16 DECEMBER 1854, Page 13

ght fbratrto.

Not being over-sanguine in our expectations respecting native dramatic talent, we find reason to rejoice when we observe anything like a ten- dency on the part of our translators to look after the better class of ori- ginals. Much as we pillage the theatres of France to acquire treasure for our own stage, we usually confine our depredations to the lightest kind of vaudevilles, adding now and then some terrible drama, the growth of the famous "Boulevard du Crime." The literary drama of France has been little approached for the last few years; nor does the London re- pertoire, though "all compact" of foreign produce, furnish any index of the dramatic career of those authors whom the Parisians would regard as the aristocracy of their dramatic talent. •

It is somewhat remarkable, that the theatre, in which a higher tendency is visible should be the Adelphi—a house generally renowned for suc- cesses the reverse of literary. Pierre the Foundling, the new drama pro- duced this week, neither comes from the Ambigu nor from the Grate, nor even from the Porte St. Martin, but from that sober temple of legitimacy the Odeon ; over which its original, France:4a le Chtunpi, shed a temporary lustre that contrasted strangely with the usual obscurity that belongs to the University side of the Seine. With Francois le Champi Madame Dudevant commenced the series of rustic dramas which may be con- sidered to form a separate class in the productions of the French stage ; being remarkable on the one hand for extreme slightness of plot, and on the other for the care and elaboration bestowed upon the characters. There is in them all the French neatness, without any of that talent for complication which constitutes the sole merit of so many French pro- ductions; and there is a disposition for strong local colouring, that is almost anti-national.

_Francois le Champi is a little anecdote, as likely to be true as not, snatched from the midst of Breton life,—a life so marked that even the costume of the characters separates them from the rest of the world. The personages are all real and substantial. The hero, called Pierre in the translation, and excelleratly played by Mr. Webster, is a stout hearty rus- tic, a giant in physical strength, a very girl in the softness of his heart; and though the plot of the piece is slightness itself, it affords ample scope to display him in the fullness of his honest joyousness and the depths of his sorrow. The cause of all his energies and the object of all his grief is Madeleine, a young widovi, his protectress from infancy ; to whom, according to village scandal, he was too much attached during the life- time of her husband, and whose hand he is too timid to solicit now it is at last free, though by his zeal and industry be rescues her estate from the ruin into which it has fallen'since the death of her husband. Madeleine is as much a concrete personage as her sturdy admirer,—a gentle nature, rendered gentler still by ill health, but able to mistime dignity on fitting provocation. This part is exceedingly well played by Madame Celeste, who enters thoroughly into its passive enduring character. ;A calumnious shrew, the nuisance of a country village, snappishly rendered by Miss Cuthbert,—a strapping cpuntry-girl, of the true French provincial breed, depicted with immense force by Mrs. Keeley,—and a rural coquette, tor- mented by ceaseless struggles between vanity and goodness of heart, and endowed with a large amount of fascination by Mies Woolgar,—are all striking personages, completely distinct from the usual conventions of the stage, and are most skilfully distributed through the slight action of the

drama. '