FI& ARO IN LONDON. Satire should like a polish'd razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.— LADY MONTAGUE. " Political Pasquinades and Political Caricatures are parts ( though humble ones,) of Political History. They supply information as to the person and ha bits often as to the motives and objects tf public men, which cannot be found elsewhere."— CROKER'S NEW WHIG GUIDE. No. 177. SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1835. [ Price One Penny. BILLY THE BAKER AND HIS CRUSTY BATCH. Billy the Baker has tried his hand at a new batch, but by using a bad peel he has made them all crusty. Unlucky Billy! The new bread looks very ill- bred at its maker, and we think Billy's cus- tomers, themselves, will find it rather hard of digestion. When things are at the worst it is said they must mend, and so a Tory Government has been mended with a Whig Cabinet. God help the poor people of this country— born to be ruled and ridden overtime after time bv men of genteel connexions! Will the day never come when plain men shall manage the business of the country, and when that which concerns all will be carried on for the good of Vol. IV. all! Little dabblers in great matters, petty triflers in politics, such as your Russells and Melbourne, whipsters like Lord Howick, whom no sensible tradesman would trust to serve behind his counter ; are these the men to wield the energies and augment the resources of this great empire ? What will the Whigs do; is the question asked everywhere? They will shuffle off every thing and the session will be consumed in snarling. HEAR BOTH SIDES. House of Lords. Lord Mvanley. Have you any thing to do with that rascal; O'Connell ? Lord Melbourne.—( Bothered.)— I don't know him— I never heard of him— never had any thing to do with him— don't wish to see him— we can do without him. Lord Londonderry. I am glad to hear it— the villain, the Irish bully, the Papist blackguard. House of Commons. Mr. O'Connell. The bloated buffoon— the unmarketable Lord Alvanley— the degraded, the too- bad- stamped bully, Londonderry. Such is the present state of the Legislative market. What a fortunate thing it is for these gentlemen and noblemen, that the reporters are ever on the watch to write down their polite speeches, so that nothing is lost. THE INTERPRETER The Unstamped. " The defendant was then fined in the full penalty of 201. and in default of payment ordered to be committed for six months to the House of Correction."— Bow Street Report. These Stamp Office people are incorrigible.— Prosecute, persecute, Printed by G. Cowie, 13, Newcastle- street, Strand. 6 8 FIGARO IN LONDON. 179 imprison, spy, fine, and confine, are their relentless orders, and the magistrates are willing instruments of their tyranny. Will it be believed that there have been FIVE HUNDRED PERSONS actually in prison for selling these unstamped papers— and this too under an administration professing liberality, and a wish to disseminate po- litical knowledge. The working classes cannot afford sevenpence, and like hungry men, will buy the cheapest food ( for the mind,) without enquiring into its wholesomeness or good quality. It is then the duty of the legislature to take off the stamp tax and give them a good material at the same price. You cannot now- a'- davs enforce the six acts— While there is a fount of type and a printing press in the land, so long will there be a cheap newspaper for the people in defiance of all the Stamp Office informations and prosecutions. The following may be relied on as about the statistics of the present unstamped press: Cleave's Weekly Police Gazette 32,000 Hetherington's Twopenny Dispatch 27,000 Vendors' Weekly Police Gazette 10,000 Do. Twopenny Dispatch 8,000 Police Register - 6,000 Miscellaneous - 15,000 Making nearly ONE HUNDRED THODSAND weekly unstamped news papers sold. Who can put a stop to this? not the Stamp Office, certainly. Wherever there is a large demand, there will, of neces- sity, be a supply— particularly if the profit is great and continuing. But let us see what duty these papers pay to the revenue— there is a duty on paper of threepence per pound; 200 reams of about 28 pounds each are consumed of these works— so that they pay about SEVENTY POUNDS every week to the Excise for paper duties ! Now the loss they have caused this year to the Stamp Office is upwards of 21,0001. But let us look at the question of the Stamp Laws in another point of view, where