30 AUGUST 1828, Page 10

Green-eyed Monster has doubtless ere this been well talked over

properly objected to ; and the encore of the sobbing duet was too perhaps the least said the soonest mended. For the satisfaction of bad.

the country reader, it may be enough to observe, that the hero of Having declined the quest of original character and humour, the piece, Mr. W. Farren, is a certain antique Baron somewhere the author or new-modeller had only the dialogue to care about. between the Rhine and the Elbe, married to Mrs. Faucit, a young But this has no pretensions to smartness, and seldom goes trip- wife, of whom, though ashamed of his jealousy, he is nevertheless so pingly off the tongue ; whilst its solitary ambitious flight, from unreasonablyjealous as to suspect that a certain Colonel, Cooper, the mouth of Mrs. Faucit, richly deserved the fate of the chorus of under pretence of courting his niece, Miss F. H. Kelly, is his wife's jealousy, so unceremoniously interrupted. As for the lady her- gallant. All the attempts of the parties to undeceive him are con- self, it was a hazardous experiment on the part of the dramatic strued by his ingenious malady into as many proofs positive of the sutor embarking i truth °fins suspicions, till wife, colonel, and a rogue of a jager, Mr. petite piece of domestic intrigue ;-

Vining, combine to feed his jealousy to satiety ; and that not succeed- " gemuit sub pondere cymba ing, to bring the Baron himself under suspicion. Old Krout the Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paluderm"

gardener, between whom and the chasseur is a rivalry for the good Her chin is ever soaring above the elevation of ordinary life ; and graces of Mrs. Humby, the maid, is persuaded by the said chasseur her voice, disdaining the tones of common discourse, swells into to suspect his respectable master of undue intimacy with the said melodramatic grandeur ;—" quite tragedy," as somebody said maid ; the Colonel, at the same time, undertaking to fill the niece behind, when, as Mrs. Lovemore, she appals her lord and master with fears for her reputation, which he declares is menaced by with—" Oh, are you there, Sir !" reports of an improper attachment between her and her said It may be observed, in regard to propriety of apparel, that

respectable uncle—a stupid and incredible fiction. The con- nature having been equally favourable to the Chasseur and the spirators contrive to smuggle the maid and the niece into the Colonel, the one being a most gentlemanly valet and the other a Baron's apartment, where of course they are most unseasonably most valet-like gentleman, it would be well if the two characters surprised by the lady, his wife ; and the old gentleman detected would adopt more discriminative dresses ; for we had like to have under these sinister appearances, though aware of the trick that mistaken the officer for the man, and the man for the officer. has been played on him, nevertheless suddenly finds himself relieved Mr. Vining is reported to have been in spirits ; perhaps he was of his jealousy, and vows lie will live all the rest of his days with- at home in his part ; and undoubtedly as the Baron's gentleman out hearkening to the suggestions of the green-eyed monster. he is much brighter than as Sir Brilliant Fashion—only Old Knout, who in the early part of the drama, figured as the tool he is too much-making and busy, when he lays himself out for the to his master's jealousy, and in the latter as inspired with jealousy purse. Did he never see the peerless Perlet in Pedro, after much of his master, not being adroit or pliant enough to ground arms dexterous fishing, pocket a purse ?—ho wsly, quiet, demure, cogni- and drop suspicions with the other merry personages of the piece, zant, and beyond measure roguish l—a great lesson in purse-taking. is at the Baron's order turned out neck and heels by his rival, the There is but too much of what they call life and spirit about M.

