Miss Pm:LLIPs, now Mrs. SALTzBunG, has returned to the London
boards, after an absence of eight years, to play the matronly heroines of tragedy and grave comedy at Covent Garden. The reappearance of an actress who had been not so much missed as forgotten, was unlikely to create a sensation even among playgoers, the most impressable class of persons ; but had it been wished to throw a wet blanket over their curiosity, no play could have been chosen better adapted for the purpose than The Jealous Wife the consequence was, that Mrs. SALTZ- BERG was coldly greeted by a few stragglers, and the curtain fell with- out a hand of applause. This lifeless comedy is one of the stock bores of the drama, that managers will persist in thrusting forward every now and then, in despite of those significant denotements of public in- difference, empty benches. Whether Mrs. SALTZBERG has pursued her profession during the long interval since her performances at Drury Lane, we know not ; but she has acquired a breadth and boldness of style, resulting, apparently, from the confidence of habit rather than any higher skill in art; and her energy is of the homely and physical kind bordering on the masculine, but without corresponding force. She represented Mrs. Oakley as a termagant seeking in the pretence of jealousy an excuse for her ill temper and shrewishness, not as a wife whose anxious love is exasperated to the point of jealous suspicion by over-fondness : the character is thus deprived of its redeeming grace, and one only wonders at Mr. Oakley's infatuation in cherishing any regard for such a virago. Mr. VAN- DENHOFF, as Mr. Oakley, showed the feeling rather than the manner of a gentleman : he looked the doating, yielding husband, but not exactly the man to excite a wife's jealousy. COOPER played Major Oakley, in a pleasant, easy, familiar way ; and HARLEY made Sir Harry Beagle amusing,—more than can be said of a Mr. HODSON, who essayed Captain O'Cutter. Mrs. ORGER, as Lady Freelove, poured oil upon the flames of Mrs. Oakley's fury in the blandest manner of mis- schief-making ; and though the woman of fashion is not her role, her style was courtly compared with the Lord Trinket of Mr. WALTER LACY, whose "bon ton" is of the Brummagem stamp. BARTLEY'S Russett was hearty and earnest ; and Miss COOPER, as his daughter, only wanted a little spirit of indignation to take off the insipidity of her tears.
Mr. and Miss VANDENHOFF have been playing Master Walter and Julia in the Hunchback, with Mr. Prrr as Clifford : but what little we saw of the performance was of no particular interest. A lively, bustling farce, made up of mistakes and equivokes,—in which HARLEY, as Cousin Lambkin, is the scapegoat of the fun.— makes much merriment while it lasts ; though people who laugh don't care to recollect why.
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