The Merchant of Venire, as performed at the Haymarket on
Monday, with Mr. WALLACH as Shyloch, was no novelty ; neither is it likely to become more familiar by repetition, since it could only be useful as a foil to the forthcoming representation of it .at Drury : and the appear- ance of Master GEORGE WEBSTER as Hamlet was a novelty of such a preposterous kind that it did not deserve the toleration it met with. It was ludicrous to see a little rouud-faced boy, fresh from school, strutting about in the costume of Hamlet, instead of a frock and trousers ; and worse than absurd to hear him bawling out at the top of his childish treble passionate speeches that strong emotion alone prevents from sounding offensive : when the Tont Thumb Hamlet, after killing the Giant Polonius, rates his Ogress mother, one expected she would have whipped the naughty boy, and taken away those pretty playthings, the sword and badge, till he learned to behave better. As far as the child himself is concerned, this premature exertion is calculated rather to mar than to make a fine actor.
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