rogue of a lager. Vining. Such incessant motion rather betokens too little than

The scene of the double discovery—Miss Kelly in the press and too much ease. It seems as though he were afraid of being still Mrs. Humby in the closet—would have been more effective, if a moment, lest he should grow awkward, and turn his shoulder those ladies could have been got into their respective hiding-places, to the company. Of Mr. Cooper's Colonel Arnsdoff we can like Lady Teazle behind the screen, without premeditation. It only say that he is not a very convincing Colonel, and cannot would not have cost an extravagant outlay of ingenuity, to place afford to go a courting in his foraging-cap. Miss F. H. Kelly the jealous old Baron in the equivocal circumstances in which he might reasonably have objected to put on the part assigned her ; is discovered, without so much barefaced, clumsy plotting to for besides that it did not become her, there is a petite Miss about bring it about. The contrivance and the eclaircissement go off the Haymarket whom its nothingness would have fitted to a T. very tamely ; particularly as regards the shutting-up and disclosure Miss Kelly does not shine.as a simpleton : neither in this piece nor of Miss Kelly—(although her—" its only me, aunt," is not bad ;) in the Two Friends, where also she enacts the innocent, do her child- and the spirit of the joke has evaporated even before the stopper ishness and simplicity i sit well on her. She appears to more ad- is fairly taken out by the playwright. There needed not the ea- vantage in what she s—a lady of spirit, feeling, and intelligence. pacity of Mrs. Faucit to come in, like the Deus ex machine, to There is a proneness to inlist all the elite of a company into a new cut the knot ; the jest was already expired,—the hose and clouted piece, or at least as many as places can possibly be found for shoots had been already espied under the white sheet. That so a manuvre that has however sometimes failed. In parlicufar, very weak a contrivance of the enemy should work the cure of a we remember a five-act comedy called possibly, " Gallantry,"— jealousy so inveterate, is what gives the piece its title to be called into lathich had been draughted all the forces of Drury, at a time the Monster. New had the old gentleman been craftily made to when Drury was unusually strews' in comedy. Munden, Knight, fall into a snare of his own setting, and to render himself suspected Harley, Dowton, Miss Kelly, and great Elliston himself, were all by some maladroit scheme of his own for detecting the objects of emberked in a piece that was as emphatically damned as ever his suspicion, so unexpected a turning of the tables might have play could desire to be. approached the ludicrous, and formed a good enough dramatic After all, the Green-eyed Monster afforded considerable amuse- cure of the distemper. But as Mr. Manche, or his original, has meat ; and the reader, if he pleases, may rely on our first im- contrived the matter, the spectator has to deplore at once the oh- prcssion preferably to our subsequent reflections. Certainly, two trusion of a bad joke and the missing of a good one ;—a failure laughs and a bit of one are a reasonable allowance of mirth for a the more to be regretted, as it is decisive of the impression left on two-act play. But mirth entered and went out with excellent

his mind, which is that of a lame and impotent conclusion. Farren. There was first his dress—inimitable. He has great

The plot is assuredly not as good a plot as ever was laid. Ano- judgment in dress. Friend Ambrose's brown coat, brown silks, Cher sore place is Colonel Arnsdolf"s attempt to impose on the and tight brown inexpressibles, were justly commended ; and the niece with the absurd idea that her honour is also questioned, wide-extending lapels of the Baron's white dimity waistcoat were and that the insinuations afloat respect the old Baron her uncle equally meritorious. The well-powdered hair, beauishly brushed and guardian. The acting in this scene, on the side of the gen- up in front, gave him the air of a polite French scavant of the old tleman, was worthy of thepart he had to play—coldly extravagant. regime. But he was more successful in dissembling his jealousy The old gardener's jealousy was better founded and more plausibly by merriment than in betraying it—it was hardly a downright inspired. Mr. Wilkinson, who played Krout, is said to be clever ; honest passion—too much of the make-believe. The same air of but, with two or three opportunities of showing off, he only threw insincerity is, in certain moods, observable in Liston : he wont his arms about and' looked grim. He must beware the jealous let you acquiesce in the belief that he feels what he says—it has gardener, whilst the recollection of Emery is yet fresh in men's the look of a joke. Farren could not be bashful, the other night, minds. Mr. Manche or Mr. P.'s original seems to have been ties- in Sir Bashful ; and he was scarcely jealous in the Baron. Be- passing in Sir Mark Chase's grounds, and to have taken thence sides, though fully equal to the peevish and irascible, he has the idea of Knout. But the Othello of the garden—the very per- not acerbity. For a crab-stick, commend us to Mathews—what fection of clownish jealousy—is gone. "Taunton races! Taunton a sour Sir Valentine Veijuice ! The Baron should squeeze more races !" Who that ever saw can forget that face, bluff and torvous vinegar into his jealousy ;—it wants to be more poignant, and to as the bull's on Front-de-BrBuf's shield—visage as flaming red as predominate more in the countenance and the voice. His reading the gills of a turkey-cock—eyes of livid light, staring full ghastly— of the letter was very great; and as the proofs thickened on his features brutified with rage, and the very shock head of matted perverse imagination, he wrought himself up into a tolerable hair seemhosb to erect itself and share in the coil! Poor Emery, who paroxysm. The chair scene, like all the other scenes of merit, amused me from a child to a man—ill must it fare with him that were Farren's own ; for his looks and tones did every thing, and

ventures into thy walk, while memory is faithful to her trust. the words nothing. This is the second piece that he has conducted

The scene where the Chasseur forces sour Knout out of his this summer down the stream of popularity ;—the bark must be disguise—(the old Baron had posted him in his own arm-chair and crazy indeed that cannot bear Farren and his fortunes.

