THE LENT ORATORIOS.
WE know not whether the Bishop of London and the Lord Chain- berlain's deputy have been bullied or coaxed into a surrender ,f their opinion, but the injunction has been removed, and the barba- rous outrage on decency and good taste which was last year al- lowed, as we then hoped through sheer ignorance, to disgrace, one of our national theatres, is again sanctioned and encouraged. 03 Friday evening, the burletta of Moses and Aaron was peribrined at Covent Garden. The theatres are closed on certain days in Lent, in deference to the religious feeling of a large portion or the community. It is for this reason that all plays and operas are proscribed—SHAKSPEARE is silent, and STORACE mute. Nowt without affecting any puritanical horror on the subject, we would appeal to the good sense and good taste of the English public— those who do not "regard the day," as well as those who do— whether miracles of the Scriptures, and of these the most awful manifestations of the Almighty's justice which the records of the Old Testament contain, are fit subjects for the mimicry of the stage,—whether the plagues of Egypt are a proper
vehicle lOr the panwinime trickery the machinist ; to be altered, improved, increased, nt his ph asure,—w het her such an exhibition can produce any other fueling than that of disgust in some, or of prifane and unseemly mirth in others? ('c old the Bishop of Lon- don, for one night, visit the boxes of this theatre, and hear the loathsome and ribald jests which this exhibition calls forth, he
would be satisfied that a nightly recital of the works of PAINE and CARLILR would not "accomplish in a similar degree the design of holding up to ridicule the miracles of the Old Testament. We confess that, for the first time, we felt like PRYNN, " ashamed of being seen in such a place, ashamed to look up, and wondering what enjoyment any rational being could find in such an amuse- ment." if the Scriptures are thus to be burlesqued, and the mi- racles of God are to be MCC ea with bursts of laug hter, when: are we to stop in this career of folly and impiety? Supjaee Mr. B:1NN should happen to flank the Cruet: li:rion a proper Vehicle for the skill of his property-man and poet, and should dramatize GRAUN'S Oratorio, endiog it with a grand display of Calvary, and an exhi- bition of Jesus Christ extended on the cross, could such a repre- sentation, with any show of consistency, be forbidden, after the deliberate sanction which has been given to the burletta of Moses and Aaron .1' But it is not simply the outrage against decency of which we complain—we denounce the piece as a gross violation of musical taste. The composition has not a particle of the gravity which appertains to sacred music ; and, as if to render this defect mote prominent and palpable, the most serious a orris in the piece are adapted to a jig-. The translation is barbarous and slovenly : fitted to the original in the most clumsy and careless way; and the jumbling together of Rossm and HANDEL is in the worst possible taste. Tints the whole work is a nauseous and loathsome deformity; revolting to our feelings, an outrage on decency, and at variance with every principle of taste in music. And this has the immediate sanction of Bishopl3Lommen, and the deliberate approbation of the Lord Chamberlain !
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