THE THEATRES.
THE approach of the operatic season, which promises to be unusually brilliant and varied in its attractions, will probably stimulate the ma- nagers of the other theatres to produce more novelties than of late. The Midsummer Night's Dream has lapped in an elysium of enchant- ment sixty audiences ; the Merry Wives of Windsor have fascinated the public forty times; and the Haymarket visiters have had their money's worth of Money for seventy successive nights. The BULWER currency, however, is expected to be called in, by reason of the secession of the chief stamper of the Baronet's mint, "for a considerable time " say the bills : what will be substituted for it remains to be seen ; the fantoceini figure of Mr. CHARLES KEAN flits across the perspective of the future. The White Milliner has been relegated to her proper position on the skirts of Comedy ; to whose brocade train she makes a smart and deep flounce. Rumours are rife of comedies " under consideration," "in preparation," or "in rehearsal," at Covent Garden, in connexion with the popular names of SHERIDAN KNOWLES, LEIGH HUNT, and R. B. PEA.KE ; and report speaks highly of a new candidate for dramatic fame, who is likely to add fresh honours to the name of MORTON, though he is not a scion of that old dramatic house. Meanwhile, the two theatres we have named ventured simultaneously on an afterpiece, each on Thursday. The Captain of the Watch, at Covent Garden, is a bustling farce of intrigue and equivoke, with some capital situations that provoke merri- ment ; but having no pretensions to humour or character, and affording little opportunity for acting. It is very neatly put together, and went off like a cracker, each explosion eliciting a roar of laughter. CHARLES MATHEWS as the " Captain of the Watch "—an amorous young spark, who, instead of caring for the peace of the good city of Brussels, is nearly taken by his own men in the act of breaking it—walks into a gentleman's garden, and a lady's chamber, with a cool composure made up of the complacent effrontery and reckless daring of a chevalier d'industrie ; and after frightening a pair of lovers out of their wits, and playing upon the sympathies and fears of a choleric old guardian, adroitly extricates himself out of the scrape, with the addition of a high reputation for vigilance and tact in the performance of his duty. Mr. MATHEWS, in his Flemish costume, seems to have stepped out of a picture-frame in one of the old town-halls of the Netherlands. Miss TAYLOR has only to tremble like an aspen leaf; BARTLEY stamps and shouts, fumes and frets, in his usual cordial manner ; and Mrs. Humes( looks like an animated Dutch toy, gesticulating with significant em- phasis. Of The King's Barber, at the Haymarket, we saw quite enough to convince us of its lifeless interest, and mediocre performance, without the expressive comments of yawning and hissing on the part of the audience. It is a translation, and seemingly a clumsy one, of the well- known French piece which was played at the Olympic under VESTRIS'S management ; founded on the story of a king punishing his perfidious barber by threatening the rogue with the razor intended for the royal throat. The character of the Barber is unsuited to Wamacies style ; and he could only substitute coarse grimace and exaggerated action for humorous expression. Mrs. STIRLING threw as much feeling into the part of a loving girl as the incidents required. The costumes are handsome and appropriate ; and the piece is got up in a style worthy of a better drama.
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