Mr. Buckstone is generally the principal actor in Mr. J.
M. Morton's farces; and a similarity of principle may be traced in the acting of the former and the writing of the latter. As we have said more than once, there is a command of absurd drollery in Mr. Morton not to be found in any other writer. His characters do not talk wittily or naturally, but with the most genial oddity, and startle by the aplomb with which they alight upon a false conclusion. The answer you expect is precisely that which is not given ; the author has baffled you, and his skill in conducting his strange dialogue shakes you with laughter. So is it to some extent with Mr. Buckstone; his gesticular representations of the various emotions are derived neither from stage-convention nor from actual nature. His jealousy is like no one else's; his wrath is his own peculiar wrath ; every passion, in short, is a creation of his own fancy ; and surprise is a great clement in producing the laughter which always accom- panies this popular comedian. The fantastic dialogue of Morton, aided by the fantastic manner of Buckstone, is the perfection of farce as distin- guished from petite comedic.
Of such a happy combination we have an instance this week, in a farce produced at the Haymarket, under the title of Grimshaw, Bradshaw, and Bagshaw. Grimshaw is a quiet personage, who loves to go to bed soon ; but his room affords a convenient shelter for certain persons in difficul- ties, and he is not only debarred from his favourite pursuit, but is so an- noyed at being mistaken for the refugees, that he has, at last, consider- able doubts whether he is really Grimshaw, or whether he be not rather Bagshaw or Bradshaw. This farce is probably founded on some French piece or other ; but, come whence it may, it is a decidedly London article at present, purely Mortonian in the writing, purely Buckstonian in the interpretation.
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