26 NOVEMBER 1853, Page 9

tt iDtutrro.

There is no more pleasant spectacle on a stage, than that of two actors, different in their style, thoroughly conversant with each other's pecu- liarities, and working with a sort of instinctive sympathy that leads to a mutual display of talent. Every one knows the value of Mr. and Mrs. Keeley when yoked together in one farce. There is such harmony, with such a difference : the penetrating sharpness on the one aide, and the unctuous stolidity on the other, become doubly effective by the contrast. At the Lyceum we now have constantly before us a similar instance of 'combined variety in the constant juxtaposition of Mr. Charles Mathews and Mr. Frank Matthews—Mr. Mathews with one T, and Mr. Matthews with two. The Nice Finn, with its complex detail of legal blunders, is less striking to the general public from the ingenuity with which very peculiar Materials are worked into dramatic form, than for their two imperso- nations of professional irregularity, so thoroughly dissimilar at their starting-points, so dreadfully coincident at their goal. Another con- junction equally effective takes place in the Bachelor of Arts, the novelty of the present week. This is an English adaptation of On demande Ins Gouverneur, a piece in which M. Fechter made one of his great hits some six months ago. The leading character is a ruined libertine, in whom the principle of honour is not extinct, and who being chosen by a gentle- man as the tutor of his son, chivalrously rewards the confidence reposed in him by defending the honour and safety of his benefactor's family against two unprincipled assailants. This personage is one of those largely- drawn figures who unite contending elements, and of whom we have so good a specimen in the Fits de Famille. He has not quite thrown aside the habits of a roue; his sense of honour is keen; his courage is cool and determined ; and the career through which he has passed has given him much experience of the worst side of human nature. In elabo- rating this part, which is more weighty than those that gene- rally fall to his lot, Mr. C. Mathews greatly distinguishes himself, particularly on that side of the character which consists in a calm feeling of superiority over his contemptible adversaries. One of these is a usurer, in possession of a forged bill, fatal to the honour of the family in which the tutor is engaged ; and the scenes in which ho is tricked out of the document, which in his hands is an instrument of torture, are the best in the piece, partly on account of the efficient con- trast to which we have referred : it is so obvious that the low cunning of the usurer will prove no match for the consummate tact of the accom- plished man of the world, the relative positions of the winning and losing plotters being set forth almost to perfection. We say "almost," because Mr. F. Matthews has a tendency to exaggerated grimace, which might be repressed with advantage.