THE CHANCERY SUIT.
A NEW comedy, not borrowed from the French, all homespun, and composed of the materials used and approved in genuine Bri- tish plays, since wit, and the relish for it, departed our 'stage. The new production is' a broad farce made long in Chancery, and considerably tedious and provoking to those who lack the zest for bad and clumsily compassed jokes. The plot is extremely slender; and for characters, we have that novelty, an Irishman on the stage —think of that, good play-goers ! rub your hands, and chuckle with glee at the thought of seeing an Irishman on the stage, a ge- nuMe Irishman, with an " at all at all," boast of his gentility, and love of fighting—there is a treat !—and a duel too ; not only an Irishman, but an Irishman concerned in a duel, with pistols in his hands, and a brace of principals also, for he chooses to be second to both parties out of love for the fun ;—imagine, we say, such an original person and incident, and the appropriate jests and san- guinary simplicities—appropriate, we say, to the Irishman of the stage, who is about as like the Irishman of Ireland as the herald- painter's lions are like any quadrupeds in the creation. But in this pleasant new comedy, there is not only an Irishman, but also a sailor !—a sailor in a blue jacket and trowsers, with a straw hat on his head, and the black kerchief tied in a sweetheart's knot round his neck. Is not that good ? Ay, and he loves punch too, and comes in with a real bowl in his hand, making belief of drink. This is genuine British comedy—none of the French kickshaws- an Irishman and a sailor, true national characters. Nothing was wanting to the effect of the sailor's part but a hornpipe—which we would have the author add, if he wishes to complete his piece in its sort of perfection. A hornpipe, with a bowl of punch in the tar's hands, will look very taking in the Chancery Suit bill. There is a capital joke about this sailor—ye Gods, how ye laughed at it!—he says he is of the water-guard, and we die as we write it oh the droll dog! it is an- swered, that he seems of the runz.and-water-guard! ! ! How the audience roared at this exquisite jest (for which, and for which alone, by-the-by, the sailor is impressed into the play) !- they rolled on their seats with glee ; their heads oscillated with the heavy stroke of the fun ; and for a moment we could have fancied ourselves in one of Richardson'S booths, so pro- pitious to rum-and-water jest seemed the spirit of the place. But the piece has more than an Irishman and a sailor in it—it has an attorney with a wig and cane, and talk of litigation ; and a lover; and a stout, good-hearted, feeble-witted gentleman (BARTLEY, of course) ; and a pompous baronet, who commits for- gery, and attaches a young lady for contempt of court, played by EGERTON—by EGERTON great in the use of the pocket hand- kerchief, and who wipes his nose with an air solemnly aristocrati- cal. Then there is an old lady fond of cards, and a scene wholly turning on the ingeniouS circumstance of her being accused of cheating. And, to winchip all, there is the denouement, not com- mon to more than seventy-three novels, of the discovery of a forged instrument by the date of the water-mark on the paper pos- terior to the date of the deed. To the jurists of the stage and the romance, this is always complete and conclusive evidence; but the question might arise, whether water-marks are of infallible accu- racy ; and if so, they are unlike all other marks under the sun. At present' we have no reason to suppose that the persons em- ployed in paper-manufactories are more unerring than the rest of mankind. Nay, the fact consists with our own knowledge, that a professional gentleman chanced to observe, in a case sent to him for perusal, that the date of the paper was one year in ad- vance of the year Ann. Dom. He was so struck with the circumstance, that he caused the paper to be laid before Mr. PEEL, as an example of the false inferences that might be drawn from such data. The paper-manufacturers can probably explain the accident. But all this by-the-by. POWER is the Irishman of our Chancery Suit; and plays it more like the established Irishman of the stage, and less like him- self, than we have ever yet observed him to perform. He has a. hole in his pocket, for the purpose of saying that it is the only rint ever there. He is second to both parties in a duel, for the opportunity of observing there is not half-a-second to lose. He is the terror of a village by means of lampoons on evil-doers, which he pens in a note-book. In one word, he is a non- sense from beginning to end ; and in the absurdity of a dog- gerel satirist holding a village in awe, consists the solitary originality of the comedy, so to call it. BARTLEY, in the charac- ter we have described, bounces about, and mouths after his man- ner in a bad part, in which by loudness and activity he attempts to make amends for the author's deficiencies, and disports like an animated tun, rolling about in noisy emptiness. His appointed joke was to threaten to kill a bailiff, and hang him up till he should be tender. The idea was hugely relished by the nice audience. Two tolerable jokes there were: one we forget, and probably shall never remember; the other is by the Irishman, who says, that in duels every thing goes through the seconds except the bullets. The house was very thinly attended; but the meagreness of the audience was compensated by their avidity for any thing pre- tending to be joke. They would have bolted Joe Miller entire without a wry face. In our own opinion, the new comedy is not so droll as was the new tragedy of the Jew oftirragon. Can there have been a mistake ? We certainly laughed most at the Hebrew Queen. A new farce, in five acts, is in -preparatipn, to be called The Master's Report, or the Accounts. Referral; Mr. H. says Lord Er-r—N is the. author..
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