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The British Theatre: or, a Collection of Plays, which are acted at the Theatres Royal, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket. Printed under the Authority of the Managers, from the Prompt-Books; with Biographical and Critical Remarks. By Mrs Inchbald. In 25 vols. Royal 18mo.
The collection of plays, which have been published under titles nearly similar, are numerous. The most extensive and popular was Bell's; nor have we the slightest wish to detract from its merits; equal as they were to any thing which could have been expected from the scale and price of publication, at a time when the expences of printing, paper and engraving fell far short of half what they are now. But it is no praise of the present work to assert its superiority over all former collections; because it professes to take higher and more classical ground, both in point of editorship and embellishment; and on its own loftier professions, not on a comparison with more humble precursors, it must be judged.
In this view, it stands within our province to observe, that it has hitherto been customary to omit Shakspeare [sic] altogether, under the idea that our immortal bard, after the Bible and the Whole Duty of Man, takes precedence in the book-case furniture of every house. But the editors of the British theatre had judged rightly, that it would be equally absurd to omit Shakspeare on this ground as to exclude Milton from an edition of the poets for a similar reason. They have therefore given Shakspeare, as far as his pieces are on the list of acting plays. In drawing this line, they have exercised a sound discretion; nor has there ever been a time, when the exercise of a sound discretion was so practicable. For Shakspeare now is in full possession of the stage, as well as of the closet: he is critically and deeply read by the first practical commentators, as well as by the first actor of the age. Whatever may be the comparative merits of Garrick and Kemble as delineators of the passions, which we, though professing, as reviewers, to wear wigs, do not wear such old-fashioned full-bottomed wigs as to be able to estimate from our own observation, the palm of critical contrast. The manner in which the prompt book of both theatres, (which happily for good taste, have been successively under the same management,) is now regulated, has altered back Shakspeare from the interpolations of his former alterers, into an abridged, but pure and native state of wood-note wildness. From these regulated prompt-books, and Mr Kemble's own editions, where his restorations and arrangements have been sufficiently important, the text has been faithfully and accurately taken. The text of the other authors, both ancient and modern, has been collated with equal care, and adopted on the same authority.
The prefaces are given by Mrs Inchbald; so that the task of criti-[554]cism has devolved on one, who has herself written well, and who, by writing successfully also, has as it were identified her own with the public taste.
A detailed account of a collection, like that under review, would be superfluous, were it not impracticable. We shall not therefore either give any specimen of her critical disquisitions, nor enumerate instances wherein we agree with her decisions, or differ from them. Suffice it to say, that the style of these essays is always lively, the remarks very rarely otherwise than ingenious, and the positions in a great majority of cases just.
We were particularly pleased with the easy, unpretending manner in which the biographical sketches were interwoven, and with a certain facility of introducing little, entertaining anecdotes, to fill up the allotted measure of each preface, where the accumulation of works by the same author would have worn the web of mere dramatic criticism threadbare, or have compelled the repetition of the same canons under different phraseology.
We cannot help regretting, that the fair preface-writer should have involved herself in a controversy with, and of course exposed herself to the sarcasm of, the lively and humourous George Coleman the younger. We think his own provocation very slender; but his father has certainly been less obliged to her good nature and candour (no man stood less in need of either) than almost any dramatic writer whom she has reviewed. Keenness of rebuke in the cause of a father our wigs, though not quite full-bottomed, but somewhat of the Brutus cut, must ever approve: as yet the attack seems unreasonably severe. The lady's reply, humble, and on the whole conciliatory, has a touch or two on the subject of Madame Dacier and Homer, which, though not likely to produce a broad grin on the features of her correspondent, may not be altogether unproductive of sensation. Our advice to both parties is, what our advice always will be to persons of high and unquestionable merit, to be friends.
We have dilated so much on the foregoing topics, that our additional observations must be very brief. The collectors in the dramatic line will here find several modern pieces, the copy right of which has hitherto been kept up for the benefit of the theatres, and which are now for the first time submitted to the ordeal of closet examination. The pictorial decorations are on the whole in a tasteful and superior style. The merits of the individual engravings must of course be very various. Scarcely any of them are below mediocrity, and the best are singularly beautiful. Much attention has been bestowed, and very successfully, on the selection and execution of the portraits. Some of them have not, we believe, been engraved before, and very few in so fine a style. The work, therefore, must prove highly acceptable to the frequenters of the theatre, and the fine paper edition, with proof impressions, is the best, indeed the only library book of the kind extant. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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