7 APRIL 1832, Page 14

HUNCHBACK.

Jr the drama be falling, it proceeds towards its declension right gloriously. Miss KkmseE's tragedy has scarcely enjoyed its ca- reer, before we are called upon to witness a theatrical pluenonaenon equally remarkable. Miss KEMBLE, a tragedian of first-rate powers, astonished the world with the fruits of authorship : Mr. SHERIDAN KNOWLES, the best tragic writer of the day, comes forward on the stage to play a part in his own comedy. Our duty, therefore, becomes twofold—we have to criticise a new co- medy and a new actor.

The new comedy is a poetical drama of considerable pretensions • the story is intricate, the mystery is well darkened, the characters are various, and there are several scenes of passion and some of humour. The mainspring of the whole is a City merchant and agent in the days of the CHARLESES, remarkable for his honesty and his hunch- back,—Master Walter by name ; the which part is filled by the author himself. This Hunchback has the game in his own hands : circumstances enable him to deal according to his own fancy with the persons about him : he turns them all to the trial of the disposition and principles of his ward,—a young lady (Miss KEMBLE) whom . he has brought up in privacy and the country, and who in fact proves his own daughter, when he, by means of that convenient instrument a sheet of parchment, is turned into a powerful lord. For this purpose, he provides her with a lover, Sir Thomas Cliford (Mr. KEMBLE), and removes the lady to town; where her passion for the country changes into an enthusiasm for the pleasures of a gay life : her lover is disgusted, and renounces her. At this point the Hunchback takes the helm in hand • guided by the secret knowledge he possesses that he is the true Earl of Rochdale, he procures, in a moment of spite and indignation, her consent to marry the supposed Earl; and thus, with the assistance of her old lover as his secretary, in a few severe practical trials, he brings out all the honourable as well as all the faithful and passionate feelings of her heart. Of course, he contrives, at the last gasp, to interpose his charm, and restore all to their true positions ; but not before the real nature of each actor in the scene is fully tried and developed before the audience. The aim of the author, in the character of the Hunchback, may be easily understood. Men who are set apart from their fellows, and more particularly the race of the crook-backs, are remarkable for a moral effect produced by a physical deformity : they are irrit- able, from the soreness of perpetual jeering; they are consequential, from a natural reaction against continual depreciation; they are mysterious, because they have been driven to solitary musings; they are reflective generally, and, as they are placed and ac- cording to their circumstances, reflection turns to plotting mischief or benevolence, as the disposition tends. Unifor mity in position produces uniformity in appearance: the hunch- back is not more known by his hunch, than by his deep and un- fathomable eye, by the pallor of his disappointed face, by the length of his consumptive fingers, by the air of importance he assumes in motion, and by the restless petulance of his uneasy corpse when any ordinary man would be sunk in repose. All this Mr. KNOWLES has ittq, and in his play and in his acting would have developed : but i4ea by imagination nor by experience does he appear to have -bee naster of the subject. In the play, Master Walter wants

Auri there is too little speculation about him : he is not a ack of the mental east: all he gets from his hunch is a ;;-P. •

hoiaerOus intemperance. The real crook-back is inflammable, iit not a bully : it is like the sting of the nettle, or the -fretful shooting of a distressed . porcupille, not with the roar of an untameable lion, that he shows Its irritability. But Master Walter, all through the piece, seems as if he were born to com- mand, and carries all things with the air of one accustomed to triumph. He does not answer to that beautiful anticipation we get of his nature in the charming description of his never-failing watchfulness, put into the mouth of Julia, and which ends with something like this-

" And though the snow drifted o'er the hedge-tops, Still came Master Walter."

