p. 41

241.

[deemed bad policy, as the French corps was very
attractive, and drew large and fashionable au-
diences. This company possessed a great deal
of first-class talent; they were from New Orleans
-their permanent adobe. It was their first visit
to the North; and, such was the impression they
had made on our public, that it caused the corps
to repeat their visits for several summers after-
wards, thus avoiding the unpleasant seasons at
New Orleans, and profitably filling up their
recess.

The eclat which attended the French company's
most excellent representations, certainly had a
dampening effect upon the opening novelties of
Warren's season. The Gallic corps were very
perfect as vaudeville performers. The neat and
truly picturesque mode - always characterized by
chasteness in all the accompaniments of a drama
- in exact costume, business, and natural deli-
neation of acting, could not be surpassed, and
has hardly ever been equalled, on the English
stage. The French comedy and lyric drama
were certainly intellectual treats, particularly
"Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" (Red Riding Hood);
"La Pié Voleuse" (The Magpie and the Maid);
"William Tell, " and, in after seasons, the very
clever representations of the "Daughter of the
Regiment," and the "Crown Diamonds;" the
heroines of which latter pieces were most admi-
rably sustained by the inimitable Calve. We
have never seen these pieces so well put upon the
stage since. We speak not so much of the musi-
cal part as of the acting, and their very neat
stage business. This French invasion undoubt-
edly affected the early interests of the opening
season of 1827 and 1828.

Mr. Warren had expended full $6000 in caus-
ing an importation of nearly a full stock company
from England, and an immense number of or-
chestra solo-players from Germany, with a leader
of reputation by the name of Braun.

Yet with all these uncommon efforts, Mr.
Wemyss, Warren's stage manager and agent to
England, who carried out all these stupendous
arrangements with great zeal and good faith, fol-
lowing pretty closely (it would appear) the vast
notions suggested by Mr. Richard Peters, in his
quasi letters of instructions, (vide page 124
"Wemyss' Twenty-six Years of the Life of an
Actor and Manager,") most candidly admits that
"the receipts of the first week fell short of the
nightly expenditure." How could it be other-
wise? An active opposition, under Cowell &
Simpson, was efficiently organized to meet the
heterogeneous new tastes of the rapidly increas-
ing population of the city, and a most unwise,
uncalled-for and expensive numerical importa-
tion of stock performers was made, professedly to
fill up the rank and file of the old Chesnut street
stock, when that hiatus could have been equally
as well filled here. Were the positions of Mr. and
Mrs. Wood, Mr. and Mrs. Duff, and others we
could enumerate, as well supplied, either pro-
fessionally or privately? We opine a reply in
the negative. We shall not derogate from the
abilities of these imported artists, nor yet from
their private deportment; we knew most of them
personally, and shall speak of their merits, we
hope, with justice. Our own stage had, at this
period, begun to develope rich fruit. But a cry
like huntsmen's echoes was made to resound
against native attempts, and it was averred that
there was a necessity of favoring all things exotic,
which was pretty much like the foreign operatic
cry is now. But jefferson, Duff, Wood, &c., were
getting lame and old, and new faces must be had,
if even of provincial celebrity; for the real
London actors of the National Theatre stamp
only came to us as stars for a few nights.
We had, too, a great many of the "stars,"
who had played a night, perhaps, at one of the
large houses, or may have acted at the minor
theatres then springing into existence, before and
after the monopoly was revoked by act of Par-
liament. They were palmed upon our easy cre-
dulity by the gross, for what they were not. The
game at length is blocked. But yet prejudice
does much, in some of our pretended bon ton cir-
cles, and that prejudice enlightened reason must
continue to combat, and American native talent,
if scientifically cultured, will eventually conquer
it, even in the divinity of opera.

