641 ft Otairt5.
A new farce, brought out at the Olympic, with the title Retained fir the Defence, has about it this great element of attraction, that it exhibits Mr. Robson in a fresh comic part, in which the characteristics of low li*fe are shown as broadly, and as plainly, as in his famous portraiture of Jem Beggs, the "Wandering Minstrel." Pawkins, (so is this grotesque personage called,) is a halfpenny barber, who having been wrongfully- prosecuted on the charge of stealing a watch, has gained an acquittal' through the eloquence of his counsel, and is invited by a sympathetic old gentleman to an evening party, that the wrongs inflicted upon him by society may be signally repaired. So delighted is the old gentleman with the defence of persecuted innocence by the barrister, th,it he accepts the latter for his son-in-law, but is soon inclined to bestow hft, daughter's hand elsewhere, for he finds reason to doubt the immaculate honesty of Pawkins, and so little respects Old Bailey practice, that he thinks c thief's advocate almost as bad as the thief himself. Hence a curious game is carried on between the rigid moralist and the less scrupulous barrister. Both are impressed with the belief that Pawkins is a pickpocket, but the moralist seeks to tempt him to a theft, that he may break off his bargain with the barrister, while the barrister would force him to a decent show of probity, that the prejudices of the moralist may not be offended. Paw. kin, a vulgar little man, utterly ignorant of the very alphabet of good manners, troubled, moreover, with corns and an impediment in his speech, is thus in a most embarrassing position, placed as he is in the midst of a glittering assembly, and exposed to a double fire of stratagems and counter-stratagems, of which he comprehends nothing. His real honesty, however, triumphs over all suspicions, and his popularity with the audience is secured by Mr. Robson who gives such a bold but finished, portrait of the thorough-going unsophisticated cockney, that one can scarcely believe the farce is based on a French original Nevertheless, each is the case, the authors of the original being MM. Labia° and Le- franc, and the title L'Avocat d'un Grec.
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