REMARKS. The Weathercock. THE title of this farce is singularly appropriate. Tristram Fickle, the hero, is truly a weathercock-he turns at every wind, except a trade wind; being a young gentleman much too vivacious and well-bred, to throw away one thought upon commercial drudgery. He is, alternately, a pleader, a player, an apothecary, a soldier, a gardener, a quaker, and a beau-transformations as numerous as those which Dryden celebrates in the Duke of Buckingham; who— "Was every thing by starts, and nothing long; though we must acknowledge that the transition from the Quaker to the buck is not unreasonable: indeed, the times give it proof; and, looking to the revolution that has lately taken place in the skirts and collars of the Society of Friends, we think the time not far distant, when the outward garb of sanctity will be repudiated altogether, and thee and thou be the only badge of distinction between Quakers and ordinary folk. If Tristram Fickle is puzzled in the choice of a profession, he is equally so in that of a wife. To every object of attraction he becomes ardently devoted "Though last, not least, in love;" and, though it is the same lady who attacks him, under various disguises, his spirit is equally moved by the demure glances of the sly Quakeress, and the profane igs and songs of the pretty Savoyard. Middleton, in his comedy of "No Wit, No Help, like a Woman's," has shown the superiority of female invention: Mr. Allingham has illustrated the same thing in farce. It is difficult to find a tangible point in the weathercock's character. We think we have him, and in an instant he slips through our fingers; and we curse him. as the woman did the eels while she was skinning them -for not lying still! If we contemplate him as the barrister, inveighing, with true forensic vociferation, against villanous dustmen-he is transmogrified into Romeo, pleading, not at the bar, but at the feet of Juliet.-And, when we fancy that we have really caught him, as the apothecary, about to phlebotomise the terrified Sneerhe starts up as a soldier, routs Briefwit and the Barber, and puts his Old Fickle ignominiously to flight. Happily he at last encounters a lady who can give him aRowland for an Oliver, in his own way: and, should the sons and daughters of this vivacious couple bear the sympathetic marks of their parents' disposition, as did the progeny of the "spruce Mr. Clark" and his rib; of whom it is sung, "They had children blithe as larks, Aud all the little Clarks Were marked with a rasher of bacon!" we may expect to see the young Fickles decorated with as many hieroglyphic characters as Pompey's Pillar or Cleopatra's Needle. Briefwit is well drawn-saturnine and taciturn, he drops not a syllable more than is absolutely necessary; and he never laughs, except in his sleeve. Would that his example had its desired effect in restraining the ribald jests, the low buffoonery, the unlimited licence of tongue, of certain forensic orators, who, because they have three tails to their wigs, give themselves as many airs as a bashaw with nine. Sneer contributes his share of the merriment; some good things are put into his mouth, and he is placed in a ludicrous situation, when he assumes a solemn pomp, an owl-like gravity, perfectly judicial, and listens to Tristram's oration against London dust and Newcastle coals. Fickle, senior, is a positive old gentleman, who brings up his son to the law, which he has the impudence to call (as Slippery Sam did the trade of a tailor) an honest employment, and is in ecstacies to hear that he has provided himself with twelve square feet of learning, and sent for a barber to shave one half of his head, in imitation of Demosthenes, the Athenian orator. There is some wit, and a great deal of humour, in this farce. The transformations are quick and lively, and keep the attention continually awake. It is highly comic on the stage, and even entertaining in the closet, which is more than we can say of one in a hundred. The author, John Till Allingham, was the son of a wine-merchant in the city, and educated for the profession of the law; which, we believe, he never followed. We remember him, some twenty years since, mingling in the busy throng about 'Change; in the capacity, we have heard, of a stockbroker. He was a personable man, and a free liver. He has been dead some years. Bannister was the original Tristram Fickle: his admirable acting made The Weathercock one of the most successful farces of that day. Harley has succeeded him in the character, and plays it excellently. Mathews was the original Briefwit: we shall not easily forget his lank figure and green spectacles; and the nasal tone in which he twanged out his sentences of professional Latin. Mrs. Charles Kemble, then Miss Decamp, was the original Variella. In certain requisites (which may be easily guessed), she is excelled by Miss Foote; in others (which may be guessed as easily), she far transcends her. D-G. |