alone a Minister can feel it:— Each newspaper pays - about - threepence. Each pound- weight of paper pays - - threepence. The average weight of a newspaper is 1J ounce. Eleven newspapers, weighing one pound, pay - threepence. Now, can there be a question to a reasonable mind, understand- ing the data of publications, but that at least twenty times as many newspapers would be sold, were the stamp but taken off? and thus the Excise would gain what the Stamps would lose. We must add to this, the advantage likely to accrue to the revenue from the in- creased size of the newspapers, whose columns would be crowded and thronged by advertisers ( as in America) anxious to participate in the advantages of an immense circulation. A postage duty on newspapers of one halfpenny, as in 1790, would ensure a large in- crease of revenue, and give facilities for transmission. We have now papers lying before us— the Times, the World, & c. of that date, with this halfpenny stamp. If the publications were legal— the one hundred thousand sold now in secret, would be upwards of a million. These are not idle data, and we are ready to go into the business details of the question with any Member of Parlia- ment who may chuse to take up the question. So much for the matter of revenue ; as a matter of right— the Stamp Laws now in force, prevent us from discussing this question in our present publi- cation. BIRTHS. On Saturday last, at the Court of St. James's, his MAJESTY was safely delivered of a NEW ADMINISTRATION. MARRIAGES. On Saturday, the CONSCIENCE of LORD LONDONDERRY to the HONOUR of LORD TEYNHAM. On Monday, at the House of Lords, the WIT of LORD ALVANLEY to the CANDOUR of LORD MELBOURNE. On Tuesday, LORD PALMERSTON to HIMSELF. DEATHS. The POMPOSITY of SIR EDWARD KNATCHBULL. The INSPIRATION of SIR ROGER GRESLY. The WIG of SIR EDWARD SUGDEN. The PRIDE of LORD ELLENBOROUGH. The SPEECH of MR. WAKLEY. A NEW CABINET COUNCIL. Scene— Downing Street. Lord John. { Settling himself in his chair.)— These are comfort- able seats, Melbourne, eh ? Lord Melbourne. Yes, and the prospect from these windows is pleasant. How are the Home Affairs ? Your Lordship's matrimo- nial felicity has been but of short duration. Lord John. Why, my lady is a leetle dissatisfied ! Lord M. { Drily.)— I have no doubt of it! Lord John. ( Trying to laugh.)— Your Lordship is facetious this morning; pretty d— d particularly pleasant, ha ! ha ! ha! Have you read Brougham's epithalamium on my nuptials, as leader of the opposition ? Lord M. Here it is— The Modern Leda. Great Jove, of old the storv ran, Woo'd and won Leda as a swan, But, to the opposition's glory, Our modern Jove's reversed the story, Our Leader proves himself a man, And Ribblesdale must play the swan. Lord John. There, I think that is rather a good- natuied thing for Brougham. Lord M. It is indeed; but he said the other night, that you were ' the swan with two tails,'— your own and O'Connell's. Lord John. What must we make of him ? Lord Keeper ? Lord M. Lord Keeper of his place he would like to be; he is an unlucky friend, and a dangerous enemy. If we have him in, we shall have to take off'the taxes on knowledge;' if we leave him out he will sneer us out of our places. Brougham is not to be humbugged; the lords and ladies courted him at first, and all the palace people sought him and flattered him— they thought they had bamboozled and bewildered him as they had done many before. In vain; the sly sour dog was sketching their por- traits all the while; and see, how he has shown them up in his two pamphlets. Lord John. Yes, in such colours, t'. iat the meanest tailor would scoff them from his shopboard. The power of high names, and sounding titles has past— oh, that Faustus had never invented printing. Lord. M. { Aside)— I wish he hadn't, we should not have had ' Don Carlos.' Lord John. We shall be obliged to do something. What tax can we take oft"? Lord M. Tiles and dog's tails Lord Spencer has already appro- priated. Let us take oft' the tax on hair powder. Lord John Excellent— what a relief it will be. Do you know it costs me fi'/ e pounds a year for my servants; besides, it will make us so popular— every body must feel the powder tax. An excellent thought— send for Spring Rice— capital, famous. Lord. M. How is the king ? LordkJohn. Tired of worry and bustle. FIGARO IN Lord M. And the queen ? Lord J. Spiteful and scornful. The Tories are in a rage ; but O'Connell will prove