| This gentleman has resumed at the Strand theatre those performances
by which he has already made himself and his art so very popular in many
other places, and by which his reputation has not been confined to this
side of the Atlantic, but has extended from one end of the United States
to the other, setting our American brethren upon the task "to guess and
calculate" by what process of the physical organization of the performer,
and by what rare management of the powers with which he is endowed by nature,
he can give utterance to such rare sounds, and so modulate, direct, and
manage the faculty of enunciation as to persuade an audience almost out
of their senses and produce illusions almost as strong as realities. The
artist, for he may with the greatest propriety of language be called an
artist, has very properly called himself a "Polyphonist," which being interpreted
or rather paraphrased means one who speaks with many voices. Mr. Love does
speak with many voices, and those voices so well managed, made to represent
so well the voices he means to imitate, that the auditor can scarcely believe
that the variety of sounds he hears can proceed from one pair of human
lungs or be the effort to articulate of one set of organs of human speech.
But this is not all. Mr. Love possesses, besides the power of imitating
the voices of persons of all ages, grades, and professions, the art of
diversifying the voices of their respective genera into an endless
variety of species. He can imitate an "infant puling in its mother's arms"
and an infant laughing on its mother's knee. He can represent an old crone
chuckling, or an old crone wheezing and uttering maledictions both loud
and deep. He can depict a merry old man and a cross old man, a blustering
boatswain and a solemn Quaker. The tones of a lover and his lass, when
"whispering trees are telling tales of love" - that is, not of Mr. Love
himself, but of his scarcely less universally potent namesake. In a word,
he can, with the rapidity of thought, bring upon the stage such a numerous
dramatic corps, so perfect in their respective parts, so diversified in
character, and so humorous in their exhibition, that though they play not
"those fantastic tricks" which are said to "make the angels weep," they
do what is much better, they play those fantastic tricks which make ladies
and gentlemen die with laughter, and go very near to increase the category
of coroners' inquests, "came by their deaths by some means or other unknown."
Mr. Love, however, is no murderer; he has rather, by his good-humour, his
spirited imitations of men and manners, and illimitable versatility of
talent, prolonged than shortened the existence of his fellow-creatures.
His bill of fare at the Strand theatre is a rich one; there are solid dishes
and piquant entremets. There is enough for all, and variety for
every taste. Vivid and faithful in his colouring, correct in his outline,
and forcible in his lights and shadows, if what he represents may be deemed
a picture, he is a painter of first-rate genius, and with all that art
can do to make him pre-eminent in his profession.
|
Compiled by Steven Connor
as part of The
Dumbstruck Archive, a continuing, online supplement to Dumbstruck:
A Cultural History of Ventriloquism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000).