11 SEPTEMBER 1830, Page 14

ENGLISH OPERA.

When Miss KELLY plays a peasant, of any nation, we can scarcely anticipate disappointment; yet the author of the Irish Girl has contrived to write a part so absolutely insipid, that the talents of that excellent actress have failed to make it interesting.

In ancient times, when lords and country gentlemen had more money than mortgages, and bankers had not thrust themselves into every village capable of sustaining two linendrapers, there lived somewhere in Ireland, a certain Lord Kilmore, who, for want of better security, was in the habit of keeping sundry money-bags in his bureau. Some of these, one Mandeville, a steward, acting after his kind in days when the securer modes of plundering were less generally understood, is in the habit of cribbing, and then burying in O'Regan's hut, a haunted cabin. This he has just accomplished one dark night, when Bridget O'Rourke, wan- dering; in search of a situation, menial and dramatic, naturally pries into the hovel, and discovers him. She then in due course obtains a service at the mansion-house • and being engaged as a sempstress, finds no better place for finishing a tent-lining, than the ante-room of his Lordship's library, where, as is usual in such cases, she falls asleep over her work. In the mean time, Lord Kit' more, with all the astuteness of his order, when he misses his money-bags, begins to suspect that he is robbed; and wisely communicates his suspicions to Mandeville, the only person ex- cept himself, as he tells us, who has.access to the room. How Miss KELLY got there, we are not specifically informed—heroines have the entre everywhere. The provident steward, thus alarmed, determines to make one more dash at the store; pulls about the poor needlewoman, to ascertain whether she is really asleep, with a violence which only feigned slumber could resist ; and. having satisfied himself, steals three more bags, with which he returns —casually lets them fall—the girl screams—the robber blows out the candle, snatches up two of the bags, and escapes ; Miss Bridget unluckily picking up the third, at the very moment when Lord Kihnore, alarmed by the noise, rushes, with torches and attendants, into the room—exit Bridget to prison. But Mr. Mandeville, reflecting that the girl had only entered the house on the preceding day, whereas his thefts had occupied a longer space of timer feels it necessary to find another robber ; and therefore. determines to accuse Gerald; n,- pretended music-master, but in reality an timorous baronet,—forgetting that he himself had only introduced the songster to the service a few minutes before the Baron's daughter engaged the workwoman. But it seems he knew his master. Lord Kilmore, with all the astuteness of a justice of the peace, accuses the young man, and orders his room to be searched : has placed the bags there—here is evidence to go to a jury. Miss KELLY now tells her tale, and, as usual, tells it well ; at its conclusion, her Wher arrives with a box of treasure, which by her instruction he had found in O'Reean's hut. Mand'Tille curses and confesses, instead, of pleading that those who hide can find ; two pair of lovers are coupled off ; and thus ends the Irish Girl. The curtain, as the play-bills will announce, fell amid universal shouts of applause, and the play was given out for repetition without a dissentient voice,—I hat is to say, the anthot's friends were numerous and noisy ; and the critics did not think fit to stein,* a bantling in its birth, which they knew must die a natural death within the mlenth.

P.S. We must he just—the piece contained one striking no- velty. Lord Kilmore informs the music-master, that he will dis- charge him "with as little ceremony as a full-grown cabbage-leaf shakes off an impertinent dew-drop!" This beats Mr. GALT.