5 JUNE 1858, Page 11

itljr brfitres.

The performances at the old Adelphi Theatre were honourably brought to a termination on Wednesday evening by the benefit of Mr. B. Web- ster, whose farewell speech comprised a succinct history of the house and its fortunes—we can scarcely say vicissitudes—from the date of its first opening as the " Sans Pareil" in November 1806 to that of its final closing in June 1858. It is a remarkable fact in the history of the Adelphi that during the whole of its long career it has always been con- spicuous in the eyes of the public by virtue of some piece that pre- eminently reflected the taste of the day. Torn and Jerry, brought out in 1821, worthless as it may now appear, was the " rage " at its period. The nautical drama, with Mr. T. P. Cooke as the ideal British tar, found its west-end home at the Adelphi. At the same theatre were produced those melodramas of thirty years ago, the fame of which hiss never been utterly eclipsed, and of which the best-known types are 2fic Wreck Ashore and Victurine. Here also the renown which Jack Sheppard had acquired at the hands of the novelist was widely diffused by the dramatist and the actress. Equal celebrity of a less equivocal kind was attained by the melodrama Green Bushes, which, though first brought out many years ago, still keeps possession of the stage, and may be regarded as the especial monument of the Webster and Celeste management. Other theatres have had their broad periods of fame and obscurity, bat, if we allow for a few short and distant intervals, we may say that the Adelphi has remained famous for forty years. The new house, according to Mr. Webster's expressed hopes, will open next September. In the mean- while, the company will migrate from one theatre to another, beginning with the Surrey, which will be open for their bchoof on Monday next.

At the New Strand Theatre there is an amusing burlesque founded by a Mr. Byron on his noble namesake's poem, the Bride of Abydos. Miss Swanborough is the gallant Selim and Miss M. Oliver is the charming Zuliekha ; but the oddest feature in the construction of the play, is the resuscitation of Selim's father Abdallah, who, dead in the poem, now becomes a leading personage as a caricature pirate. As the art of ex- hibiting melodramatic ferocity in a grotesque light is carried to a high degree of perfection by Mr. Charles Young, the chief comedian of the establishment, this character is rendered peculiarly effective. The very liberal allowance of puns scattered over the dialogue would lead one to believe that Mr. Byron has taken for his model the sparkling Mr. Frank Talfourd.

The smallness of the stage being taken into consideration, the taanner in which this burlesque is produced is highly creditable to the directress, Miss Swanborough. Pieces of this sort, when they spread all over London, like horse-radish in a flower-garden, and threatened to sap every feeling for the elevated and the beautiful, became a positive nuisance, but one small temple of buffoonery may be ungrudgingly con- ceded in a large metropolis, and the Strand Theatre, properly conducted, seems, by its size and situation; exactly suited to that blase portion of the public, who would always rather laugh than sympathize.