THE THEATRES.
NOVELTIES are not looked for during the first week or two after Christ- mas ; but each of the principal theatres has given occasion for a word or two by way of reporting progress. The Covent Garden pantomime, as usual, bears the bell in the cap of Folly. Guy of Warwick is a prodigious favourite ; and the champion's progress having been accelerated, his adventures are much more divert- mg in consequence: the harlequinade, too, goes off smartly, and the determination of the visiters to enjoy their annual feast of fun finds no check: Duke Humphrey's Dinner, at Drury Lane, is seasonable ; but the viands are the only good things, and merriment is wanting. The Gamester, that dreariest of coat-and-breeches tragedies—not pre- posterous enough to be amusing, yet too absurd to be impressive—was performed at Drury Lane on Wednesday, as Jane Shore and George Barnwell used to be at holyday-times, for the sake of the " moral." If Dr. Mooire's dramatic sermon against gaming had a forcible applica- tion, one might tolerate its tedium ; but his exemplar, Beverley, is not so much the victim to a passion for play, as the dupe of the scoundrel Stukeley, and a consummate fool into the bargain. Nor did MACREADY lessen this obvious defect: although he looked miserable enough for the ruined and conscience-stricken man, he did not show the wild flush of the infatuated gambler, who clings more madly to the chance of reco- -very as his desperation increases : such a man as he seemed would have stopped in time to avert the catastrophe. Mrs. WARNER'S Mrs. Beverley was too loud to be pathetic : if instead of allowing her spontaneous emotions to find vent in high-sounding declamation, she were to give them expression in emphatic enunciation as RACHEL did, this genuine actress would produce more powerful effects by much less effort. Her utterance in paroxysms of grief is not always intelligible; and though this is natural in real life, it is not so on the stage, where the persons are supposed to master their feelings so far as to give voice to "thoughts that lie too deep for tears." In the accumulated energy resulting from restrained emotion, there is more force and pathos than in the most frantic ;bursts of sensation. PHELPS, as Stukeley, did not look the wily, treacherous villain ; he showed no surface of simulation, and hardly indicated an under-current of craft and baseness. ANDERSON, as Lewson, never appeared to better advantage: he seemed inspired by his passion for Beverley's sister, and infused spirit and animation into every scene where he appeared: his retorts on Stukeley were given with a proper mixture of scorn and indignation ; he unmasked the cowardly hypocrite with the cool determination of an honourable man, who ex- poses eillany only to defeat its purpose, not stooping to exult over degradation. A new performer, Mr. LYNNE, played an unimportant part with feeling and propriety, that augur favourably of his usefulness. That most disagreeable of Mrs. INCHBALD'S comedies, Wives as they Were and Maids as they Are, which has been recalled to the stage at Covent Garden, is not likely to remain long enough to make it worth while to expose its defects; which are not redeemed by the kindly spirit that makes us willingly blind to some of her violations of nature and probability. Lord Priory parades his model of " wives as they were"—a " patient Grizzel." in Quaker guise—like a showman ex- hibiting an automaton of passive obedience and non-resistance ; and the suspicions father, Sir William Dorillon, provokes his daughter into -exhibiting a caricature of " maids as they are," by his intolerable rude- ness and peevishness. FARREN gave force and finish to the display of petty tyranny in the part of Lord Priory; rnd Miss FAUCIT, who on this occasion made her first appearance, became the demure and dutiful spouse very well. Mrs. NISBET, as .Miss Dorillon, made the wilfulness of the good-hearted girl so engaging, that any less sour-natured man than her father would have taken his child to his arms to cure her, in- -stead of sending her to a prison. Mrs. GLOVER, as the equivocal lady, and CHARLES Delseasews, as Bronzely, the unequivocal gentleman, were both in their element.
The Haymarket, which is never at a loss for a star—any spangle from the provincial stage serving for the nonce when greater lights are -absent—has this week put up a Lord and Lady Townley, in the persons -of Mr. STUART and Miss LUCY BENNETT. The young lady claims the indulgence due to a debutante, inexperienced though not untaught: her tall figure and lively manner are advantages that may be turned to account by study and practice, though at present her qualifications are by no means equal to personating the high-bred women of fashion, or the heroines of tragedy. Mr. STUART spoke the words of his part with judgment, and even force ; but this is his sole merit: his deportment and action are stiff and constrained ; his face has little variety of ex- pression; and he is an inveterate mannerist of the MACREADY school, without physical power to give effect to the imitation. Mr. D. REES wallowed in the grossest buffooneries; which the character of the country booby, Squire Richard, was no excuse for. Mrs. W. CLIFFORD, who played Lady Wronghead without any mixture of vulgarity, tried, as far as the stage business would allow, to check Mr. REES'S offensive proceedings : we were sorry to see them not checked, but counte- nanced, by Miss P. HORTON,_as the representative of his hoyden sister. WEBSTER'S John Moody and STRICKLAND'S Sir Francis Wronghead were well-dressed personations; but the Count Basset woule not have passed for a gentleman with a ploughboy, either in dress or deportment. Miss HELEN FAUCIT makes her farewell curtsey to the Haymarket -audience tonight : we shall next see her on the boards of Drury. Miss ADELAIDE KEMBLE appears tonight in a new character, Elena ITherti, in MERCADANTE'S opera of that name; which has never been performed in this country, though it is predicating too much to say that the music has never been heard in England.
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