PEAKE'S MEMOIRS OF THE COLMAN FAMILY.

THESE volumes are an olla podrida of matters relating to the dramatic family of COLMAN, or the Theatres Royal, with occasional gossip and anecdotes about other people. The chronology begins in 1721, when the father of the elder COLMAN was appointed Minister at the Court of Vienna, and ends with 1836, when GEORGE COLMAN the younger died. The authorities are not very original or recondite : the GARRICK Correspondence, the posthumous auto- biography of the elder COLMAN, the lately-published Memoirs of CHARLES MATHEWS, and other works of a similar kind, are the principal sources of information, together with very large drafts upon the Random Records of the author of " Broad Grins." To these Mr. PEAKE has added his own reminiscences of plays and players, with some letters and anecdotes furnished by his friends.

The merit of the workmanship is small. The book is rather a series of quotations strung together, than a connected narrative of the career of either of the heroes, or a general view of the stage during their time. One example will illustrate this criticism. The chef-d'oeuvre of COLMAN the elder is undoubtedly The Clan- destine Marriage : for the variety, strength, and nature of its characters, as well as for its stage-effect, it may take the first rank amongst modern comedies, though The School for Scandal excels it in the polished point of the dialogue. Mr. PEAKE gives a long ex- tract from Random Records touching the respective shares of GARRICK and COLMAN in its composition, and some account of the author's and manager's squabbles about the " cast," but not a word of its first production and reception; nay, but for a casual remark, the reader would never learn from Memoirs of the Colman Family that their best play had ever been performed at all.

But though its literary merit is trifling enough, the book is amus- ing in its way—full of anecdote, gossip, and light reading twaddle,

intermixed with histrionic criticism and theatrical events, and die.: playing in the correspondence some striking traits of the writers and their times. Of the correspondents PULTENEY Earl of BATH is the best. Though he wants the briskness and empty vivacity of • GARRICK, his letters exhibit the solid sense of a man of the world, with a touch of the keenness of a wit in repose, and the never-ceas- ing attention of a miser to the main chance. See bow cautious a man worth many hundred thousand pounds is to effect a saving in buying books cheap, if their cheapness will overbalance the interest of a premature outlay.

.. London, 12th February 1754.

" Dear Colman, "Two or three days ago I had your letter; and am glad to hear you got well again to Oxford ; where I hope you will return to your studita with double diligence, in consideration of the little interruption your London journey gave to them.

" I have got from Mr. Guidott, the law-bookseller, a list of such law-books as will be proper for the beginning of your studies ; but as you are not to begin those till you have finished at the University, it is needless to purchase those books till you return to town—unless you can find some of them in booksellers' shops, of good editions, and to be sold cheap. Lay by the list, till you return to London.

" I am your good friend, BATH."

The connexion between CoLstesi and PULTENEY arose from Lady BATH and Mrs. COLMAN being sisters. On the death of COLMAN'S father, his uncle-in-law undertook the care of him ; sent him first to Westminster and then to Oxford ; entered him of Lincoln's Inn; and seems to have forwarded his views as much as possible, espe- cially in the giving of advice. It is supposed that the Earl was not very well pleased with COLMAN'S subsequent desertion of the law for the theatre : he, however, left him an annuity of 900 guineas a year, with a sort of recommendation to his brother, General PUL■ TENET, to leave him the Newport estate. But the General was displeased at COLMAN'S connexion with Miss FORD the actress, the mother of " Broad Grins," as well as with his turning manager of Covent Garden, and perhaps with the underhanded way in which the dramatist set about it : so he substituted an annuity of 4001. for the estate. Thus COLDIAN'S share of a property of 1,200,0001.— at one time thought likely to be ample—was reduced to 1,3001. a year ; perhaps one of the greatest sacrifices ever offered to the "idle trade."

The letters of the Earl of BATH are not numerous, but they are spread over a pretty long period ; and it is curious to notice the change in them, as COLMAN gradually advanced in reputation— from the cold and patronizing air of the head of the family to a poor relation, to the easy and familiar effusions of an equal, though always with an eye to saving. Thus, writing from Spa in 1763, he observes- " If Churchill's poem upon Hagarth is worth the postage, send it to me; but if it be long it will cost a huge sum. Perhaps you may hear of somebody coming this way, who may be willing to bring it ; and wit pays no duty either on importation or exportation. General Sebright brought me two pamphlets, one of which 1 think well written : it is called ' The Constitution Asserted,' printed for Becket ; pray tell me who was the author."

Lady BATH, COLMAN'S aunt, was as economical as her husband;; indeed some say she infected him. The following letter from her Ladyship is not only curious for its strongly-marked character, but, as Mr. PEAKE observes, as a sample of the orthography, &c. of a lady of rank in 1755. Piccadilly, March. "Dear Nep, "1 reed your letter yesterday, and Lord Bath had one likewise from you sometime ago, Ile desires me to write the answer for ns both & has told me in part what I shoud say, It is this, That whilst you do well, and endeavour to improve yourself as you ought, that you may depend on having all proper and reasonable assistance from us.

