t4t 154tatrto.
Mr. Mitchell's benefit, which took place on Wednesday and was ho- noured by Royal patronage, displayed Mademoiselle Rose Cheri in a somewhat new capacity. Idea, a drama written by M. Scribe at least twenty years ago, and revived on this occasion, is one of that numerous class in which the heroine is dumb, and therefore doubly eloquent in gesture. To draw out a proper amount of mute significance, the author as a matter of course places his victim in the midst of circumstances more than usually painful. To rave the family of her betrothed from ruin, poor Yelva is obliged to break off her marriage on the day fixed for her wedding ; then, plunged into distress herself, undergoes all the horrors of a walk through a Russian winter; and finally is so frightened at a duel, in which her former lover is involved, that, like the son of Cro3sus, she re- covers the use of speech. At the time when Idea was written, the world had seen fewer gesticulating dummies than of late years, and the piece would have looked somewhat meagre the other night had not the expressive acting of Mademoiselle Rose Cheri rendered the part a very highly finished specimen of a peculiar department of histrionic art. She gives full meaning to every movement without a tinge of exaggeration; the action of the face perfoeming that office which with an actress of coarser mould would require a Violent exertion of limb. Un Piano de Berthe, one of the most recent productions of the proverbs class, is a very poor sample of its kind. An impudent musician makes the acquaintance of a fine lady, by stationing himself near her house, and insulting her performance on the piano; the apology for such ill conduct serving as a pretext for self-introduction. The incidents consequent on his visit vary between the practical rudeness of Passe Minna and the polished flippancy of II fact tte tine porte soit ouverte on feranle ; but the piece has neither the force of the former nor the elegance of the latter of those works; and Mr. Mitchell's patrons were glad enough to be relieved from its insipidity by the third novelty of the evening, Un Service ei Blanckwel ; in which M. Numa, as a jealous husband, kept the house in a roar.
The German perforrnances will commence on Wediresday, with Goethe'e Egmont; but the French season will still continue, and M. Levassor is promised as one of the new engagements.
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