THE THEATRES.
Tuts week has presented the curious sight of a Great Theatre supported by two little girls ; the attraction of these two magnets on alternate nights drawing the electric current of popularity to Drury Lane, sus- tainiug the fortunes of the lessee, and holding the fate of the season in suspense. How long the magnetic forces VIII prevail, remains to be seen ; and may possibly depend upon the number of .sparks elicited. These twin loadstars of Drury's destiny are Miss Denev, the nest: Cin- derella—who essays the part of ilgadat in Der Friesehutz next week— and Miss EMMELINE 111ONTAGVE, the new Juliet, who made her debut on Monday. Miss E. Moxraorn is young, pretty, engaging, and promising, like Miss DELCY, and displayed a similar degree of un- assuming ease and modest self-possession; and she also is a pupil of her father, and as apt a one as Miss DELCY. It is no disparagement of the ability of even a clever youug lady to pronounce her incompetent to play such a character as Juliet, especially as her taleet seems to lie in comedy rather than in tragedy : sutiicient praise it is that she spoke the dialogue with distinct enunciation and propriety of emphasis, giving the love-speeches in the balcony scene with a frauk, innocent earnestness, that charmed by its naiveté. In the after scenes, her utter Want of physical power to express tragic emotion may well leave the question as to her sensibility in abeyance : it was hardly to be expected that she should appear any thing but an automaton where passionate energy is required.
On tie first night the juvenile Juliet bad the disadvantage of being linked with a Romeo such as the stage has not witnessed since Romeo COATES trod the boards; but Mr. Mammeas did not crown the merri- ment by coining forward at the call of the audience to die again." If Mr. 11LIDD0CKS deeigned to give a grave caricature of Mr. CHARLES KEAN'S pantomimic evolutions, be was perfectly successful ; but he seemed too much in earnest to admit the supposition of a bad joke, for all the complacent smirk with which he met the laughter and hisses that rewarded his extraordinary efforts to produce "effects." In his most solemn strut he stalked as if treading on springs, but when excited he literally pranced about the stage; and to express the alacrity of the ardent lover, he rushed off with a motion of his arms appropriate to flying through the air : portentous was his mouthing of level passages, and in the passionate vehemence he ranted like a Bedlamite ; the charg- ing attitude he threw himSell into when he breaks open the tomb with the crowbar, produced a roar of laughter, which his death- throes redoubled. Poor Mr. MADDOCKS ! his pranks were at any rate amusing while they lasted ; and now he is gone, his fate may be it warning to other players who mistake pompous extravagance and 'stage-trick for it:Tres:1s e acting, and succeed in imposing on the public. by merely as (Ring a too ludicrous eacess of gesticulation. Mr. ELTON is the eletitute for Mr. MALLOCK:; ; and though too sedate and paternal for Renal), be is judicious:old f(acible. The cleange of her /Saw) had no cfNet upon the Juliet, for she could but repeat bet lesson as she had learnt it ; and she got more aicilause on the first night, because the audience were zombies to slum that she laid no ehere in producing their merriment. Of the other actors, we can oely praise Cesteeos as the Apothecary, aud Mrs. SELEY ;:!4 the eVarec—on the second night, whee she refrained from oveidaing the part as at first she did. A Night in the LaAlile ibIlowed the repetition of the tregedy, and rather tedious it passed ; albeit it was not in the Basilic, but the Duke de Bourhou's residence at Chantilly, where the scene is laid: indeed, it might have been telled a " night in the street" with equal propriety, for the heroine only vishe the prison for a couple of hours, while her jealous betrothed coeds his heels from dark till daybreak beneath the lady's window. The interest arises out of the distresses of two lovers, Gabrielle de Brionne and Julian de Croissy, in consequence of the lady's reputation being placed in jeopardy by the Due de Richelieu, who had betted he would in a few hours triumph over the first pretty woman that was named: Gabrivile is to be the victim, but the Duke's mistress, the Countess de sends her to the Bastile, and takes her place ; enjoining secrecy, however, w Ilia prevents the poor girl front proving Ler innocence to Juiien. The plot is ingeniously contrived; all im- probabilities are explaieed away ; and the scenes are effectively wrought up. hut pathos derived from such a source is ridiculous, where it falls short of the disgusting : the misery of two decent people brought about by the matactivres of a set of profligate intriguers, with no other motive than to lighten tlw weariness of debauchery, was likely enough to find sympathizihg audience:, in Paris, where tile original, we are told, was popular under the title of Mademoim lie du Dile; but here we hope that even Mrs. Se utniNG'S talent may fail in making it popular, and that the inability of the pertbrieers to render tolerable the vicious frivolities of the other characters, will speedily purge the stage of' the impurity. "Without being: prudish, one may be excused for not appreciating the delicacy of sentiment which prompts a man broadly to accuse the woman lie loves (and whose character had to that moment been above suspicion) of licentiousness that can only find parallel in the most de- praved natures; and which enables the calumniated maiden to stoop to defend her innocence by circumstantial evidence : such morality is quite consistent with the subsequent COTIlillei of this gallant chevalier, who upon the Duke discovering his mistake and apologizing for hisfolig, receives him as the "best of friends," the lady of course joining in the generous forgiveness.
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