22 JUNE 1844, Page 11

• The Lyceum has taken the subject and title of

Miss SETCHEL'S pathetic picture, the Momentous Question, for a melodrama. Miss FORTESCHE personates the heroine ; a girl who saves the life of her lover, a poacher condemned to death, by marrying his rival, a gamekeeper, who con- nives at the prisoner's escape. Her acting is touching and beautiful, earnest, simple, and delicate ; it excited strong sympathy : in short, it is in the spirit of CRA.FIRE'S poem, and surpasses in intensity the pathos of the picture that she helps to embody. The original story is monstrously maltreated by the dramatist. Mr. DIDDEAR makes too gentlemanly a gamekeeper ; and Mr. F. VINING, as the poacher, bounced and sputtered like a roasted crab : his dressing and desperation are equally ludicrous.