T.1'. COOKE'S LONG TOM COFFIN—A PILOT WANTED.
DID the author of the Pilot, when he paid us a visit, visit the cockswain of the Adelphi ? It might have startled him to see a figure so like the tall body whom in imagination he had long ago consigned to a moist grave, affronting him on earth. Had he, like the creator of Frankenstein, evoked a being into life ? The resemblance, however, is but the idea of a moment, for CooxE's Long Tom is not COOPER'S, and yet is as good in its kind. The hornpipe shows the feet of the first to be too much at home on land for Master Coffin, who, born and bred in "a chebacco man,' and somewhat of the grampus on shore, could see no use in land, " only now and then an island, to raise a few cabbages and dry your fish with." That same hornpipe of the Adelphi Tom's is a most exhilarating performance ;—brief and ecstatic, its effect on the spirits is that of a dram of veritable mountain-dew. What a
sailor-like glee shines out at the eyes, and distends the mouth from side to side ! His mixture of jocularity and earnestness in the com- bat, is finely characteristic of the reckless race to whom danger is sport, and who send long-drawn whistles after the balls that whiz past them in battle. His demeanour, when he plants himself between the Lieutenant and the file about to level their pieces at his officer, is a fine and affecting piece of acting. The cabin scene, where he ima- s, •
nines himself sit-11;ing with the Arid, is a mistake ; but the sin is the playwright's, who chose to have the benefit of a death-scene, without losing his Tom. One has occasion throughout to admire the gestures of the cockswain. It does one good to see him insert a quid. There is never any premeditated squaring of the elbows and awkwardness ill put on. His uncouthness is of the ocean, and the swaying and balancing of his body is as of one native and to the manner born. The voice is of equal fitness, and though not absolutely, like the original Tom's, deprived by sea damps and fogs of all human melody, yet still such as might speak in the teeth of a storm. We cannot but admire too the deep emphasis with which, when keeping the foe at bay with his harpoon, he brings up from his entrails the usual climax. of a sailor's asseveration. The whole is a noble performance, and will hereafter be numbered among the illustrious stage achievements—the virion monumentapriorum. We miss TERRY sadly—How the deuce do they contrive to get the dainty Arid l out of the Devil's grip with a pilot that under- stands so little of the chart ?—We miss TERRY, when the pilot, on his first introduction, should draw his hand slowly over his sleek black hair, and stand with seamanlike composure waiting to be addressed. We miss his deep voice, so distinctly heard in the great pother of a storm which they contrive to raise on that bit of a stage. But above all, we miss him when that terrible long story is to be told, which nobody but TERRY—the only actor on the stage with whom a long story is safe—could make tolerable ; and particularly, when the pilot is to lay his heavy hand on the shoulder of his companion, and enforce attention. Certainly, in balancing the loss and the gain, the Pilot as represented this year is not so strong as the Pilot of last.
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