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A new drama, from the pen of Mr. Watts Phillips, which was produced on Thursday last, brings the New Adelphi Theatre into a prominence which has not belonged to it since the first night of its opening. The strength of the cast, the attention bestowed on the scenery and groups— in a word, the whole manner of its production—show that the manager has resolved to obtain a decided success, and his exertions have been well rewarded. Indeed, many years have elapsed since there has been so great a triumph achieved in the department of melodrama. The _Dead Heart, as it is called, is a work on a huge scale, and it will be largely talked about. This is the sort of thing which is wanted at the Adelphi, where people are not to be satisfied with elegant trifles, which they forget as soon as they quit the house. The Adelphi ought to be always conspicuous,--always full in the view of the general public,— and, unless we are greatly mistaken, it will be in this desirable predica- ment through the production of the Dead Heart. The action of the play extends over a period of several years, beginning in 1771 when the coming Revolution was heralded by popular murmurs, and ending in 1794 when the Reign of Terror was at its height. Nor is the great political tempest merely introduced for the sake of effecting the collisions neePaaarT to the story, as Guelf and Ghibelline squabbles are employed to occasion the sorrows of Romeo and Juliet. The piece not only relates to personages supposed to be implicated in the Revolution, but is about the Revolution itself, the grim features of which are con- stantly before the audience. The Bastille is taken upon the stage ; the Carmagnole is danced by a grotesque mob ; incarcerated aristocrats shout " Vive le Roi" from their dungeons; and in the last scene, the veritable guillotine rises big with its ghastly magnificence, while a victim stands upon its platform. Indeed such zeal has been displayed to give the realities of the Reign of Terror, that on Thursday night we almost feared that Mr. Webster, in the plenitude of his managerial ardour, would allow himself to be decapitated in good earnest. The fall of the curtain, however, pre- ceded the fall of the knife, and Mr. Webster's head is still upon his shoulders.

Although the business of the piece is somewhat complicated, the out- line of the story is exceedingly simple. Robert Landry, a young sculp- tor, being the rival of Count de St. Valerie in the affections of a girl named Catherine Duval, is confined in the Bastille through the machina- tions of the Count's friend, the Abbe Latour, and is not released till

eighteen years afterwards, when the capture of the prison takes place. The Count, who has married Catherine, has died in the meanwhile, but

he has left a son, on whom, as well as on the Abbe Latour, Robert in- tends to wreak his vengeance. Endowed with great power under the Republic, Robert holds both victims in his grasp as imprisoned aristo- crats, but he frees the Abbe in order to kill him by a sword-thrust in single combat. As for the young Count, Robert hears by accident that his father had nothing to do with the incarceration in the Bastille, and, stimulated by his awakened love for Catherine, who incessantly implores his mercy, determines to save his life. This desirable end can only be attained by a substitution of himself for the condemned aristocrat ; but the magnanimous Robert does not flinch from the desperate expedient. He furnishes the prisoner's mother with a passport, which will take her and her son across the frontier, and mounting one of the fatal tumbrils, rides to the guillotine, where he falls a willing sacrifice.

Mr. Webster, who acts Robert Landry, has a part quite his own way— a character whose mortal phases are to be depicted through many

variations. First he is the frank warm-hearted young man, happy in his love, and with the world before him , then he is a scarcely human creature, whose faculties have been benumbed by long imprisonment,

and who can only be awakened by slow degrees to a state of conscious- ness ; then, as the Republican President, he is the man of " dead heart," and scarcely moveable features, rigid in the performance of his duties, and relentless in his schemes of vengeance ; lastly, he is again endowed with the feelings of his youth, an enthusiast prepared for martyrdom. By his side, almost throughout the piece, is Mrs. Mellon, as the mother, whose feelings are ever in a state of tension, taxing to the utmost the powers of the actress, which, however, prove admirably equal to the onerous task imposed upon them. Mr. David Fisher reveals a new talent by his performance of the polished villain, the Abbe Latour.

Our readers will probably be surprised to learn that the brief story we have narrated occupied four hours in representation. Its length, in dra- matic form, arises partly from its implication with the events of the Revo- lution, and the consequent employment of subordinate masses, who have an action of their own ; partly from a tendency to prolixity in the author.

This tendency he should check, as the only obstacle that can stand in. the way of a broad popularity. If some of his situations may be traced to the Chevalier de la liaison Rouge, the construction of the play is his own ; and he may, therefore, attain unusual prominence in an age of almost universal translation.

A ridiculous little piece, produced at the Palais Royal as a burlesque on Dinorah, has been converted into another novelty for the Adelphi. The shadow dance of Mr. Toole, as a country manager, who having no prima donna is obliged to play Dinorah himself, is the chief feature of the trifling pleasantry. At the St. James's Theatre, a posthumous comedy written by the late Mr. James Kenny, and reduced from five acts to three by his son, has been brought out with good success. It is called Living for Appearances, and depicts with somewhat old-fashioned grace the sufferings and in- firmities of a middle-aged married couple, played by Mr. Leigh Murray and Mrs. Frank Matthews, whose love of ostentation is not regulated by considerations of income.

The burlesque of Romeo and Juliet at the Strand Theatre, which is the work of Mr. Halliday, is of coarser texture than the compositions of Mr.

Byron, who has generally supplied the house with its principal commo-

dities. Moreover, people are awakening to the notion that in the bur- lesqueing of Shakespeare there 3- something irreverent and improper,—

from which notion we do _ am least dissent, though we commise-

rate Mr. Halliday's fat, being condemned for sins, which have been

committed by a long -rain of uncensured predecessors. He may console himself with the example of Louis XVI., which will remind him that it

is not always the worst man who is hardest hit, when a reaction against old abuses takes place. Let it not be imagined, however, that Romeo and Juliet is anything like a failure in the eyes of the public. Played with immense spirit and produced in most liberal style, it delights all behold- ers, who simply wish to be amused. Its only foes are the critics. At the Surrey Theatre the record of the Duke of Alva's rule in the Netherlands has been sublimed into absolute fable, that Mr. Creswick

may represent an imaginary scion of a real stock named Robert Van Artevelde, who fosters Flemish rebellion while employed in the Spanish service, and thus obtains for the piece of which he is the hero the title of

The Patriot Spy. Mr. Shepherd, the other lessee of the theatre, prays the mulatto, Crichton, in an English version of Le Chevalier St. George, which is called First Love, or the Slave Brother. Altogether there is a goodly list of novelties, and we arc still promised a new comedietta at the Olympic and a new burlesque at the St. James's, as likely to be brought out within the next few days. Medea, too, has been revived at the Olympic, with Mr. Robson in his celebrated cha- racter.