Another actor of the minute school—with this difference from Mr.
Phelps, that he is always minute—has made his appearance this week at the opposite end-of the town. We mean, of course, M. Frederic Lemaitre ; who on Monday last made his delyht for the season, at the St. James's Theatre. Thanks to Mr. Mitchell, the peculiarities of the chief French actors are so well known to the London public, that notices respecting their performance assume more or less the character of a medical bulletin ; for readers are not so anxious to know how they act, as how they are. We therefore hasten to observe, for the benefit of all those who may have heard dismal rumours about Lemaitre's voice, that it seems to us precisely the same as it was in the winter of 1846-7, when he last paid us a visit. As for the play of Bon Cisar de Bazan, hacknied though it is, through a host of translations, it is still worth seeing for the sake of Lemaitre's acting. Our interpreters of Don Cesar have never dared to plunge him to the lowest abyss of social degradation. With Mr. Wallack, the most famous of them, the dress is indeed dilapidated, but the man is sunk but little ; whereas M. Lemaitre gives us a picture not only of a wardrobe reduced by extravagance, but of a mind debased by sordid vice. You are surprised at finding that the dirty dcbauchee is a gentle- man after all ; whereas in the English interpretation you feel that he is simply restored to his natural position. Mr. Wallack has the theory en his side, that the earlier and later portions of the play are according to his version more compatible with each other, and that the whole is more in keeping with the Don Cesar originally set forth in Hugo's Buy Bias; while for bold characteristic colouring, the advantage is unquestionably on the side of the Parisian artist.
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