or wrong. He has not always the judgment or the genius to pitch each passage in the right key, and in harmony with the rest. We will mention only two instances. In reciting the description of man as the noblest of creatures, 'the paragon of animals,' &c., Mr. Young was so vehement, that he seemed quite angry; and his sudden turning round to the players at the conclusion of the speech was exactly as if they had given him some serious offence by their smiling.' Again, he spoke the soliloquy after the scene in which the player gives the description of Pyrrhus, in a style not conveying the idea of his own melancholy and weakness as contrasted with the theatrical fury of the imaginary hero, but as if he had himself caught by mere physical infection the very fury which he describes himself to be without. This was certainly not right, but (what is perhaps better) it was applauded. Mr. Bonnell Thornton was Horatio, and appeared not to have recovered all the evening from his fright at first seeing the Ghost. His pronunciation is thick, as if he spoke with pebbles in his mouth; nor is his emphasis judicious. Mr. Egerton's Ghost is the most substantial we ever saw. He does not look like one that has 'peaked or pined ' long, and has by no means realized Hamlet's wish

'Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.'

Miss Matthews played the pretty Ophelia' very pleasingly. She is as good an Ophelia as we have lately seen-better, we think than Miss Stephens, because she does not sing quite so well. This character ought not indeed to be in general given to a fine singer; for it has been well observed, that Ophelia does not go mad because she can sing, but she sings because she has gone mad.'

The Times.]

DOWTON IN THE HYPOCRITE

[September 19, 1817. DRURY LANE THEATRE.

THE excellent comedy of The Hypocrite was acted here last night. Dowton's Dr. Cantwell, is a very admirable and edifying performance. The divine and human affections are very craftily qualified' in his composition, which is a mixture of the Methodist parson ingrafted on the old French pietist, and accomplished Abbé. The courtly air of Moliere's Tartuffe has been considerably lowered down and vulgarised to fit the character to the grossness of modern times and circumstances: only the general features of the character, and the prominent incidents of the story, have been retained by the

English translator, and they seem to require the long speeches, the oratorical sentiments, and laboured casuistry of the original author to render them probable or even credible. It has been remarked, that the wonderful success of this piece on the French stage is a lasting monument of the stress laid by that talking and credulous nation on all verbal professions of virtue and sincerity, and of the little difference they make between words and things. With all the pains that have been taken to bring it within the verge of verisimilitude by the aid of popular allusions and religious prejudices, it with difficulty naturalizes on our own stage, and remains at last an incongruous, though a very striking and instructive caricature. Dowton's jovial and hearty characters are his best; his demure and hypocritical ones are only his second best. His Dr. Cantwell is not so good as his Major Sturgeon, or his Sir Anthony Absolute, but still it is very good. Their excellence consists in giving way to the ebullition of his feelings of social earnestness, or vainglorious ostentation; the excellence of this in the systematic concealment of his inmost thoughts and purposes. Cantwell sighs out his soul with the melancholy formality of a piece of clockwork, and exhibits the encroachments of amorous importunity under a mask of still life. The locks of his hair are combed with appropriate sleekness and unpretending humility over his forehead and shoulders: his face looks godly and greasy; his person and mind are well fortified in a decent suit of plain broad cloth, and the calves of his legs look stout and saint-like in stockings of dark pepper-and-salt fleecy hosiery. Bitter smiles contend with falling tears; the whining tones of the conventicle with the insolence of success, and the triumph of his unbridled rage in the last act over his phlegmatic hypocrisy is complete. He was admirably supported by Mrs. Sparks, as old Lady Lambert, and by Oxberry as Mawworm. This last character is as loose and dangling as the sails of a windmill, and is puffed up and set in motion by one continuous blast of folly and fanaticism. The other characters in the piece were less happily supported.

The Times.

MISS BRUNTON'S ROSALIND

[September 20, 1817. COVENT-GARden Theatre.

Ar this theatre last night Miss Brunton appeared in Rosalind, in As you Like it. She certainly played the part very respectably and very agreeably, but not exquisitely; and if it is not played exquisitely, in our mind it is spoiled. But would Shakspeare's

Rosalind do so?' is a question that, if put home as it ought to be, might deter many an accomplished young lady from attempting to give life to the careless, inimitable graces of this ideal creation of the poet's art. Miss Brunton recited the different passages with considerable point, intelligence, and archness, like a lively and sensible school-girl, repeating it as an exercise; but she was not half giddy, fond, and rapturous enough for Rosalind. She spoke her sentences with good emphasis and discretion,' instead of running herself and the imaginations of the audience fairly out of breath with pleasure, love, wit, and playful gaiety. She has, however, white teeth and black eyes, a clear voice, a pleasing figure, with youth on her side, and a very good understanding to boot. What more can be required in a young actress, except by fastidious critics like us? She sung the Cuckoo song very prettily, and was encored in it. The other parts were not very elaborately got up. We liked Mr. Duruset's two songs as well as any thing else. Mr. Young's Jaques was less spirited than we have sometimes seen it: indeed, the character is in some measure spoiled to his hands by the prompt-book critics, who have put a great deal of improper praise of himself into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques. It required some contrivance to make him or Shakspeare an egotist! Mr. Fawcett's Touchstone was amusing, but too rapid and slovenly. There are some parts of this character which the actor probably thinks it becoming his Managerical dignity to hurry over as fast as possible. Mrs. Gibbs's Audrey is almost too good. If the gods have not made her poetical,' they have at least inspired her with the very spirit of folly, and with all its bliss. A Russian ballet, and The Libertine, closed the entertainments of the evening. The former of these is a curious exhibition of Russian costume, but it does not exhibit the Miss Dennetts to any advantage. The play of As you Like it was given out again for Monday, instead of The Slave.

