The Adelphi case of Breach of Promise of Marriage is
more amusing than any that has been brought into a court of law ; and it has the advantage of being repeated as often as the public curiosity to hear it requires. The plaintiff, Lady Eastland, began with pitying, patronizing, and petting the defendant, Mr. Arthur Amory, a young musical com- poser ; and ends with loving him : he professes to return her passion, but really loves a pretty cousin of his. Lady Eastland has a brother, Lord Starboard, an aristocratic Admiral, jealous of the dignity of his family, at once the dictator and champion of his sister, and who gets rid of her troublesome suitors by shooting them off: he is secretly cognizant of the whole affair ; but, being friendly to the young musician though averse to his sister's alliance with him, he prefers terminating the attachment by a wedding-ring instead of a pistol-bullet ; he therefore brings about a marriage between the cousins, and carries his sister to the West Indies to die of yellow fever. The plot is simple in its out- line, but most ingeniously complicated in its details, and so constructed
that the audience are in uncertainty as to th8 denouement until the last the serious business, too, is so constantly enlivened by comic situations, that the perplexities of the lovers are productive of not less merriment than pathos. It is an adaptation of one of the thousand and one vaude- villes of SCRIBE; and the adapter has had the grace to acknowlede the fact—which is the only grace he can pretend to, for it is vilely written.
Mr. and Mrs. YATES, as Lord Starboard and Lady Eastland, support the honours of the Peerage with becoming dignity and ease, blending the suaviter with the fort/ter very effectively : their acting is pure comedy—quiet, finished, and impressive. Mr. LYON iS so totally un- fitted for the character of Arthur Amory, that his appearance disturbed the gravity of every scene in which he took part, and of course marred the effect. Cannot the Adelphi furnish a less ludicrous representative of a young lover ? WRIGHT, as a pert and pragmatical ninny of an attorney, always malapropos, is extremely diverting : his blunders and escapades are droll in themselves, but much more so on account of that stolid look and quaint way of his. Wamax's humour is hard and dry ; but the good faith of his acting, and his seeming unconsciousness of the fun be produces, give it irresistible comic effect. WILKINSON, as the uncle of Amory, is a capital representative of the provincial mer- chant ; and Miss CHAPLIN, as his daughter, with her dimpled shoulders, looks a prize worth having without her fortune.
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