An Examiner of Plays
George Colman the Younger. By Jeremy F. Bagster-Collins. (Geoffrey Cumberledge, for the King's Crown Press, New York. 20s.) George Colman the Younger. By Jeremy F. Bagster-Collins. (Geoffrey Cumberledge, for the King's Crown Press, New York. 20s.)
AMERICAN scholars have done good work in their examination of unfamiliar corners of English literature. This setting of the micro- scope on the life and works of some minor writer is useful, not necessarily because the author has been undervalued, but because the examination discovers evidence cognate to so many other sub- jects. Students of the theatre will be grateful for this volume, not because it presents any discoveries, but because it assembles a
great deal of scattered material. The book is valuable, in the first place, for its many brief records of behaviour in the theatre. " We seldom ever witnessed more tears shed in a theatre," wrote a critic of The Surrender of Calais. "A young Lady in the Pit was carried out in hysterics: and the English Character was well shewn in stopping the performance while humanity was doing its office to a female.' And again: "It is to be hoped that the gas lights will be adopted, which can be diminished at pleasure, when a dark scene is required, without the noise of a bell for the descent of the lights." All such records are important for the study and the reconstruction of that theatre in which Colman (1762-1836) worked.
In the second place, the book is interesting for certain wider (though not new) considerations ; for instance, the tracing of the roots of melodrama to the early works of Colman, and an estimation of his work and behaviour as Examiner of Plays. We are apt to regard the reaction against the excesses of the Regency as something closely connected with the accession of the good young Queen. It is curious to read not only of Colman's notorious blue pencilling, but also— many years before the reign of Victoria—of the equally censorious mood of the audience, who objected to several entirely innocuous plays as " immoral and indecent . . . loudly demanding the censure of all who regard the well-being of society."
Mr. Bagster-Collins has made good notes and references and an excellent bibliography, and on one or two points of fact he has been able to correct earlier historians ; but he would have made a better book of it if he had been a little less painstaking. He is too ready Pi quote anyone (however insignificant) who has written anything (however flat) on the subject of Colman—which is a manifestation not of scholarship but of industry. It would have been far more accept- able if he had expended some of his zeal on the making of an adequate index. This index is deplorable. It contains nothing but proper names and the titles of Colman's works—and even so there are numerous mistakes and omissions. There are no entries of other plays acted at the Haymarket, or of subjects—but surely it must be obvious that, in a book of this kind, the reader is more likely to want to know what the author has written about " burletta ' or " censorship " or " Covent Garden " (which may possibly be new i than what he has written about Garrick or Dr. Johnson (which will certainly be old).
Mr. Bagster-Collins has preferred to remain silent about one side of Colman's art. But to write a study of Colman and omit all reference to The Rodiad seems to be excessively discreet.
V. C. CLLNTON-BADDELEY.
Previous page