The Times.]

MAYWOOD'S ZANGA

[October 3, 1817. DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

MR. MAYWOOD appeared here in Zanga last night. It is not certainly from any wish to discourage, but we cannot speak so favourably of his performance of this character as of his Shylock. Considerable diffidence still appears in this actor's manner, and retards his progress to reputation and excellence. He does not give sufficient scope and vehemence to the impassioned parts of the character, nor sufficient

decision and significance to its wily and malignant duplicity. Zanga's blood is on fire; it boils in his veins; it should dilate, and agitate his whole frame with the fiercest rage and revenge and again, the suppression of his constitutional ardour, of the ungovernable passions that torment and goad on his mind, ought to be marked with a correspondent degree of artful circumspection and studied hypocrisy. In both extremes (for the character is in extremes throughout) we thought Mr. Maywood failed. His rage and hatred, where it had opportunity to vent itself in a torrent of exclamations, was not strong or sustained enough, and appeared in the very tempest and whirlwind of the passion, to recoil affrighted from the sound itself had made.' In the concealment of his purposes, and in the villainous insinuations with which he fills Alonzo's mind, distilling them like a leprous poison in his ear,' he was too tame,' too servile and mechanical, and resembled more the busy, mercenary, credulous tale-bearer, than the dark, secret assassin of the peace, life, and honour, of his unsuspecting patron. The passage in which Mr. Maywood failed most, and in which the greatest symptoms of disapprobation manifested themselves, was that in which the greatest effect is generally produced, and where consequently the expectations are raised the highest: we mean, in the terrific and overpowering exclamation to Alonzo, 'Twas I that did it!' In the long and nasal emphasis which Mr. Maywood laid on the monosyllable I' he shocked the ears and tired the patience of the auditors; less, we apprehend, from any thing wrong in his conception of the part, than from the remains of a provincial accent hanging on his pronunciation, and in passages of great vehemence and ardour, preventing him from having the full command of his utterance. In the less violent expression of passion, he was more successful; and gave one or two of the short soliloquies which occur of a more thoughtful and reasoning cast, with considerable depth of tone and feeling. We are not without hopes, when Mr. Kean returns, and imparts some of his confidence and admirable decision to his young rival or pupil, of seeing some very good acting between them: we say so without meaning a double entendre.

This play of The Revenge is certainly a very indifferent piece of work; and in the hero of the story, Alonzo, Mr. Rae bolted some very ranting speeches, blank verse and all, clean out of his mouth like shot from the mouth of a cannon, with a tone and emphasis that might have startled ears less accustomed to the 'forced gait' and high clattering hoofs of his voice than ours. By stamping so hard, too, he raises not only a shout in the upper-gallery, but a cloud of dust from the green baise on the stage-floor.

The Times.]

KEAN'S RICHARD III.

October 7, 1817. DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

MR. KEAN has returned to us again (after no very long absence),

in the character of Richard the Third. His performance of the part
is so well known to the public, and has been so often criticised, that
it would be superfluous to enter into particulars again at present.
We observe no great alteration in him. If any thing, his voice is
deepened, and his pauses are lengthened, which did not need to be.
His habitual style of acting is apt to run into an excess of signifi-
cance; and any
studied addition to that excess necessarily tasks the
attention to a painful degree. Mr. Pope resumed his situation as
King Henry, and was stabbed in the Tower, according to the rules
of art.
We were glad to see him in the part, though we should
have no objection to see the part itself omitted, to make room for the
fine abrupt beginning of Shakspeare's Richard the Third, with the
soliloquy, Now is the winter of our discontent,' &c.
In our
opinion, the Richard the Third which was manufactured by Cibber,
and which has now obtained prescriptive possession of the stage, is a
vile jumble; and we are convinced that a restoration of the original
play (as written by the original author) would, with the omission
of a few short scenes, be an advantage to the managers, and a grati-
fication to the public. We understand, indeed, that something of
this sort has been in agitation; and in order to contribute any little
aid in our power to so laudable an attempt, we shall here give a few
of the passages which are omitted in the common stage repre-
sentation, but which appear to us particularly calculated for stage
effect, and which would also fit Mr. Kean's peculiar style of acting,
as the glove fits the hand. One of these occurs almost immediately
after the first opening soliloquy, in the dialogue between Glo'ster and
Brackenbury:-

Glo'ster. Even so ! an' please your worship, Brackenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say;

We speak no treason, man :-we say, the king

Is wise and virtuous; and his noble queen

Well strook in years: fair, and not jealous :

We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,

A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue :

That the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:

How say you, Sir? can you deny all this?

Brackenbury. With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.