him had done, brought a princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand, and a girl in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet, being resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him, where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually Io hang about the figure of charity. Thus several incidents, that are beautiful in a good writer, become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so absurd and barbarous, and what more exposes us to the contempt and ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one another, which is so very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled, is certainly the sign of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British audience, several 20 French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people that delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed with carcases in the last scene of a tragedy; and to observe in the wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre; which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilized people: but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French stage, it leads them into 30 absurdities almost as ridiculous as that which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play" of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, the fierce young hero who had overcome the Curiatii one after another, (instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If any thing could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood, could take place in him. However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his 40 passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole B b length of the stage, and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to have been told, if there was any occasion for it. It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has conducted a tragedy " under the like delicate circumstances. 10 Orestes was in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having murdered his father, and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy with the adulterer. That young prince therefore, being determined to revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been too shocking for the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed behind the scenes: the mother is heard calling out to her son for mercy, and the son answering her that she shewed no mercy to his 20 father; after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: and I believe my reader will agree with me, that there is something infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the mother and her son, behind the scenes, than could have been in anything transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the usurper at the entrance of his palace: and by a very happy thought of the poet, 30 avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he would dispatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means the poet observes that decency which Horace afterwards established by a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before the audience. 40 Nec coram populo natos Medea trucidet. Let not Medea draw her murth'ring knife, HISTRIONIC TRICKS. 371 The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage, but only such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as great an effect upon the audience. At the same time I must confess, that 10 though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain 20 before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but also as an improbability. Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet: Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus; Medea must not draw her murth'ring knife, I hate to see, I never can believe. Ld. ROSCOMMON. I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place 30 of tragedy, and by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one", seldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow brimmed hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of the scene lies in a shoulderbelt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was 40 thought a very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by one of the first wits of that age. But because ridicule is not so delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them.-C. No. 235. The Trunk-maker at the theatre; his applause always rapped out at the right place. There is nothing which lies more within the province of a Spectator than public shows and diversions: and as, among these, there are none which can pretend to vie with those elegant entertainments that are exhibited in our theatres, I think it to particularly incumbent on me to take notice of every thing that is remarkable in such numerous and refined assemblies. It is observed, that of late years there has been a certain person in the upper gallery of the play-house, who, when he is pleased with any thing that is acted upon the stage, expresses his approbation by a loud knock upon the benches or the wainscot, which may be heard over the whole theatre. This person is commonly known by the name of the trunk-maker in the upper-gallery. Whether it be that the blow he gives on these occasions resembles that which is often heard in the shops 20 of such artisans, or that he was supposed to have been a real trunk-maker, who, after the finishing of his day's work, used to unbend his mind at these public diversions with his hammer in his hand, I cannot certainly tell. There are some, I know, who have been foolish enough to imagine it is a spirit which haunts the upper gallery, and from time to time makes those strange noises; and the rather because he is observed to be louder than ordinary every time the ghost of Hamlet appears. Others have reported that it is a dumb man, who has chosen this way of uttering himself when he is transported with any thing he 30 sees or hears. Others will have it to be the play-house thunderer, that exerts himself after this manner in the upper gallery, when he has nothing to do upon the roof. THE TRUNK-MAKER. 373 But having made it my business to get the best information I could in a matter of this moment, I find that the trunk-maker, as he is commonly called, is a large black man, whom no body knows. He generally leans forward on a huge oaken plant, with great attention to every thing that passes upon the stage. He is never seen to smile; but upon hearing any thing that pleases him, he takes up his staff with both hands and lays it upon the next piece of timber that stands in his way with exceeding vehemence; after which he composes himself in his former 10 posture, till such time as something new sets him again at work. It has been observed, his blow is so well timed, that the most judicious critic could never except against it. As soon as any shining thought is expressed in the poet, or any uncommon grace appears in the actor, he smites the bench or wainscot. If the audience does not concur with him, he smites a second time, and if the audience is not yet awaked, looks around him with great wrath, and repeats the blow a third time, which never fails to produce the clap. He sometimes lets the audience begin the 20 clap of themselves, and at the conclusion of their applause ratifies it with a single thwack. He is of so great use to the play-house, that it is said a former director of it, upon his not being able to pay his attendance by reason of sickness, kept one in pay to officiate for him till such time as he recovered; but the person so employed, though he laid about him with incredible violence, did it in such wrong places, that the audience soon found out that it was not their old friend the trunk-maker. It has been remarked that he has not yet exerted himself with 30 vigour this season. He sometimes plies at the opera: and upon Nicolini's first appearance, was said to have demolished three benches in the fury of his applause. He has broken half a dozen oaken plants upon Dogget ", and seldom goes away from a tragedy of Shakespear without leaving the wainscot extremely shattered. The players do not only connive at his obstreperous approbation, but very chearfully repair at their own cost whatever damages he makes. They had once thought of erecting a kind of wooden anvil for his use, that should be made of a very 40 sounding plank, in order to render his strokes more deep and |