The Adelphi burletta, called The Merchant and his Clerks, is
founded upon a novel freak of somnambulism. A clerk, apprehensive for the security of a large sum of money, gets up in his sleep and transfers it from the safe to a hole in the floor, and on waking is unconscious of what he has done: accused of the robbery, he grows mad ; and on being brought back to the counting-house after a lapse of time, he discovers the hiding-place of the money in his sleep, and is restored to sanity. LYON as the somnambulist clerk enacts the madman very effectively : his looks are not sufficiently vague and wandering, but his frantic laughter is fearful. The introduction of another madman, whose antics are meant to be a source of mirth, is revolting, and should have been scooted from the stage : but audiences now-a-days are tolerant of the most flagrant improprieties, and they applaud the cleverness of WIELAND in this shocking exhibition. 0. SMITH as a rascally clerk, and WRIGHT and BEDFORD as his accomplices, make a trio of amusing vagabonds WRIGHT and Mrs. GRATTAN, as a street-juggler and his tambourina, are extremely diverting. People are not very nice in the article of costume at the Adelphi, but it would be better that men of 1790 should not pair off with women of' 1842.
Previous page
