THE THEATRES.
THE week just past has been one of some activity. At the Haymarket, there has been a successful farce, called Dearest Elizabeth. The hero, a lax married man, is in alarm throughout the piece lest a love-letter in his hand- writing, which he has lost, should fall into the hands of his wife; the stratagems he employs to obtain possession of the letter form the entire plot; and when he has the document safe, he concludes the whole affair by using it to light a cigar. The acting of Mr. and Mrs. Keeley, on whom the piece rests, is capital. The former is the husband, in whom terror and coolness are brought into singular union; the latter is an impertinent housemaid, who first tyrannizes over her master by the possession of the fatal letter, but afterwards softens into his ally, on being persuaded that she is the " Dearest Elizabeth " to whom it is addressed. The farce is original; but in the closeness of its construction, and in its morale, it is completely French.
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