12 JANUARY 1856, Page 9

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The Beaux' Stratagem—once one of the most favourite comedies of the old repertory, now a fossil relic of another period—has been revived at the Haymarket with great success, chiefly on account of the peculiar gusto with which Mr. Buekstone has seized on the character of the loutish servant Scrub, which be completely enamels with eccentric by-play. The party who has the least to do with the success is the au- thor; whose ethical code forms a deep gulf between him and the sym- pathies of the present age. We may be addicted to false morality, and perverted morality, and French morality, and German morality, and whatever " shams ' of the like species may be set before us ; but we do not feel interested in the movements of a number of personages who have no morality at all. Doubtless' however, there will be found a school of critics so very national, that they would wear a suit of clothes made of a union-jack rather than a coat of Gallic cut; and these will speak loudly about the old healthy style of comedy. Our Congreves, our Farquhars, were a little coarse, to be sure ; but on that very account they are all the less dangerous ; for they call things by their right names, and do not deck out vice with a specious form of virtue. This is the sort of reasoning which has been adopted for the last fifty years or so, whenever the defence of the most profligate set of writers that ever figured in a dramatic literature has been undertaken. The fundamental fallacy is the assumed repulsiveness of vice when exhibited in its own colours : but a very little experience acquired among the young of the male sex will soon convince the most heedless observer that the disgusting plainness with which a scapegrace will speak of vicious things and propensities is anything but a guarantee for his moral reformation. Vice, instead of being disguised, may be made amusing; and this was the policy adopted by the wits of the Restoration period. Their plays reflect not their own honesty, but a public that disliked virtue for its own sake, and would rather have been repelled than allured by an affectation of sentiment. We do not mean to say that the works of this period do any harm to a modern spectator; they are simply alien from his sympathies. Nay, we even recommend a visit to the Hay- market; for The Beaux' Stratagem is exceedingly well acted, and as an historical monument the piece is certainly valuable.