Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

us of an ancient master, happily contribute to a just representation of na

ture.

Purchased by

Watson, Esq.

Published by LONGMAN, HURST, REES, and ORME, Paternoster Row; J. HATCHARD, Bookseller to Her Majesty, 190, Piccadilly; and WILLIAM MILLER, Albemarle Street.

William Savage, Printer, Bedford Bury.

THE DIRECTOR.

No. 15. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1807.

COMEDIA, non sine multa

Laude: sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim

Dignam lege regi.

HOR.

My observations on the theatre have produced several letters upon the subject, four of which I have selected for this day's paper. But before I give them to the reader, I shall insert a letter, which I have just received from a gentleman of acknowledged taste and talent, on the subject of the Opera.

Dear Mr. Director,

ALLOW me to pour my grief and indignation into your bosom. For a long

[blocks in formation]

time past nothing had afforded me such satisfaction, as seeing announced for the Opera, the ballet of the SIEGE OF TROY.

Ar last, said I to myself, we have done with those everlasting Peruvians and Spaniards, Mexicans and Turks, and all the tribe of the barbarous and Gothic nations, who have hitherto almost exclusively engrossed our ballets d'action; at last we shall behold Deshayes, Moreau, Mesdames Deshayes, Parisot, Présle, Cranfield, &c. represent classic personages, and a classic subject: How delightful to the admirer of HOMER, and of VIRGIL!

THE fact is, that I foolishly expected to see this classic subject, classically treated; that, like a great noodle as I am, I expected in this our dear England, to feast my eyes on all the elegant and simple grandeur of the Grecian costume, and on all the magnificence of the Phrygian attire; that I promised myself the

« AnteriorContinuar »