a thorn in our side. He is not to be done— wait till the house meets— that kangaroo tail of his will ruin us. Lord M. We are in— let us make the best of it. Leave the Radicals to find us out— we have our families and estates to look to— I hate retrenchment, and will have none of it. There's that puppy Howick, and that thick- skulled, hard- headed, Grote, and that botheration Scotch Fox Maule ; they will soon be at us, each with a new plan. Lord John Let them ride their hobbies against one another. Lord M. But Wakley will open on us now. Lord John. Let him— make him president of a commission for enquiring into hospitals, and he will be quiet for a year or two. Lord M. Is Hume to have any thing? Lord John. On no account— what! cut our salaries down to farthings— never let Hume into office— from the day of his first visit to Downing- street you may date the starvation of the aristocracy. No more pensions— work, work, will be the order of the day— and is not that pretty employment for a gentleman ? Get one's own living! horrid thought! No, Melbourne, speechifying and spout- ing are very good in their way, they answer our purpose; but how wretched would it be to have to do it for hire. Lord M. We are all hired to do it— Is not place the price, the object, of all our speeches and actions ? Lord John. Fame! Patriotism! Lord M. Fame ! Patriotism! ( Both burst into laughter, and go off to Greenwich Fair.) BREVITIES Knowledge is Power. The Tories refused to take off the Taxes on Knowledge, because the people, as they said, were too knowing already. The Whigs refuse to take them off because they are taxes whieh do not press upon themselves. Looking Forward, The King wishes the Whigs not to look back, and Brougham says, that his Majesty's court is not a court of Review, but of a Peel, ( appeal.) A Vacuum, The Tories expect that the heads of their party will shortly re- turn to power, as the Times says, that the new administration are filling up the empty places. THEATRICALS. The managers of amateur theatricals, who, like quacks and law- yers, live by the folly of mankind, have an excellent plan of making the degree of vanity, with which the stage- stricken apprentices are infected, the means of a proportionate profit to themselves. Thus, Hamlet is murdered for one guinea and a half, and Othello never smothers" under two guineas; Roderigo and Cassio are seven shil- lings each, and Hotspur may storm and rage for half a guinea. This is the plan which Arnold should pursue with the young fidlers and fools, who come with ' An Opera by an English composer,' re- questing its performance; and thus, and thus only, could he get paid for the trouble and expense of producing these melancholy abortions; for let him be certain that the public will never patron- ise such trash. Sadak and Kalasrade is a dreadfully dull affair, the mingled production of vanity and stupidity. Its author, Mr. Packer, is a pupil we believe, of the English Academy of Music— a merito- rious institution, originally destined for the education of musicians— LONDON. 179 and an opera bv a pupil of this Academy is about as absurd as ' the Iliad, an Epic Poem, by a Westminster Boy,' would appear if announced in the newspapers of the day. We do not blame Mr. Packer for composing this opera. We blame him for producing " it. — and we are seriously annoyed with Arnold for being instrumental in boring the public to his own loss with this, the mere raw material of an opera. Every composer has his own particular style— the royal sublimity of Handel, the graceful simplicity, and harmonious elegance of Haydn, the melodious richness and feeling expression of Mozajt, the mysterious and picturesque harmony of Weber, the sparkling gaiety of Rossini, the military brilliancy of Auber, are known and marked as features on the face of music- Mr. Packer likewise has his style, the distinctive characteristics of which are squeaking and hooting-, the fiddles and the females had a struggle which could squeak the loudest and the longest, while the bassoon, the serpent, the trombone, the big drum and the chorus of devils contested the palm in the deep, deep, bathos of bombastic bass. The laughing chorus in the last Act, had a double accompa- niment from the pit and orchestra— and the ' Waters of Oblivion' must roll over the music of ' Sadak and Kalasrade' before Mr. Packer's merits as a composer can again be put forward to punish the afflicted ears of the public. A