16 FEBRUARY 1839, Page 13

The "new" afterpiece at Covent Garden is one of POCOCK'S

post- humous productions, made up of the stock properties time out of mind the inheritance of professional playwrights. The King and the Duke are two French officers, mistaken by the Governor of Alencon for Henry the Fourth and Sully. These and other original " characters"— such as a weathercock Mayor, who is on all occasions eager to "swear allegiance," an Irish quack-doctor and his cowardly servant, a pretty girl in love and in male attire, and a soldier who utters sentences of only two words—compose the dramatis personm. The incidents consist of the customary ingredients, love-making, taking prisoners, blunders and disguises, escapes, and sliding-panels ; and the vener- able jokes raise a laugh from the force of habit. HARLEY'S grimaces arc very droll ; and the terror of the Apothecary's Boy is expressed with ludicrous intensity by MEADOWS. Miss BAINFORTH sings a pretty song, and there are one or two good choruses. All these things together, with not too much of any one, amuse the aidierice, without giving them time to think what it is all about.