14 JULY 1855, Page 10

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The performance of MT. Charles Dickens and a. select party of ama- teurs, at Campden House, Kensington, has given theatrical importance to a week that otherwise woulChave been insignificant. Mr. Dickens and his friends have always held# position totally distinct from that of other dilettanti in histrionic art ;mid on Tuesday last, when they acted for the benefit of a charitable institution, public curiosity had been especially stimulated by a report that the principal piece of the evening's pro- gramme had been already played with great eclat at the private residence of the chief performer. The _Lighthouse, a two-act drama, written by Mr. Wilkie Collins for this particular company, is a very remarkable production ; and its success in the presence of the more general (though still extremely select) au- dience of Tuesday fully confirmed the favourable report of Mr. Dickens's private friends. With a regard to the unities of time, place, and action, that might satisfy the most rigid disciple of Corneille, it combines a va- riety of colouring, and a distinctness of character, pursued down to the smallest personages, that belong to the most luxuriant English school. All the incidents occur in a small room of the old Eddystone lighthouse, and within a very few hours; and if ever the once-famed unities can be plausibly advocated on the ground of vraisemblance, such must be parti- cularly the case with this highly polished tale of humble life, in which the sense of confinement belonging to the residents in a lighthouse must be transferred to the audience, in order to induce them to sympathise thoroughly with the fictitious personages before them. For the same reason, the piece is admirably fitted to an extremely small theatre, as such an edifice renders the _fancied confinement almost a reality.

The central figure of the very simple action is an old lighthouse-keeper, who, while he and his companions are on the point of perishing by star- vation in consequence of the continued stormy weather, confesses to his son that he has been an accessary to a horrible murder committed on the Cornish coast. This confession causes the deepest mental anguish to the young man ; and when the-cessation of the tempest allows a boat to visit the lighthouse with not only provisions but his sweetheart likewise, he is so far from being cheered by the happy change of fortune, that he treats the affectionate girl with apparent indifference, much -to the offence of her father, who has been his constant companion during the painful occu- pation of the lighthouse. The conduct of his own father, when the crav- ings of hunger are satisfied, increases his perplexity ; for the gloomy old gentleman, now he has a life worth a purchase, flatly contradicts his.pre- vious statements, and roundly upbraids his son for his undutiful .suptpi- clone. The appearance of the murderedlady,isthomas only wounded, not Stilled, on.the Cornish coast, And who s,ptoyi4entially saved-from nht-

Wreck on the very spot where the remorseful criminal is living a prey to continual horror—resolves every difficulty ; for the contrite wretch may be satisfied that be has not been anreccessory to a completed murder, and the son may forget the crime of a parent that has led to no worse issue. Even from this brief sketch of the story the reader may perceive that a beautiful sentiment is at the basis of the whole ; but far more remark- able is the artistic skill with which the simple-materials are treated, so that -the progress of events is marked not only by a dramatic but also by a pictorial interest. The three men, one of them guilty of felony—all starving together in a little room, with the tempest howling about them— the wild confession df guilt made amid the noise of infuriated waves—the arrival of food, and its ravenous consumption by the hungry trio, in which the grotesque and the pathetic are strangely intermingled—the bustle that takes place on the rescue of the shipwrecked party, with the comic dispute that ensues between -two sailors as to the virtues of rival rope-makers—the appearance of the murdered lady, who might be a most insipid "Den ex machind,". but. who is made an ideal of the Christian virtue of forgiveness, so that she not only disentangles the knots of the story, but casts a halo over its conclusion,—all these inci- -dents are a series of dramatic tableaux profoundly conceived and anisti- sally brought about.

The guilty father is played by Mr. Charles Dickens; -trio represents with wonderful minuteness the effect of maddening remorse upon a rude and stalwart nature, so that the character comes out not only sea finished piece of performance but as an original .psychological study. To this tortured being is opposed his-bluff companion in the lighthouse, who has Blithe aplomb belonging to-a clear conscience, and who is acted in the most characteristic manner by Mr. Mark Lemon.

The Lighthouse was followed on Tuesday by The Wonderful Woman, played with much spirit by a party of highly fashionable amateurs, to- tally-distinct-from the'corps of Mr. Dickens.