E4ratrts.
Mr. Watts Phillips, who leaped so suddenly to the pinnacle of theatri- cal fame, by his drama The .Dead Heart, has appeared this week as the author of another new piece, called raper Wings, whit:1h, though it can scarcely become so attractive as its predecessor, is, nevertheless, more than ordinarily successful. Extremely simple is its plot, and, in this respect, the very reverse of The Dead Heart, it shows, by the example of Sir Arthur Plynlimmon, a Welsh baronet, the mischiefs that ensue when country gentlemen who come to see the Tower and the Monument, allow their London friends to entangle them in ruinous speculations. Fortu- nately, Mr. Jonathan Galloway, the treacherous citizen who wishes to render Sir Arthur poor, in order that he may obtain his estates at a low figure, has a sister, Mrs. Chicane, who emmlly desires to keep him rich, that he may be more fitted for the holy state of wedlock into which she purposes to allure him. The baronet, moreover, is in this peculiar posi- tion, that a productive mine has been discovered on his property, of which he himself knows nothing, while thanks to the activity of a secret agent and a talkative abigail, the crafty brother and sister are fully in possession of the secret. Forced into a strait by the reckless speculations into which he has been inveigled by Galloway, Sir Arthur is on the point of selling his mine for a comparative trifle, but the transaction is inter- rupted by Mrs. Chicane, who reveals the real worth of the property, and thus foils the machinations of her brother.
This very slight plot becomes, in the hands of Mr. Watts Phillips, the vehicle for a continued series of diatribes against the worship of the golden—or of the papier-mache--ealf, which at the present day is so extensively cultivated. Cupidity is a failing which the satirists of all ages from Horace downwards have always castigated with more than wonted severity, but Mr. Watts Phillips takes up the scourge and uses it with a vigour that would do honour to the discoverer of some no- velty in vice. Not only does every one of a numerous set of characters represent some form of the prevalent sin, but they all endeavour to con- vert us by a series of didactic sentences that remind one of the pregnant gnomes of the ancient Greeks. No wonder that the wronged Sir Arthur is anxious to flee back to his native mountainci, and turn his back on a city, whose people are so completely absorbed in money-making pursuits. Midas, when condemned to see and touch nothing but gold, was in a disagreeable predicament., but he had at least his solid metal as the price of his comforts, whereas the unhappy Welshman is not only couckaanei to hear of money,-always money,-but he loses his own into the bar- gain. A lack of variety, and the obvious desire to paint mankind in the darkest hues, are the leading defects of this piece, and they are hardly compensated by the skill with which the author has worked up his simple plot to a powerful climax, and the elaboration with which he has depicted the character of Mrs. Chicane, a lady curiously compounded of generosity and selfishness, but too much imbued with the latter to relieve the general tone of wickedness which pervades the pic- ture. Sir Arthur, as a middle-aged gentleman, is too ready a dupe to be an object of intense interest ; and, when he calls his false friend all sorts of hard names in return for his treachery, we feel that Galloway, bad as he is, may justly retort that the victim was quite old enough to take care of himself, and was ruined full as much by his own folly, as by the wickedness of others. For Galloway, with all his faults, is no hypocrite, nor does he for a single moment feign to be actuated by any passion be- yond an inordinate love of gain. He is in fact, as open a villain, as the Abbe Latour in the _Dead Heart ; and, towards the end of the piece, earns a similar respect, by the " pluck " which he displays, when every chance is against him. Mr. David Fisher, who played the Abbe, comes out with similar force as the speculator, and thus perhaps suggests a com- parison between two personages, who, at the first glance, appear utterly unlike, but who are both equal philosophers, liberally endowed with physical valour, in addition to the moral courage which can despise the world's opinion, even when that opinion happens to be right.
As for the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Wigan, it cannot be too highly praised. The manner in which the gentleman expresses the intensest anxiety, and the lady the fiercest rage, both within the limits of the most unexceptionable breeding, is marked not only by the most finished execution, but denotes an accuracy of conception that is worthy of all admiration. It is the peculiarity of these excellent actors, that their delineations are at once derived from real life, without passing through the medium of stage tradition, while they are as minutely coloured as the most finished products of the old continental school.
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