place where Mrs. M. went, she was no sooner seen than admired; and the impression she never failed to make at first sight remained, not only uneffaced but more deeply augmented in proportion as she was seen, even to the end of her life. She afterwards visited Baltimore and other places, and wherever she went, was the polar star to which the attention of all was directed.
While she was proceeding in this career of success her felicity met with the most cruel interruption by the sudden death of her husband, which happened at Baltimore in the latter end of the year 1798. Mr. Merry had not laboured under any specific physical complaint from which his death could in the smallest degree be apprehended. On the day before christmas he was apparently well, had walked out into the garden, and was soon after followed by some friends who found him lying senseless on the ground. Medical aid was immediately called in – several attempts were made to draw blood from him but without the least success; the physicians pronounced it an apoplectic case, and from every circumstance the conclusion was that his death was instantaneous and without pain. Mr. Merry was large and of a plethoric habit; and to that his death may, in some sort, and was then entirely ascribed. But circumstances appeared after his death which led to a conclusion that concealed sorrow, might have had some share in it. From refined motives of tenderness for a beloved wife’s feelings, and that loftiness of spirit which clings to the perfect gentleman, he concealed the state of his affairs in England, which had for some time been in a rapid decline, and of the complete ruin of which he had a short time before been fully informed. His patrimonial estate had been foreclosed and sold under a mortgage, and he remained debtor for a considerable sum after the sale. To this effect a letter was found after his death. As soon as this was discovered, every one who knew his exquisite sensibility, reflected with astonishment upon the delicacy which dictated and the fortitude with which he managed his concealment, and felt deep and sympathetic sorrow for the anguish he must have been privately enduring while he endeavoured to dress his face with tranquillity and to converse with his accustomed cheerfulness and ease. Smothered grief is one of the most deadly inmates; and it is reasonable to believe that a paroxysm of violent emotion in a moment when solitude gave an opportunity for giving a loose to reflection, operating upon a plethoric habit, occasioned his sudden dissolution.
That Mr. Merry was a gentleman of great private worth we believe the evidence of all those to whom familiar intercourse had revealed his disposition; that he was learned and accomplished in a very eminent degree no one has ever denied; and that he was a man of genius, his “Della Crusca,” and the many witty and satirical epigrams he wrote for the public prints under the signature of “Tom Thorne,” abundantly prove. But the pen of state vengeance was raised against him, and his poetical fame was immolated as an expiation for his political offences. Attached to French revolutionary, or, as they were then called, jacobin principles, to a degree which even Foxites censured, he was viewed with abhorrence by one party, and with no great regard by the other; so that when the witty author of the Pursuits of Literature drew his sword, and the sarcastic author of the Baviad and Mæviad lifted his axe against him there was no one to ward off the blows. There is a fact respecting Mr. M. which, though it does not properly belong to this biographical sketch, yet as it is curious enough to apologize for its introduction, we take the liberty to relate. The celebrated Mrs. Cowley, under the name of “Anna Matilda,” and Mr. M. under that of “Della Crusca,” corresponded with and admired each other, without being known or even suspected by one another, or, for some time, by the public. These productions formed a new era or rather a new school of poetry, which excited such attention and curiosity that every art was resorted to in order to discover the authors. It was at length whispered abroad, and then what most surprised the world was, that the two persons were totally strangers to each other.
Mrs. Merry remained a widow for more than four years: she then, on the first of January 1803, married Mr. Wignell, the manager of the Philadelphia theatre, who died in seven weeks after their marriage. For three years and a half she retained the name of Wignell, when the present manager solicited her hand so successfully that she consented, and took the name of Warren, on the 15th of August, 1806. By this marriage the property and management of the Philadelphia theatre devolved upon Mr. Warren; than whom, exclusive of the personal attachment that subsisted between them, she could not have pitched upon any one person more competent to the care of her property or the direction of the theatre; or one more worthy of the sacred trust of being a parent and a guardian to her infant daughter. For near two years they lived together in a state of ease and felicity which bid fair to last for years, when he being obliged to attend his company to their customary summer stations, Mrs. Warren, then in a far advanced state of pregnancy, desired to go along with him. Aware of the fatigue, the inconveniences, and the privations to which she would, in all likelihood, be exposed, during her journey southward, and still more in her accouchement, which must necessarily take place before his return, he endeavoured to prevail upon her to stay behind. But “Fate came into the list,” and she would go. Arrived at Alexandria, he took a large commodious house, and put it in a condition sufficiently comfortable; Mrs. Warren was in lusty health, and as the time approached all was fair and promising. By one of those turns, however, which it pleases Providence for his own wise purposes frequently to ordain, to mock our best hopes and baffle our most sanguine expectations, this admirable woman was, contrary to every antecedent prognostic, visited in her travail with epileptic fits, in which she expired, “leaving,” (as the sublime Burke no less truly than pathetically said on the death of doctor Johnson,) “not only nothing to fill her place, but nothing that has a tendency to fill it.”
Here, we let the curtain drop. Neither her private nor her public character can derive additional lustre from any pen.
PORTRAIT OF THE CELEBRATED BETTERTON
Mr. Thomas Betterton, dramatist and actor, was born in Tothill-street, Westminster; and after having left school, is said to have been put apprentice to a bookseller. It is supposed he made his first appearance on the stage about the year 1657, at the opera house, which was then under the direction of sir William Davenant. He went over to Paris to take a view of the French scenery, and on his return, made such improvements, as added greatly to the lustre of the English stage.
The professional merits of this great man were of a kind so perfectly unequivocal and unalloyed that there never was heard one dissenting voice upon the subject of his superiority to all other actors. He stood so far above the highest of his profession that competition being hopeless there was no motive for envy.