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. robe-de-chambre, whilst his lordship himself was on the look-out)—

TN the late inclement season, it was no small feat on the part of by courting Louise before his face, or rather behind his back, has the English Opera-house to breed the great green bottle-fly that is its capabilities ; and might have been turned to more account in exhibiting there. At the Haymarket they have blown a yet more the performance. The dress of Louise has been censured, but it miraculous monster of the same hue. Jealousy itself is unhappily became her that wore . it as well as the character she personated. no figment of the dramatist's ; nor is the jealous man, dreadfully Mrs. Humby had nothing to do, sob, or say, save what she always afraid of being known to be jealous, a prodigy. The monstrosity says, sobs, and does with anair of truth. Her song, deprecatory of the matter consists in a new cure for jealousy discovered by the of. Krout, owed its success with the audience to the peculiar cir- play-wright or his pattern. The real malady is healed by a coun- cumstances under which it is sung, to the curtsey at the close of terfeit one, and the patient is tricked out of his suspicions by being the stanza, and the clinching rhyme of " doubt" and " Krout." put in the predicament of a person suspected. The plot of the The grand chorus of the three jealous couples in a row was very Green-eyed Monster has doubtless ere this been well talked over properly objected to ; and the encore of the sobbing duet was too perhaps the least said the soonest mended. For the satisfaction of bad.

the country reader, it may be enough to observe, that the hero of Having declined the quest of original character and humour, the piece, Mr. W. Farren, is a certain antique Baron somewhere the author or new-modeller had only the dialogue to care about. between the Rhine and the Elbe, married to Mrs. Faucit, a young But this has no pretensions to smartness, and seldom goes trip- wife, of whom, though ashamed of his jealousy, he is nevertheless so pingly off the tongue ; whilst its solitary ambitious flight, from unreasonablyjealous as to suspect that a certain Colonel, Cooper, the mouth of Mrs. Faucit, richly deserved the fate of the chorus of under pretence of courting his niece, Miss F. H. Kelly, is his wife's jealousy, so unceremoniously interrupted. As for the lady her- gallant. All the attempts of the parties to undeceive him are con- self, it was a hazardous experiment on the part of the dramatic ' so weighty a personage n the fortunes of a gardener, between whom and the chasseur is a rivalry for the good Her chin is ever soaring above the elevation of ordinary life ; and graces of Mrs. Humby, the maid, is persuaded by the said chasseur her voice, disdaining the tones of common discourse, swells into to suspect his respectable master of undue intimacy with the said melodramatic grandeur ;—" quite tragedy," as somebody said maid ; the Colonel, at the same time, undertaking to fill the niece behind, when, as Mrs. Lovemore, she appals her lord and master with fears for her reputation, which he declares is menaced by with—" Oh, are you there, Sir !" reports of an improper attachment between her and her said It may be observed, in regard to propriety of apparel, that

respectable uncle—a stupid and incredible fiction. The con- nature having been equally favourable to the Chasseur and the spirators contrive to smuggle the maid and the niece into the Colonel, the one being a most gentlemanly valet and the other a Baron's apartment, where of course they are most unseasonably most valet-like gentleman, it would be well if the two characters surprised by the lady, his wife ; and the old gentleman detected would adopt more discriminative dresses ; for we had like to have under these sinister appearances, though aware of the trick that mistaken the officer for the man, and the man for the officer. has been played on him, nevertheless suddenly finds himself relieved Mr. Vining is reported to have been in spirits ; perhaps he was of his jealousy, and vows lie will live all the rest of his days with- at home in his part ; and undoubtedly as the Baron's gentleman out hearkening to the suggestions of the green-eyed monster. he is much brighter than as Sir Brilliant Fashion—only Old Knout, who in the early part of the drama, figured as the tool he is too much-making and busy, when he lays himself out for the to his master's jealousy, and in the latter as inspired with jealousy purse. Did he never see the peerless Perlet in Pedro, after much of his master, not being adroit or pliant enough to ground arms dexterous fishing, pocket a purse ?—ho wsly, quiet, demure, cogni- and drop suspicions with the other merry personages of the piece, zant, and beyond measure roguish l—a great lesson in purse-taking. is at the Baron's order turned out neck and heels by his rival, the There is but too much of what they call life and spirit about M.

