THE THEATRES.
THE chirp of The Cricket on the Hearth resounds in almost every theatre in town: M. Jullien has set it to music at Covent Garden; and it only remains for Mr. Bum: to make it time the movements of Tilly Slowboy in a " pas de petit enfant." We shall not discuss the relative merits of the different dramatic representations, or attempt to decide such delicate points as the comparative degrees of femineity in Wright's and Buckstone's as- sumptions of Tilly Slowboy; the precise proportion of the alloy of gentility in Mrs. Stirling's and Miss Fortescue's personation of Dot; or whether pathos or pleasantry preponderates in Compton's and Farren's acting of the old toymaker Caleb Plummer. These clever performers infuse life and spirit into the respective versions at the Adelphi, the Princess's, and the Haymarket; all of which, as well as that at the Lyceum, give great de- light to the holyday playgoers, who crowd each theatre, looking " as:merry as crickets," and much more cheerful than Mr. Dickens's cricket-who, to say the truth, is somewhat lugubrious. If we were called upon to award a pre- ference, it would be to the Haymarket acting,-though, perhaps, better suited to the marble hearth of a snug parlour than the plain stone before the cottage fire: of the Adelphi it might be said that the persons befit a kitchen hearth; while at the Princess's they seem to rise to the attic.
Going the round of the pantomimes, we peeped in at the Princess's, to see Mr. Beverley's beautiful scenery, in the Key of the Kingdom; which opens the portals of a world of wonders, architectural and cavernous: 'the " enchanted grotto" is a perfect paradise of stalactie splendours. The Har- lequin, Harvey, is a light and agile dancer; and Flexinore, the Clown, is quite equal as a gymnast to any of his brethren of the motley; like them, too, he will be talking. Our ardour in the chase carried us over to Astley's, curious to see Harlequin a-horseback in a. hippopantomime. Don Quixote is cleverly personated, and mounted on a veritable Rosinante, staring with "points"; but Sancho is furnished with a painted representative of Dapple. The Clown was not one of the drollest of his species; but if the fun flagged now and then, it was only to give the gleeful crowd breathing-time for a fresh burst of uproarious merriment. Moreover, we made a pilgrimage to Hadler's Wells; but to no purpose-not a glimpse of the stage could be got:
even the lobby was covered by benches piled up with people breathing an atmosphere of stifling heat.
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