few words regarding the faults of this opera may be produc- tive of advantage to juvenile composers— there was a want of con- trast, a deficiency of vigour, an absence of effect, and of light and shade. All the music was of a melancholy tinge, as if it had been written in low spirits, and when the Author, like his Opera, was out of tune;— one of the characters, at least, should have been lively— but, yam satis! if the opera be withdrawn, we will say no more of it— Poor Miss Mitford! ' My Fellow Clerk' is a pleasant sketchy farce, in which little Ox- berry's queer quaintness, and Wrench's roguish bustle, appear to advantage in the characters of two lawyers' clerks Mr. Romer's idea of dressing an attorney's fag, is a preposterous caricature of the ordinary apparelling of those sucking rascals. Your lawyers' clerk always wishes to look like a gentleman— a military man, if possible. His trowsers are generally braided, and his coat buttoned up, and were it not for the pen, unconsciously sticking behind the ear, he might succeed so far in his imposition as to be mistaken for a police- inspector off duty. The dirty, not the shabby genteel, is the characteristic of the lawyer's clerk. Wise are they over their gin and water, sharp and snappish at their desks, prating, over- forward, penny- reading elves— born to botheration— educated for roguery— trained to deceit, coxcombical, conceited, legalised pick- pockets, articled swindlers, traitors on sufferance, victimisers bv profession, rogues by reputation, and sucking gentlemen by Act of Parliament. Can Mr. Romer personify this idea on the stage? He has but a slight part— let him try and bring it out into notice. Miss P. Horton looked and sang very well in this farce. She is a sprightly actress— let her beware of being an impudent one. ' The Shadow on the Wall' is a clever and interesting melo- drama. Mr. Serle acts the lover and hero. When Serle gets hold of a part of this kind, he reminds us of a young fellow who pays lialf- a- guinea for the hire of some miserable horse, and keeps galloping the wretch about all day by way of having his ' pennyworth' out of him. Serle worked away at the part, and tore it to rags— making it, to be sure, extremely effective, but pre- posterously outrageous. Serle, from personal acquaintance, we know to be sensible and judicious, as well as talented. We sup- pose he forgets the man of genius in the Manager, and having courted the muse to some purpose of praise, although with little pocket- profit, he now intends to court the ready- money and more propitious applause of the gallery gods. So be it. Why does Mrs. Keeley gasp for breath so much, and why always run about the stage with her nose cocked up in the air, like a pig sniffing for the wind ? Hysterical sobs are not the language of passion or afflic- tion— nor is tragedy the forte of Mrs. Keeley. It is a foolish am 70 FIGARO IN LONDON. bition to act the serious, and do the pathetic, which, instead of causing the audience to weep, does but make the judicious grieve. We have ran to some length in our remarks on the performances at this theatre, but we consider that it deserves patronage and claims attention, as almost the only really English theatre at present.— To Mr. Arnold, the musical world look up as the first introducer of the rich stores of German harmony to the notice of playgoers— and to Mr. Arnold the public must always feel grateful as the fosterer of native talent; a judicious manager, and excellent judge of acting, he has brought before the public almost all the first- rate talent now on the stage. We omitted to mention, that in the last act of ' Sadak and Ka- lasrade,' when the Nvmph of the Fountain offered Sadak the Waters of Oblivion, Philips, with his fine sonorous voice, and in a most pompous recitative, thus sang: ' Man is born to remember, not to forget! An ingenious discovery, which can only be paralleled by the well- known poetical lines in Gustavus :—.; . ' I can scarcely believe the intelligence you bring, Tho' I hold in my hand the letter from the King!' A contretemps in this Opera was very ludicrous. At one time a most inharmonious and noisy seraphine was accompanying a squeaking chorus of squalling girls ; the audience were in doubt whether or not to hiss— when Miss Romer unhappily asked, with the most innocent and unconscious look—' Whence comes this ravishing music V A roar of laughter followed. The serpent's head and shoulders in the