The whole merit of the new burletta at the St.
James's, entitled The Mendicants, consists in its presenting a pair of striking stage-pictures. In the first act, you look down the principal street of a little French village, with the houses on both sides and a cross in the middle. This is the scene of all the occurrences. The first act closes on the sudden flight of a newly-married young couple in summer-time ; and the second act opens with their return in the depth of winter, twelve years after, as starving mendicants; the husband leading the eldest child, and the wife sinking under the burden of two younger ones. Here they form a tableau, embodied from a French print that is familiar to most people about town. The change of the same scene from summer to winter, coupled with the alteration in the condition of the hero and heroine,. produces a powerful dramatic effect ; which is finely supported by the excellent acting of MITCHELL and Mrs. SELBY as the husband and wife: it is in keeping with, and equal to their costume—we cannot be- stow greater praise. It is painfully real, but not squalid in its truth, or artificial either. The mental suffering is superior to the bodily wretch- edness; and thus far our sympathy is sustained. The dramatic irp. terest, however, is not so "intense" as was predicated ; for in order to excite extreme sympathy for the mendicants, the dramatist has made them the victims of a demure canting villain of a steward—one of those monsters of malignity that are found only on the stage : as if we could not feel commiseration for wretchedness without its being immacu- late and persecuted. The incidents being moreover improbable, and the plot clumsily constructed, the drama is very near destroying the impression made by the acting and stage effect.
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