rogue of a lager. Vining. Such incessant motion rather betokens too little than

The scene of the double discovery—Miss Kelly in the press and too much ease. It seems as though he were afraid of being still Mrs. Humby in the closet—would have been more effective, if a moment, lest he should grow awkward, and turn his shoulder those ladies could have been got into their respective hiding-places, to the company. Of Mr. Cooper's Colonel Arnsdoff we can like Lady Teazle behind the screen, without premeditation. It only say that he is not a very convincing Colonel, and cannot would not have cost an extravagant outlay of ingenuity, to place afford to go a courting in his foraging-cap. Miss F. H. Kelly the jealous old Baron in the equivocal circumstances in which he might reasonably have objected to put on the part assigned her ; is discovered, without so much barefaced, clumsy plotting to for besides that it did not become her, there is a petite Miss about bring it about. The contrivance and the eclaircissement go off the Haymarket whom its nothingness would have fitted to a T. very tamely ; particularly as regards the shutting-up and disclosure Miss Kelly does not shine.as a simpleton : neither in this piece nor of Miss Kelly—(although her—" its only me, aunt," is not bad ;) in the Two Friends, where also she enacts the innocent, do her child- and the spirit of the joke has evaporated even before the stopper ishness and simplicity i sit well on her. She appears to more ad- is fairly taken out by the playwright. There needed not the ea- vantage in what she s—a lady of spirit, feeling, and intelligence. pacity of Mrs. Faucit to come in, like the Deus ex machine, to There is a proneness to inlist all the elite of a company into a new cut the knot ; the jest was already expired,—the hose and clouted piece, or at least as many as places can possibly be found for shoots had been already espied under the white sheet. That so a manuvre that has however sometimes failed. In parlicufar, very weak a contrivance of the enemy should work the cure of a we remember a five-act comedy called possibly, " Gallantry,"— jealousy so inveterate, is what gives the piece its title to be called into lathich had been draughted all the forces of Drury, at a time the Monster. New had the old gentleman been craftily made to when Drury was unusually strews' in comedy. Munden, Knight, fall into a snare of his own setting, and to render himself suspected Harley, Dowton, Miss Kelly, and great Elliston himself, were all by some maladroit scheme of his own for detecting the objects of emberked in a piece that was as emphatically damned as ever his suspicion, so unexpected a turning of the tables might have play could desire to be. approached the ludicrous, and formed a good enough dramatic After all, the Green-eyed Monster afforded considerable amuse- cure of the distemper. But as Mr. Manche, or his original, has meat ; and the reader, if he pleases, may rely on our first im- contrived the matter, the spectator has to deplore at once the oh- prcssion preferably to our subsequent reflections. Certainly, two trusion of a bad joke and the missing of a good one ;—a failure laughs and a bit of one are a reasonable allowance of mirth for a the more to be regretted, as it is decisive of the impression left on two-act play. But mirth entered and went out with excellent

his mind, which is that of a lame and impotent conclusion. Farren. There was first his dress—inimitable. He has great

The plot is assuredly not as good a plot as ever was laid. Ano- judgment in dress. Friend Ambrose's brown coat, brown silks, Cher sore place is Colonel Arnsdolf"s attempt to impose on the and tight brown inexpressibles, were justly commended ; and the niece with the absurd idea that her honour is also questioned, wide-extending lapels of the Baron's white dimity waistcoat were and that the insinuations afloat respect the old Baron her uncle equally meritorious. The well-powdered hair, beauishly brushed and guardian. The acting in this scene, on the side of the gen- up in front, gave him the air of a polite French scavant of the old tleman, was worthy of thepart he had to play—coldly extravagant. regime. But he was more successful in dissembling his jealousy The old gardener's jealousy was better founded and more plausibly by merriment than in betraying it—it was hardly a downright inspired. Mr. Wilkinson, who played Krout, is said to be clever ; honest passion—too much of the make-believe. The same air of but, with two or three opportunities of showing off, he only threw insincerity is, in certain moods, observable in Liston : he wont his arms about and' looked grim. He must beware the jealous let you acquiesce in the belief that he feels what he says—it has