The Play Was Founded On The Story Of The "Mock Doctor;" And, From
The Gestures Of The Servants, Who Were The Best Actors, I Should
Imagine Contained Some Humour.
The farce, termed ballet, was a kind
of pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient to
show the state of the dramatic art in Denmark, and the gross taste
of the audience.
A magician, in the disguise of a tinker, enters a
cottage where the women are all busy ironing, and rubs a dirty
frying-pan against the linen. The women raise a hue-and-cry, and
dance after him, rousing their husbands, who join in the dance, but
get the start of them in the pursuit. The tinker, with the frying-
pan for a shield, renders them immovable, and blacks their cheeks.
Each laughs at the other, unconscious of his own appearance;
meanwhile the women enter to enjoy the sport, "the rare fun," with
other incidents of the same species.
The singing was much on a par with the dancing, the one as destitute
of grace as the other of expression; but the orchestra was well
filled, the instrumental being far superior to the vocal music.
I have likewise visited the public library and museum, as well as
the palace of Rosembourg. This palace, now deserted, displays a
gloomy kind of grandeur throughout, for the silence of spacious
apartments always makes itself to be felt; I at least feel it, and I
listen for the sound of my footsteps as I have done at midnight to
the ticking of the death-watch, encouraging a kind of fanciful
superstition. Every object carried me back to past times, and
impressed the manners of the age forcibly on my mind. In this point
of view the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished
furniture is useful, for they may be considered as historical
documents.
The vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable,
whilst the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you
who had here excited revelry after retiring from slaughter, or
dismissed pageantry in search of pleasure. It seemed a vast tomb
full of the shadowy phantoms of those who had played or toiled their
hour out and sunk behind the tapestry which celebrated the conquests
of love or war. Could they be no more - to whom my imagination thus
gave life? Could the thoughts, of which there remained so many
vestiges, have vanished quite away? And these beings, composed of
such noble materials of thinking and feeling, have they only melted
into the elements to keep in motion the grand mass of life? It
cannot be! - as easily could I believe that the large silver lions at
the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned. But avaunt! ye
waking dreams! yet I cannot describe the curiosities to you.
There were cabinets full of baubles and gems, and swords which must
have been wielded by giant's hand. The coronation ornaments wait
quietly here till wanted, and the wardrobe exhibits the vestments
which formerly graced these shows.
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