" We shall think now, soon, of sending for you from Oxford, to place you in Lincoln's Inn, where my Lord has taken care to have you enter'd some time ago, there you must study hard, attend the Courts of Westminster, and that constantly, and soon render yourself able to get your own livelihood, besides our assistance.

"As for your Quarteridfe It shall be ready when Ever you send for it, and likewise the four Guineas for your Bach-rs degree, and the sixteen, as you say is usual to give your Tutor, tho' neither My Lord nor Dor Newton remembers such a Custom, but Lord B—h apprehends it is yt you have not paid your Tutor quart—ly ever since you have been in College, which he says you ought to have done out of your Allowance, and now the whole amounts to sixteen Gain-y at the rate of four a year. However it be the money shall be ready when you draw for it, and you may be sure of being deny'd nothing, whilst we think, and are persuaded you may deserve it.

" You to be sure will acquaint Lord Bath before you quit the univer-ty and take his Advice & directions in Every thing.

"I am most sincerely & affectionately Yr friend &c. A BATH."

Passing over many years, and many. stories not devoid of amuse- ment, but either too old or too trivial for quotation, we come to 1811, when GEORGE COLMAN the younger was in Banco Regis, in order to take an anecdote strikingly illustrating the flattery of the man upon town of the old school. It is difficult which to admire most, the form of the compliment, the impudence of the compli- menter, the gullibility of the Prince of Wales, or his discretion in avoiding a quarrel and a scene. A nobleman who was present is Mr. PEAKE's authority. " About this time his Royal Highness the Duke of York obtained leave (from the King's Bench) for Colman to dine at Carlton House. He accom- panied the Duke thither. On his walking through the apartments with him, Colman remarked, • What excellent lodgings ! I have nothing like them in the Hing's Bench I' After dinner, he exclaimed, Eh ! why this is wine : pray do tell me who that fine-looking fellow is at the head of the table ? ' The goodnatured Duke, said, Hush, George, you'll get into a scrape.' No, no,' said Colman, in a louder voice, I am come out to enjoy myself: I want to know who that fine square-shouldered, magnificent-looking, agreeable fellow is, at the head of the table ? " Be quiet, George I' interrupted the Duke : 'you know it is the Prince.' Why, then,' continued Colman, still louder, he is your elder brother. 1 declare he don't look half your age. Well, I remember the time when he sung a good song ; and as I am come out for a lark, for only one day, if he is the same good fellow that he used to be, he would not refuse an old playfellow. The Prince laughed, and sang. What a magnificent voice! ' exclaimed Colman; ' I have heard nothing to be compared to it for years. Such expression, too! I'll be damned if I don't engage him for my theatre:

" It would appear that this freak gave no offence to the Royal host, for Colman was ever treated with kindness by George the Fourth."

Mr. ARNOLD has furnished Mr. PEAKE with an estimate of his old friend, which is perhaps one of the best things in the book in relation to GEORGE Coraistr the younger. Characteristic, critical, and caustic, occasionally damning with faint praise, but far better than the nauseous panegyric or inflated censure which the thea- trical people write of one another. We quote from it freely.

COLMAN'S RECEPTION OF HIS OWN JOKES.

Although Colman was more nearly allied to the character of a punster than that of a wit, he was more than either that of a humorist : he said thousands of good things which would entirely lose their poignancy by repetition, since the inimitable chuckle of his voice and the remarkable expression of his coun- tenance would be wanting. The intelligent roll of his large and almost glaring eyes, with the concurrent expression of his handsome face, were ever the unerring avant couriers of his forthcoming joke; and if any thing curtailed the mirth he had provoked, it was the almost interminable laughter with which he honoured his own effusion.

COLMAN'S JEALOUSY.

It must be reluctantly admitted that no man was ever more tainted by jealousy as an author and a wit, (the late celebrated and justly celebrated author of the " West Indian," perhaps, alone excepted,) than Colman. I never heard him speak of the dramatic works of Sheridan without some debasing alloy : he undervalued him as a wit, and somewhat more than hinted that he thought himself more than a match for him in convivial society. By way of salvo, indeed, he landed him to the skies as an orator but even as such, I once heard him conclude his eulogium by adding, " but that is not a gift but an ac- quirement: any man of sound sense and ordinary information, with good nerves, may make an orator by practice and preparation."

COLMAN AND KEMBLE STUDYING A PLAY.

