COVENT GARDEN THEATRE—THE PHRENOLOGISTS.
A FARCE so bad as the Phrenologists ought, for the honour of the human understanding, to be new ; but it is not completely so, and with as much originality as may easily belong to nonsose, there is a large portion of familiar matter. The point Or the quiz on the phreno- logists—a mathematical point of deficiencies—maybe claimed by the author as his own ; the rest is made up of the jest lumber of the stage. Suppose some threadbare jokes, a profusion of damns and dammes, with a sprinkling of obscenity,—which, it would be injustice to deny, may be surpassed in offensiveness in the pleasantries of a brothel,—and there is the farrago of the piece produced to an admiring audience on Tuesday night. The smut was extraordinarily well re- ceived; and it was a goodly sight, in this decorous land, to see hus- bands, brothers, and fathers, with their female charges by their sides, testifying with roars of 'laughter their exuberant relish of indecent allusions, worthy of the wit and fancy of the neighbouring Piazzas. In these cases we really cannot decide which is most disgusting, the stage that offers such offences against taste and propriety, or the public that suffers or enjoys them. It is but just, however, to add in expla- nation, that what is properly called the public made small part of the audience present at the first representation of the Phrenologists, and thinly attended as the house was, it was obviously half composed of claqueurs, who applauded throughout with an indiscretion that suffi- ciently marked their characters, and the value of their approbation.
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