19 FEBRUARY 1859, Page 10

Ps ,ueialc THEATRICALS.

While Mr. Charles Kean in London has been gaining new applause by his admirable performance in M. Casimir Delavigne's play, Louis XI., his French predecessor, M. Ligier, has been representing the same king, —not in the same piece, but in a new play by M. Victor Sejour, entitled Les Grande Vassaur. This work is rather an historical picture than a drama, the great object of M. Se.jour being the liberation of his hero from the contempt east upon him by the earlier poet. He does not, in- deed, make him good, but he makes him grand, and, that the monarch

may not be altogether alien from popular sympathies, an amiable par- tiality for an illegitimate daughter qualifies his less pleasing attributes. Unlike the drama of M. Delavigno, which, with some approach to the old unities, is confined to the last hours of the King's life, M. Sejour's work spreads over a long series of years, beginning with the battle of Monthery, which was fought in 1465, and ending with the death of Louis, which took place in 1483. The theatre favoured with this piece is the Odeon, so often selected for the production of their dramas by poets of literary pretension.