On my venturing to express to Mr. Colman my regret that be had published hia preface to the play of the " Iron Chest," much as I admired the terse and spirited language in which it was written, he observed, that I knew not the provocation he had received. I said I could not conceive a motive for inten- tional injury, which be had ascribed to the great actor. " Then," said he, " I can explain the motive." He now proceeded to state, that he had invited Kemble to dine with him in Piccadilly, in order to read to him the play then in progress, and nearly completed ; that Kemble had winced several times at descriptions which appeared personal, and that seeing a gloom come over him, he had more than once laid aside the manuscript, and passed the bottle, with a view to change the current of his thoughts ; that they had sat together during the whole of that night and the following day, drinking ; occasionally dozing and reviving, and ultimately through the following night ! that at about four o'clock of the following morning, they both woke up at one moment, and stared one another in the face, with a vacant and unmeaning glare • that he, Colman, after some minutes of such non-intellectual intercourse, under the influence of real nervous feeling, broke out into an ejaculation, " What do you stare at ? your eyes are on fire ! By God, Kemble, I believe you are the Devil incarnate ! " Kemble's answer was " Phoo George, you're a fool," and never spoke another word. A coach was ordered an hour or two after, and he returned home. To this strange circumstance Colman attributed Lemble's determination to sink his play.

COLMAN AS A LICENSER.

When he received the appointment of Examiner of Plays for the Lord Chamberlain, (an office which, I presume, is authorized by law, though I could never find it in any act of Parliament,) his first acts were unquestionably those of petty tyranny, and his next those of grasping cupidity. One of the most licentious writers of his age, he appeared anxious to gathered Herod in the exercise of his new authority.

The Examiner who preceded him was a gentleman of the name of Larpent, understood to be a rigid Methodist, and certainly a rigid censor of the dramas submitted to his perusal. But Mr. Lament's objections never extended, in my recollection, beyond any dangerous sentences which appeared to meddle in politics in his dangerous times, or with sentiments which were calculated to subvert morality, glaringly to shock decency, or, above all, to bring religion of any description into contempt. But generally speaking, the good taste or the precautionary judgment of modern managers has left little occasion for such critical censorship. Colman, therefore, in order to be distingue, was driven to dose quarters : where nothing blasphemous, immoral, or political, was to be discovered, he marked his critical acumen by disavowing a lover's right to call his mistress "an angel "; an angel, he said, was a character in Scripture, and not to be profaned on the stage by being applied to a woman. As a manager, I never myself suffered the name of the Deity to be spoken— at least never irreverently or on slight occasions, and always expunged it from the manuscript ; but Colman went a step further—he would not license an address to the Deity in any shape whatever. " Oh, Providence !" he said, was an address to the providence of God, and ought not to be allowed. The name of Heaven or Hell he uniformly expunged. On one occasion he ob- served, " The phrase 'Oh, Heaven !" Ye Heavens,' occurs seven times in this piece—omit them I" I had a ludicrous collection of these official scrupulosities, which I in- trusted to a friend for a Parliamentary purpose, who never returned them to me. A " damn" was a pill he could never swallow; which may in part account for the volubility with which that and other such unmeaning expletives flowed almost perpetually from his mouth. On one occasion he expunged the excla- mation of " 0, Lied!" He said it meant " Oh, Lord!" which was inadmis- sible. On another, where a dandy had to say, while addressing the chamber- maid, "Demme, my dear," he observed, "Demme means damn me—omit it."

COLMAN'S EXACTIONS.

I have said that Colman's appointment to his new office was at first marked by petty tyranny and afterwards by grasping cupidity : these are hard words sinless exemplified by facts, and I would have expunged them on reflection, had I not felt that such facts illustrate character and form an essential part of the description of the man. His petty tyranny I have already, in some degree, exhibited in his frivolous though vexatious prohibitions. His cupidity was displayed in a restless and watchful anxiety to increase his fees, and generally on occasions which no former licenser had ever dreamt of. On two occasions, soon after his appointment, he wrote to me to know on what authority I an- nounced a new piece. My answer was, that they had been prepared in the previous season, and had been duly licensed by his predecessor. He next called on actors, on their benefit-nights, to know by what right they advertised a new song, or new songs, glees, or other musical interpolations, many. of them well known to the public, but never licensed for the stage • and informing them that such songs and glees, 8/c., must not be performed in the theatre unless duly and separately licensed by him ; for each and every one of which a fee 01 two guineas was demanded. Even an occasional address was by him voted s dramatic performance; and on these occasions the manager could afford no redress to the actor. At length, a shrewd and clever performer, still, I hope, well remembered by the name of "little Knight," defeated in a great degree this mercenary exaction, by stringing together a long list of songs, recitations, imitations, &c., which he wished to have performed at his benefit, with any nonsense of dialogue that came into his bead, and so sent them to be licensed as one piece. They were licensed accordingly ; the dialogue was all omitted; and the ingenious actor aided his benefit by saving eight or ten guineas, which would otherwise have found their way into the pocket of the Examiner.