4 JUNE 1842, Page 14

THE THEATRES.

THERE has been but small temptation this week for people to exchange the delightful and health-giving breezes of the Parks and suburbs for the foul and heated atmosphere of the Theatres ; and even at the Hay- market, the best ventilated of any, the first appearance of FARREN there these three years attracted but a scanty audience. To be sure, the play was that coarse make-believe comedy She Would and She Would Not, whose bustling nothingness wearied the public at Covent Garden ; and though FARREN gave full swing to his gymnastics of dotage in an ecstacy of chuckle, and Mrs. Nonerrr threw all her arch merriment and pretty swagger into the assumption of a Spanish cavalier, the cur- tain fell without a hand of applause. These English versions of Spa- nish plots are provokingly tiresome : the characters are unreal, the perpetual motion of the action produces no result, and the complica- tion of incidents only teases; it is " much ado about nothing "—but not SHAKSPERE'S. Mrs. GLOVER returned to her Haymarket engage- ment on Thursday ; and the announcement of SHERIDAN KNOWLES'S new play, The Rose of Aragon, for this evening, still holds its place in the bills.

Miss Feuurr, the elder sister of Miss H. FAucrr, joined the com- pany at the English Opera-house this week ; making her appearance in the English version of an unpleasant French piece of serious interest, called One Fault.

At the New Strand, Mr. and Mrs. KEELEY appeared on Monday in a farcical piece called The Dutchess of—; in which Mrs. KEELEY plays a peasant-girl, who assumes the dress and airs of a Dutchess to enable her to escape from her enemies. Mrs. KEELEY'S manner of affecting the dignity of the Dutchess, and her way of wearing the fine dress, are very diverting : a sense of the ludicrous transformation mingled with the feeling of feminine vanity at being so finely attired and treated like a woman of rank. KEELEY, as her lover, a plump little miller, has only to appear in a perpetual state of perplexity, and to be electrified every instant by the iteration of a grenadier's command to "be silent" The French Plays have been fully attended this week, it being the last of DEJAZET'S engagement. This inimitable actress took her benefit on Wednesday, and her leave last night: but her last performance is at Covent Garden tonight, after the German opera, for the benefit of the London Maison d'Asile ; an institution about to be established, at the suggestion of Count D'OEsev, for destitute foreigners. She is to be succeeded on Monday by Monsieur BouFsk, who is equally famous in his way. at...tames talent for personation is not remarkable, though she is fond of playing parts in which she wears several disguises. Her assumption of character extends no further than cleverly catching pecu- liarities of manner, and wearing them as she does the costume, with careless, saucy ease. You never lose sight of the witty and vivacious Dauer : yet she does not obtruffe herself on the audience, but carries on the fun of the piece as if solely for her own gratification. Her audacity is so frank and assured, that it amounts to a seeming uncon- sciousness of or a defying indifference to the presence of spectators ; but it is at the same so playful and fall of esprit, that, far from being offensive, it is fascinating. In a word, DP..tsznx is a VESTED) without varnish.