The assumed monopoly of the Park Theatre, in
the starring policy, we think, should have been
met by the Chesnut street management with op-
position. Independence in trade is a maxim
with us, as well as in our political institutions.
Could a coalition have been effected as suggested,
and indeed proposed by our friend Wemyss to Dr.
Hart, the Bowery agent at London, and by him
acceded to, viz: an exchange of stars, and other
desired novelies, with each other, the arrange-
ment would have proved a most politic and ad-
vantageous measure, as operating to defeat the
American monopoly of the Park dynasty, which
so imperiously dictated as to time and terms.
But the habits, thouts and sentiments of War-
ren, were the reverse of those of Gilfert. The
Chatham had sapped the popular base of the
Park house, which advantage the first Bowery
Theatre of 1826 and 1827 triumphantly consum-
mated, and carried off that most stable support of
all our public amusements, "the middle classes"
or our communities. But the aristocratic fash-
ionable circles still adhered to the old Park as the
Mecca of foreign first-class talent. Thither did
their prejudices go to bow in reverence at the
royal shrine, while the people's natural impulses
gushed forth at the altar of the Bowery temple,
in hearty plaudits and huzzas! How is it now?
Why, the charm of exlusiveness is broken, and
the masses in general (adjunct aids to fashion)
reign in triumph. The course and fate of the
Park Theatre was that of the Chesnut Street The-
atre here, and we may say of the old Federal Street
Theatre, at Boston. That power which first mi-
litated against the Chesnut street house was the
Walnut Street Theatre, which gradually arose
from a circus to a regular theatre, and having ever
the popular heart with it, abstracted the middling
interests from its hallowed fane, and finally, in
conjunction with the Arch street house, after
many crazy managements, destroyed all the an-
cient prestige. If the erratic Gilfert had acted
in good faith, and carried out the Dr. Hart and
Wemyss treaty, "offensive and defensive," its
end might, after all, have proved nugatory.
Gilfert, with all his reckless daring, did not make
the Bowery "the theatre!" The Park, with its
walls literally deserted, still continued, in a mea-
sure, the metropolitan, until it was burnt down,
under Hamblin, in 1848. Thus did it partially
remain, in despite of all its opponents, great and
small, who, like Cadmus' dragon's teeth, sprung
up instantaneously and destoryed each other.
Whether the Park would have resuscitated under
Hamblin's guidance, had it not been destroyed,
is a question hard to solve. The surrounding
fashion and play-going people had all immigrated
up town. The local supplies thus became de-
stroyed.

On the arrival of Mr. Wemyss and his corps,
he immediately marshalled his host, and an-
nounced the programme of the campaign.-
Wemyss had made one very judicious and useful
musical engagement, in the person of Mr. Willis,
a violin performer of great merit, who was very
properly secured to lead the melo-drama depart-
ment and other English musical pieces, as under-
standing the languate and the habits and the
modes of that drama, which we have often seen
embarrassed by a foreign leader, (although excel-
lent on the instrument,) not being acquainted
with the language. But, in connection with this
vast importation of stock performers, a chimeri-
cal musical enterprize was entered into, and an
immense band of musicians, of high reputation
on various instruments, were imported from Ger-
many - a scheme which the energetic foresight of
Gilfert had not yet entertained, and the taste of
our audiences was not capable to duly appreciate.
Mr. Wemyss, it would seem, had no part or lot
in these large Germanic engagements. The mu-
sical idea emanated from Mr. Warren's private
advisers, or from the amateur management so
puquantly pointed at by Mr. W. B. Wood, for cer-
tainly some of the simi-official instructions ela-
borated from that influential source (which fur-
nished the funds) to Mr. Wemyss, on his depar-
ture to fulfil his mission, (in 1827,) were funny
and fantastical. They were obviously not feasi-
ble, and if practicable, the entire objects were
not required, for the reason that as good an in-
voice could have been procured here, the more
especially as we had begun to manufacture the-
atrical "stock" as well as "star" material of an
excellent quality, as was acknowledged by the
unprejudiced and the unsophisticated people.
But aristocratic prejudice said "No! go to Eng-
land and bring out new faces - send the old ones
adrift!" And, sure enough, the unfeeling and
unnatural decree was carried out, to the letter, as
the melancholy results proved to all concerned
in his new dramatic speculation upon old-fash-
ioned things.

If we may be allowed to quote from "Wood's
Personal Recollections," (and none will gainsay
that,) we may find something confirmatory of
our meaning. On this subject this conservative
author truly says -

"Arrangements were made of
a very extensive character for fashionable per-
formers from England. A con-
siderable number of our own regular performers
were discharged, not from any suggestion of
either incompetency or decline, nor from any
want of good conduct anywhere, but from the
enormous expense which it was said the promised
succcession of new English performers had in-
volved."

The motives of this stupendous scheme to get
out a crowd of English performers were quite
obvious. Mr. Warren's letter of instructions to
Mr. Wemyss on the subject of engagements (as
given by the latter in his history of the stage)
were reasonable and sensible. They were to sup-
ply certain vacancies. But the advice, the ad-
junct and semi-offical instructions of the ama-
teur manager were crude and romantic, so far as
they applied to the necessary wants and en-
gagements contemplated. They were curiosities
in their way, and the results only proved the
folly of the ideas therein suggsted. The open-
ing of the season was preceded by a concert, 28th
of October, given at the Chesnut Street Theatre.
The performers, instrumental and vocal, were as
follows:

Mr. Braun, director, from the Vienna and
Berlin theatres; Willis, violin; Wepfer, clario-]