cave, and the ludicrous effect of its mo- tions, can never be forgotten. At Covent Garden, Templeton, who is tall and thin, has been put into the clothes of Wilson, who is short and fat, and Seguin has jumped into Philips' skin. In the last act, there is a scene where Templeton represents an ardent impatient lover, and Seguin, a wily artful politician. Scope is here given for the well- known fine acting of both parties ; let our readers judge of the absurd conse- quence. ' Carmilhan,' by the great Fitzball, is, a kind of ultra- marine melodrama, with an amphibious hero, whom the play- bill calls super- human, because he lives under the water. The scenery is sweetly imagined, the action foolish, the dialogue insipid, and silly to the highest degree.— The witty portion of it is as fol- lows :— ' We will be married— what have you got to say to that ?* ' I forbid the banns. ' You !' ' Yes, I; father is a householder, and that is all the same.' Such is the vapid stuff of which ' Carmilhan ' is composed, and for writing which men now- a- days call themselves authors and literary men. We have not yet seen Fitzball's ' Note Forger,' which we are told is rather better. It is a translation from the French, and professes to tell an English story. There was a piece founded on an English story brought out within the last few weeks at the Parisian Theatre, the interest of which turns upon the inge- nious plan of a robber chief, who saved his comrades from hanging, by marrying the daughter of the Attorney General! Such are the notions of English manners of the French Fitzballs. Sadler's Wells Theatre has been newly decorated and has a very smart appearance. The awfully sublime and horribly grand here reign paramount. Combats, cataracts, and catastrophes, groans, moans, murder and moonshine, combine their grim attractions to charm the Islingtonians. ' All round my Hat!' issungwith a nightly chorus of three hundred gallery folks, and the audience rush off to bed frantic with affright and astonishment, at the splendid terrors of the Shadow's Masquerade. The holiday folks have been well entertained at Astley's. The horses and the men do their best, and Ducrow is really terrifically clever in the Circtis. We have not visited the Surrey, having failed to receive the re- quisite admission. Glossop refuses to give up his licence for the Victoria to H. Wallack, and there is a manoeuvre on foot to keep this theatre in his hands. Let the profession beware. The Queen's theatre engrosses the charms of Mrs. Honey and Mrs. Nisbett, and thus fires off a double- barrelled gun against the hearts of its fashionable frequenters. We have heard it hinted that there is some very good champagne at this theatre— most of the wines however are in Bond. NOTICE. WITHOUT INCREASE OF PRICE, A DOUBLE NUMBER WILL BE PUBLISHED NEXT WEEK. Advertisements must be sent to the Publisher on or before Tuesday next. The continued demand for our back Numbers has compelled us to reprint several. They are now ready, and can be ordered of any Bookseller or Newsman in the Empire. NOTICE, The anxiety of the public to procure copies of FIGARO'S SHORT ACCOUNT OF A SHORT ADMINISTRATION, Illustrated, as it is, by the immortal SEYMOUR, with Fifteen inimitable En- gravings, has induced the patriotic Publisher tore- print it. It is again ready, and at the same low price— Sixpence. STRANGE is also publishing, in a cheap form ( Twopence each Number,) a Re- issue of LAYS AND LEGENDS OF VARIOUS NATIONS, Illustrative of their Traditions, Popular Literature, Manners, Customs, and Superstitions, with characteristic Etchings. Six Numbers of this popular work form a Part, of which Seven may be procured, on application to the Publisher, or of any Bookseller in the kingdom. It may also be had in volumes, price 4s. each THE FINEST BEAVER HATS, 21s. BEST BEAVER HATS, 17s. 6d. SUPERB GOSSAMER HATS, 12s. The above are manufactured of the most choice materials, and finished in the highest style of fashion— they never spot with rain nor lose their shape. FRANKS AND CO., Sole Patentees and Manufacturers. . , 140, Regent Street, West. London 62_ Redcross stieet> City. Paris ... 97, Itue Richelieu. Edinburgh, 6, St. Andrew Street. Dublin . 3, Sackville Street. N. B.— Franks and Co. are the only Manufacturers who really supply the Public at the Wholesale Price. G. CowiE, Printer, 13, Newcastle Street, Strand. PUBLISHED ( for the Proprietor) by W. STRANGE, 21, PATERNOSTER ROW.