The Haymarket is at length set up with a new
comedy, that, notwith- standing its defects—and they are neither few nor small—is likely to at- tract for a time. Old Heads and Young Hearts has hit the taste of the town, now become more indulgent than ever through repeated disappointments. Smartly written, cleverly performed, and handsomely put on the stage— vivacious enough to be entertaining in spite of a flimsy and inexplicable plot and preposterous incidents—this last production of Mr. Bottum- canhT was received with acclamations on the first night. Profiting by previous failures, the author has taken pains to season the dialogue with what passes current on the stage for wit and sentiment, and his usual flippancy is redeemed by some touches of nature and feeling : the cha- racters bear some sort of resemblance to people living in the present day, though their actions often belie their characteristics, and outrage propriety and consistency. The piece wants stamina and moral pur- pose; its materials and construction belong to farce ; but it is written up to comedy pitch, and spun out into five acts by hacknied devices.
The piece opens well. Littleton Coke, a beggared and briefless barrister beset by bailiffs and on the brink of rain, receives a visit from a college chum, Lord Charles Roebuck, eldest son of the Earl of Porn- pion, a Cabinet Minister ; and is entreated to forestall the young Lord by carrying off a seat in Parliament and a lovely young widow with some thousands a year. On the heels of this welcome visiter follows another timely arrival : Torn Coke, the lawyer's elder brother—a rich, kind- hearted country squire—has been brought up to town by Jesse Rural, the benevolent parson of the parish, to effect a reconciliation with the spend- thrift Littleton ; but the knowing clerk of the chambers, mistaking them for a usurer and a bailiff, repulses them with insult. Thus termi- nates the lively first act : the second introduces the rest of the cha- racters,—the red-tape Earl of Pompion ; his Countess, a woman of ton with nerves and a lapdog ; the blooming widow, Lady Alice ; Colonel Rocket, an old East Indian, hot as curry and soft as rice—whose world is summed up in the Army List, and who uses drill phraseology in the drawingroom ; and his daughter, with whom Lord Charles fell in love in the act of rescuing her from a smashed carriage. The whole dra- matis personm meet by accident at the Earl's house ; where ensues a concatenation of love-making and flirting, mistakes and cross-purposes, disguises and mystifications, that baffles comprehension ; ending in the success of the young Lord's schemes and the making of the ruined bar- rister's fortune.
As a drama, all this is weak to worthlessness ; as a picture of life its absurdities are almost too wild for farce. Littleton Coke's clerk Bob secures his master's election by passing himself off to the Earl of Pompion as the Peer's own solicitor and agent; and makes the Earl believe that Lord Charles Roebuck, disguised as a groom, is another, but illegitimate son of his own, brought up in obscurity. And the de- nouement is brought about by a double elopement of the two pair of lovers at the end of one day's acquaintance ; the gallants acting as postilions and each driving off the other's mistress by mistake!
The only natural character is Tom Coke, the country squire ; per- sonated by WEBSTER with nice discrimination and genuine feeling. This is the best piece of acting in the whole performance : the true gentle- man appears 'beneath the bashful simplicity of the rustic, his quiet heartiness contrasting well with the insincere artificiality of the set he has got among. The embarrassed earnestness of his offer of marriage to Lady Alice, who had coquetted with him, and his subdued emotions when she rejects him for his brother, needed not the generous shape which his disappointment takes in returning to his spendthrift brother the title-deeds of his mortgaged estates, to bring down a round of applause : the manly pathos of the actor drew tears from many eyes. This noble trait of character, so truly personated, rescues the last act from the reproach of unmitigated trashiness ; though it does not reconcile us to the poetical injustice of awarding such good fortune to a selfish and heartless profligate. Lady Alice, the cordial and joyous young widow—charmingly played by Madame VES- TRIS—inclioes one to like her when she "cuts " Littleton Coke for refusing his brother's proffered hand ; but her subsequent flirting with the rustic exemplifies the looseness of the author's morale, as well as the coarseness of his delineation. The country parson, Jesse Rural—to whom FARBER by his artist-like dressing and acting gives life and in- dividuality—also engages sympathy at first; but it soon becomeshvi- dent that the author has no faith in his own creations; for the venerable old tutor dwindles down to a mere dotard, and is made the scapegoat of the peccadilloes of all parties. FARBER'S hysterical chuckle of delight at the upshot of the adventures, and his garrulous blessing of the lovers, aided WEBSTER'S pathos in retrieving the fate of the comedy, which two or three times trembled in the balance. BUCKSTONE as Bob, the clerk, is very diverting ; and assumes the decorous gravity of the soli- citor with ludicrous effect. CHARLES MATHEWS makes Littleton Coke
a mere walking gentleman ; seeming incapable of any other expression than what might have been taken fur chagrin at his inability to do any- thing with the part. Mr. H. Hoth as Lord Charles Roebuck looks the jockey better than the gentleman ; and Mr. TILBURY as the Earl shows more of the steward than the nobleman. Mrs. W. CLIFFORD plays the Countess with too much the air of a parvenu affecting the woman of high fashion. STRICKLAND as Colonel Rocket looks fiery, and fizzes and explodes with wrath ; while Miss JULIA BENNETT as his daughter appears ripe for a frolic and full of enjoyment.
The play was announced for nightly repetition ; and in default of a bet- ter, it may be popular as a novelty, though it has no enduring qualities.
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