ODIOUS COMPARISONS.
GARRIcic used to play Macbeth in a brigadier-general's uniform, an with a little three-cornered hat bound with copper tinsel, on his heae. He improved this dress by exchanging the hat for a Scotch bonnet and the public of that day was in raptures with the extraordinary ne tional exactness of Mr. GARRICK'S costume! Since that time, cost= has been much studied by our leading performers ; but while Ccesan Macbeths, and Charleses, have walked the stage in dresses of ant quaiian exactness, their followers and associates have been suffered t range through centuries, and to compel distant ages to contribute the various fashions to their equipment. How often have we seen the Roma Lictors in red stockings and yellow slippers ! Parts are often precis in excellence, but the whole is seldom or never studied at our nations theatres. The Opera gave, in Masaniello, an example of the effe resulting from care and nicety in the detail, and minor parts, as we as the prominent features of a spectacle. Drury Lane has endeavoure to imitate the merit; and we were curious to see to what extent it he succeeded. It seems to us to have advanced about as far as GARRIC in our anecdote : it has crowned the brigadier-general's uniform wit the Scotch cap. In a word, parts are well done; but still the gran object, the effect of the tout ensemble,iis wanting. BRABANT, we cannot, however, deny, is a difficult performer to deal with in a spectacle of a heroic character. He looks the fishmonger rather than the fisherman. A bill for soles, salmon, and turbot, seems more proper to his hands than a hatchet 'for tyrants; and his air and style are more befitting the Strand of the city of Westminster than the strand of the wild sea. We cannot imagine such a personage in any revolt, save that, perhaps, of the Belly and the Members in the ancient fable. Nor can we conceive him sea-going, except in a Margate • steam-packet. He is far too respectable for the turbulentcharacter he assumes. He might enact Groves of Charing Cross with good acceptation, but not .Masaniello. One important rule of the fishmong-ering business he wonderfully observes,—which is to keep all things cool ; and accordingly, he preserves his most impassioned sentiments in ice; and throws cold water on the heroics he exhibits. Nothing can' exceed the sangfroid of his patriotism and his rage. He thaws a little, howgiver, on one theme : Masaniello talks repeatedly of a gipsy's vaticination that he should be King of Naples, with the complacent garrulity of an told woman whose understanding wanders on a favourite and foolish idea. The perfection of the spectacle is when he mounts his gamy charger : the performers group round him to keep sacred the mysteries of the mount, but we think we caught a glimpse of a pair of steps raised against the near side of the dangerous quadruped. When seated, 'Masaniello draws his robes of honour round him, and two men caniously guide the steed off. The effect is superior to that of any sign of the woolpack and packhorse we ever beheld. So much for the dramatic part, and the spectacle; the singing of r. BRAHAM is elsewhere spoken of with the befitting praise. Masaniello being produced as a show-piece, we notice the principal part in it with a view to its show-effect.
Masaniello's sister—the fennel to BRAHAM'S mackerel—is a gay, taunting-looking, highly-rouged, anxiously head-dressed, and gaudilyvetticoated lady, whom any judicious matron would at a glance rate as one "no better than she should be." She looks as if she had never ncountered a fish-basket in the course of her days. One scene is remarkable for What is termed its nature. Fenella comes in making Oigns of fatigue from rioting over-much ; Masaniello exhorts her to go 'to sleep; she repairs to one of the established rocks of the theatre, of couch shape gnd stony complexion, looks the pit steadily in the face, loses her eyes, and is Whatthe nurses call "fast in a twinkling." verybody cries, "Dear, how interesting ! " Masaniello then observes :hat he will retire, for the better convenience of thinking about his nountryi ; whereupon Don Alphonso enters, flying (not fish-flying, but isherraan-flying)-) for his lif' e, with a-lady appropriately, dressed for the J. P • )ee-asion Of a piscatorial pirsecutions in a salmon-coloured robe. The oisherrnen who are. c:11..11.1• r Reit her, excellent lord at this, :onjuncture, but not until .Masaniello has promised protection to. the rueitives. There is a dispute of course ; but BRAHAM brings off the Don 'Ind the Donna, by calling, with the air of a TOWNSHEND, "Make way 'here for the Prince and Princess r the fishermen cannot resist an dress of such fashionable rout technicality, and away march the orthy couple. But we cannot describe half the pleasantries of the piece. Every ne who has seen the Masaniello of the Opera-house should make a ioint of seeing the Masaniello of Drury, in order to judge how much )etter they understand these things in the Haymarket. As for the dancing, we can say nothing of it, except that in the narket-scene, a little lady stamped immoderately about the stage, and tat it was called a bolero in the bills, and greatly approvedin the eries.
The fishermen scattered about the stage, do not appear rough aml areless like those at the Opera, but trim and genteel, as if they had each and every of them,' as the lawyers say, just won the Dogget oat and badge at a Thames regatta, and were decked in the prize tekets for the festivities of the Dog and Duck. We momentarily exected them to sing, "Did you ever once hear of a jolly young wateraan ;"-,which would have suited their jackets far better than the larcaroli. It would be an improvement if eagles, and globes, and suns, nd hands-in-hand, were emblazoned on their sleeves. Vim le 7ockneyistn
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