THE THEATRES.
ONE of those extraordinary mistakes of management which puzzle people who only know what passes before the curtain—all that is worth knowing of the stage—has been made at Covent Garden this week. A bad version of a lifeless and commonplace French piece, written probably as a mere vehicle for spectacle, and entitled The Embassy, was produced on Monday, as an afterpiece ; as if for the purpose of showing how little account could be made of the return of Miss ELLEN TREE and Mr. Mooas, after many months' absence. The scenery and cos- tumes are magnificent in the extreme, and the incidental ballet is a brilliant affair ; but of interest there is not a particle : moreover, the principal situation, where a concealed lover furtively inserts his name in the marriage-contract intended for his rival, is comic ; while the business of the plot is of so serious a nature that it amounts to positive dulness. Miss ELLEN TREE and Mr. ANDERSON are the lovers, whose happiness it is the purpose of the piece to secure, after they have escaped the customary quantum of difficulties and dangers : Mr. MOORE is the unwelcome bridegroom elect, who is tricked out of his bride by the artifice of his younger and favoured rival ; and who puts up with his loss with philosophic resignation, showing a more forgiving temper than his artful rival deserved. Add to these Madame VESTA'S, in the character of a vivacious lady who talks of nothing else but dancing, yet never dances. To speak of ELLEN TREes acting in a piece which appeared like a petite comedy played in tragic fashion, is needless : her dresses, how- ever, of which she had three changes, as well as VESTA'S, are superb. ANDERSON, too, became two sumptuous suits of the sixteenth century most gallantly : we cannot say the same of Mr. MOORE. The Polish envoy, and his semi-barbarous suite, with leopard's skin mantles and bows and quivers, followed by a train of pages in sky-blue velvet and white plumes, made a most gorgeous and picturesque array; and as they ascended the grand staircase of the palace, escorted by the cour- tiers, pages, and men-at-arms of the Queen of Navarre, the tableau vivant was splendid. The ball-room was equally brilliant, and intro- duced a "masque," in which a rock falling asunder with a crash dis- closes the Genius of France in the graceful person of MiiS FAIR- BROTHER, at the head of a detachment of figurantes, in gilt helmets and boddices, with red silk standards, w ho trip a lively measure that sets their plumes nodding and their kirtles waving briskly : a mazourka, by Mr. and Mrs. GILBERT and Master and Miss MARSHALL, in the course of which the dancers spurned each other with their brass-heeled boots like a main of game-cocks, was an amusing variety of this saucy and .popular but by no means graceful dance. The ballet and spectacle together, however, could not reconcile all the audience to the weari- some and obscure progress of the story ; and a few malecontents, disap- pointed probably by the want of excitement in a drama so strongly cast, persisted in their opposition, though they were but a small mi- nority. The comedy, which attracts and goes off smartly, will derive no aid from the new afterpiece London Assurance, indeed, requires no Em- bassy to back its pretensions, being in itself plenipotential with the public.
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