Much less did Mr. KNOWLES'S acting supply the defects of his conception. Let us first do justice generally to this man of genius. If it be wished to see the model of a manly, open-hearted, generous fellow, Mr. KNOWLES is his image : somewhat coarse, perhaps—a little provincial too: but there he stands—a broadside of integrity and manliness—a pyramid of strength and burliness; yet by the eye, and the softening of the manner, one in whom may be detected a gentle and affectionate spirit, a tender and inflammable heart. Well, conceive such a man enacting Hunchback ; of whom he is, in his nature, the very antipodes : the failure might be ex- pected to be complete. But it is not,—for this reason, that the part itself is not crooked enough; it fits a straight man, and Mr. KNOWLES played it as such,—and with, on the whole, con- siderable success. His evident want of familiarity with the stage, his occasional failures in attempts at mouthing, and sometimes his straightforward business-like procedure, more than once gave us great delight : we said, here is a natural man on the stage, going through his part as if he were on the great stage of the world. But for the true part of a hunchback, z."

be he benevolent or malignant, he has too many burly perfec- tions; and in working it out, he wants concentredness, calmness, and a sense of conscious power. What he did in this way—for now and then he assumed the imposing—had too much the formal

air of an elocutionist showing how the " thin should be done. As well as we could gather the sense ''of numerous passages, the play seemed thickly strewn with much fine imagery : the alle- gorical illustrations were perhaps even too numerous; and in some of the more ambitious passages, there was comparative failure. Several of the scenes produced a great impression on the audience, having been calculated by a master of' dramatic effect, and being seconded by certainly very admirable actors.

This leads us to speak of Miss KEMBLE. In no part has she produced so great an effect as in the varied character of Julia. Her capricious but playful obstinacy in her love of the country, in the opening, sat well upon her: she was a charming piece of rural elegance and wilfulness combined. And in the town scenes, where her will took the form of extravagant gaiety, she was not less happy. But it was in the trial of her heart that she was supreme. When she had cast off the object of her attachment, and precipitately entered into another engagement—and after- wards found that her lover had lost title, rank, and estate, while she was on the point of launching into more than her former magnificence, in conjunction with a!husband she despised,—then came the play of the passions and the triumph of her affection. The long and touching scene with the Secretary of her new wooer,—who is no other than her former lover reduced to a state of servitude,— has few rivals for true pathos on the stage : it was acted not merely with art, but with genius. No one who heard the heart- rending exclamation of " Clifthrd! is it you?" will ever forget it. CHARLES KEMBLE, as Sir Thomas Clilrord, the lover—the gal- lant gentleman, generous in prosperity' noble in adversity—was inimitable, perfect, leaving nothing to be desired. Besides the grand plot, there was a little under-plot, which was sufficiently amusing. It was admirably acted by ABBOT and Miss TAYLOR. The lady is a forward, loving cousin; and the gentle- man is a scholar, far deeper in the theory than in the practice of love. Helen's efforts to strike fire out of this flint of a man were highly laughable. Miss TAYLOR not only did her part, but over- did it; and had she been made of watch-springs and wood, as she sometimes appeared to be, she would undoubtedly have shaken herself to pieces. We heard a considerable rattle and a spill upon the stage, and looked for a mortal separation of parts; but it only proved to be a scattering of beads, which she agitated from her person-as an oily duck radiates water from her feathers.

After the performance on Thursday,—which was received with

genuine ,enthusiasm,—Mr. KNOWLES was called for, and appeared, led on by Mr. KEMBLE. He gave us but little of the airs and graces of the finished actor, and less of the orator: He ap- peared • chiefly engaged in a sort of friendly dispute with the manager, as to his play taking precedence of Miss KEMBLE'S. It had been previously arranged that Francis the First should be acted on Monday, and Mr. KNOWLES would not permit the success of his play to interfere with the lady's. Mr. KEMBLE, .however, managed the actor-author off the stage at last, and gave out the piece for a continued run, according to what he Aermed.".mere justice." This was as pleasant a scene

as we ever witnessed in a theatre. There was something fearless, modest, generous, and real about KNOWLES'S deportment, that won us completely ; and the whole occurrence put the man and the house upon a familiar and sincere footing, that we like, but have never seen before. It was not one of his Majesty's servants cringing to a tyrant public, but an artist facing his friends and fellow-men. It was BEN J ONSON in the nineteenth century.