THE PANTOMIMES.
THE Christmas gambols of the motley crew crowded half a dozen theatres on Thursday night, with juvenile spectators; whose impatience ruder the preliminary penance of the play was as noisy as usual, and continually suggested the, shortening of the purgatorial passage to the paradise of pantomimic delights.
Covent Garden first attracted ns,by the rumour of its feats of stage magic, and the promising title of its pantomime, Hialequin and the Merrie Devil of Edmonton, or the Great Bed of Ware. In the splendour and effectiveness of its scenio transformations, and all the grotesque pageantry of the introductory scenes, it maintains the old reputation ; but there is a falling off in the fun. 'The opening scene where Mother Goose, attended by her wondrous bird, summons her cronies Mother Bunch and Mother Shipton, and the denizens of Fairyland, at the foot of Punch's statue, is very promising ; and the elegy she pronounces ou the departure of the lignura-vitae hero of the peripatetic stage, banished by Act of Parliament from the streets of London, and her lament that
" antaren now no lneer, urship Farley And Mother Bumh ),eist ieht to Peter l'aEey,"
were much relished ; and the smart hits at the absurdities of modern legislation and the march of intellect told well. The introduction, as usual the best part, is a love story. Gertrude the Miller's daughter is wooed by Smug the village smith, but prefers his sentimental ap- prentice, Edwin the Hunchback,—whose glistening eyes and pathetic gesticulations excite sympathetic laughter in abundance : another and more formidable rival unexpectedly appears in Maister Sexily, no less a personage than the Master of the Horse to Harry the Eighth, a courtier of most insinuating address, and so eel-backed that at every bow his head touches the ground, Young Edwin flies for aid to the Magician of Edmonton ; who places the " Merrie Devil" at his service. The King having decided that whoever sleeps a night in the great bed of Ware shall win the maiden, Meister Saxby repairs to the haunted bed-room, and the "Merrie Devil" begins his pranks to " murder sleep." How to get into the chamber is the first difficulty : the locomotive lock moves to every corner of the door, and the keyhole evades the key : but at last Meister Saxby effects an entrance, bearing a colossal fiat candlestick, and a warming-pan : which last article, however, is not half big enosigh—it should be of the dimensions of a loo-table at least. The enormous bed—an acre of down—is provided with a row of white hillocks of pillows heaped on a long mound of holster; and the adven- turous gallant commences his toilette de null: doffing his scalp-wig, he washes his bald head with an ample towel, (tire ewer and basins are elegant realities, not mimic exaggerations as they ought to be,) rubs his sconce with bear's-grease, and crowning his rubicund phiz with a spiral nightcap, loses himself on the vast expanse of sheet. In vain he tries to snooze the wick-ed sprite rises out of the candle lifting off the steeple-like extinguisher, and a family of grimalkins and a whole legion of imps invade his repose. The rival suitors have by this time entered ; and Maister Saxby claiming the prize, the bed is changed into the throne with the King seated upon it ; and the characters are trans- formed into the motley heroes of the harlequinade.
Thus far the fun is well kept up : the masks are humorously droll ; and the pantomime of W. H. PAY X E as the gallant courtier, and of C. J. Salem as the plaintive apprentice, is indescribably comic and divert- ing. The buffoonery is characteristic too, telling the story with an extravagant impressiveness and env basis of gesture, in keeping with the broad grimace of the masks. But thereafter, all is an unceasing series of feats of strength and agility; in which Harlequin, Clown, and Pantaloon, vie with each other without any regard to the sem- blance of a chase, or their assumed characters; being joined in their gymnastics by the " Merrie Devil," (a very dull sprite, by the by,) who is not only out of place, but performs sonic dislocating postures that are any thing but agreeable, however difficult they may be : lie ought to be dismissed after the transformation.
There are some clever tricks, with point and application to the inci- dents of the day ; but the best go off flatly for want of connexion with the supposed chase of the lovers. The apparition of a party of Police, who clap into the stationhonse a host of peaceable offenders against the new Police Act—and the liberation of the prisoners by Harlequin con- verting the lock-up into a colossal milestone sixteen miles from town, beyond the district of the Metropolitan Commissioners—is one of the best hits. The meeting of the "jolly dogs" and departure of the canine company, who have been celebrating their emancipation from the truck, is also an amusing scene : the "jolly dogs," with pot and pipe in paw, staggering out of the alehouse, and others wheeled home by their masters in the barrows they used to draw, is capital. The Eccaleobion with its baskets of eggs promised more than came of it: the "mare's nest" changing to the Mansionhouse with an infantine Mayor and Aldermen, the basket of eggs metamorphosed into a stupendous roasted turkey, and the transformation of the egg-baskets into cradles with babies in full rock, is laughable enough ; but nothing comes of it all—the chase does not stir a peg forward. The suburban villa, with its grounds invaded by a regiment of boards of " laud to let for building," and long lines of railroad, steam-boats, and steam- engines in full work, was a capital scene thrown away for want of a little drollery on the part of the Clown and Pantaloon—two as humour- less fellows as ever wore motley, bawling and prating instead of "looking unutterable things." The Eglintoun Tournament is a stale subject, with jokes pointless as the lances ; and the diorama of the banks of the Clyde from Glasgow to Eglintoun, by Messrs. GRIEVE, was not comparable to the painting of STANFIEL1Y, with which it neces- sarily comes into competition : the scenery is of varied and romantic beauty, and parts are nicely painted, but as a whole it wants brilliancy and force. There was nothing equal to the opening scene of the harlequinade—a corn-field with cottage and barn ; which is perfect from its air of sober truth.
This, it seems, is the last effort of the Prospero of Pantomime, Mr. YOUNCE; who has been " ruler of the spirits " of motley in more than half a hundred instances ; and now, in a characteristic address prefixed to the " libretto," takes leave of the public, whose Christmas side-shakings he has so long directed. He is weary, as Hoop says, of "breathing his comic vein," and theatrically breathes his last on this oc- casion. We may therefore well excuse any lack of merriment out of gratitude for past amusement. It is notable, however, that the great necromancer himself laments the decline of the spirit of pantomsinie humour; and speaks reproachfully of " ignorant Clowns" and " vaga- bond Harlequins," as if disgust had as much to do with his abdication of the magic bat as age and infirmity. Peace to his manes—we wish the present race of Clowns and Pantaloons would follow his example, and retire.
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