29 MARCH 1851, Page 12

The Disowned, a new drama brought out this week at

the Adelphi, is probably the worst of its kind ever seen. There is all the aim at " Adel- phi " effectiveness ; but the incidents are so ill-strung, that a shapeless mass, incapable of exciting interest, is the result. The story is the very quintessence of fog ; and we give no indication of it, precisely because we do not understand it. At first we fancied that our own discernment had been blunted ; but, turning to the columns of our daily contemporaries, we find they are equally in the dark with ourselves. We conclude that The Disowned is a mighty mystery, to be regarded with the same sort of respectful awe as that with which one contemplates a Babylonian inscrip- tion.