BOTH the winter theatres have this month been honoured by the presence of his Majesty, and overflowing houses, of course, greeted the Royal presence with loud demonstrations of joy; the usual ceremonies were preserved on those occasions, and the nightly receipts were highly beneficial to the respective treasuries. The Hypocrite having been played at Drury-lane by order of his Majesty, it has become so fashionable, that whenever it has since been represented, the boxes were sure of being brilliant with an unusual display of rank and fashion.

Mr. Kean, after a severe indisposition, has again resumed his honours at this theatre. On account of his late illness and his extraordinary merits as the first tragic actor on our stage, he was received with the most distinguished applause from an immensely crowded house. He appeared as usual in Richard the Third, and played with all his accustomed excellence. He has since performed several of his best characters, which are too well known to require particular notice.

The amateurs of music have been highly gratified by the commencement of Mr. Braham's engagement. The unimpaired powers of this extraordinary vocalist have been called out with more than usual success by the successful rivalship with Sinclair at the other house. The Cabinet and Guy Mannering have both been performed several times, in order to enable Mr. Braham to exhibit his unrivalled powers.

We are happy to be able to say, that Miss Cubit pleased us very much in the Cabinet the other evening; she is much improved. As there have been no new plays at this house since our last notice we must necessarily be very brief. Mr. Macready's engagement at this theatre for the present is finished, and he is gone into the country to acquire at the provincial theatres, an increase of fame and fortune justly due to his professional merits and bis private worth. Mr. Macready's departure has not diminished the strength of the company, as his situation has been filled by Mr. Kean. The number and talent of the company is much the same as last season; the only remarkable secessions are Mr. Young and Mr. Cooper, who have joined the other house; the additions are Mr. Macready

and Mrs. Bunn, whom we described in our last number.

A new Christmas pantomime was for the first time performed, as usual, on the 26th instant, and, as it is customary to precede it with a tragedy, Jane Shore was selected by the manager on this occasion. This play is too well known to need any observation; the principal performers were Wallack as Lord Hastings; Terry as Dumont ; Mrs. West as Jane Shore; and Mrs. Bunn as Alicia. Wallack's Hastings was a very creditable performance; Terry in Dumont certainly did not add to his reputation, and we sincerely lament that his acknowledged powers should be exerted in tragedy, to which they are by no means adapted; in certain characters, in comedy, he is excel lent, we, therefore, advise him not to diminish his reputation by appearing in tragedy again. Mrs. West played Jane Shore in a pleasing and respectable manner, but her delineation of the character possesses not the pathos necessary to touch our feelings. Mrs. Bunn in Alicia, exhibited a constant · struggle to attain an excellence which nature has denied her; if she were to attempt less, we think she would gain more; at any rate, she would offend less: whenever she strives to express intensity of grief, insanity, or indignation, she degenerates into turgidity or rant; this lady does not improve upon a longer acquaintance, and is another proof of the truth of our opinion, that long experience and practice will never make a good performer without genius. The new pantomine is called Harle quin and the Flying Chest; or Malek and the Princess Schirine. It was extremely well received by a crowded house, and will, no doubt, have a great run. Among the performers, we think it necessary to select two only for comment, the others were of the usual degree of excellence necessary for pantomimic representation. Master Weiland in the character of Querco, exhibited powers which deserve cultivation. Miss Smith, who made her first appearance as Columbine, is of middle stature, delicately formed, and extremely prepossessing in countenance and figure, elegant in form, and graceful in manner; bat, we fear, she does not possess sufficient strength and agility, nor knowledge of dancing, to arrive at the first honours of a

Columbine, but, perhaps, we have too vivid a recollection of Mrs. Parker, to be altogether devoid of fastidiousness. The tricks, which are the great attraction of a pantomime, are novel and in general extremely well executed. Among the eighteen new scenes exhibited on this occasion, we cannot help selecting for particular commendation, The View of the Sultan's Castle, and The Paradise of Zephyr and Flora, by Marinari; King Edward's Gallery at Fonthill, by Roberts; The Northern Regions, by Moonlight, by

Stanfield; The Grotto of Chrystals'; and, above all, The Moving Diorama, by Clarkson Stanfield, which is 272 feet in length, and exhibits the Plymouth Break water. The music, except a very common-place overture, we should have thought not to possess the slightest originality, if we had not been informed by the play-bills that it was entirely new. Upon the whole, this pantomime possesses an unusual degree of merit, and we are confident that a brilliant success will reward the taste and liberality of the manager.

A NEW tragedy, from the pen of Mrs. Hemans has been represented at this theatre, but like most of our modern tragedies, has been unsuccessful. It is founded on an historical event that occurred in Sicily during the Reign of Charles IX., and is known in history by the name of the Sicilian Vespers. Previous to its representation, it was thought to be an adaptation of a French tragedy Les Vespres Siciliennes, by Mon. Cassimir Delavigne, but it proved to be so widely remote from it that it must be allowed to posses, if not all the merits of an original production, at least all the merits of originality. Although we did not anticipate any very extraordinary merit in this production, we still had hopes from the former poetical effusions of Mrs. Hemans, to believe her capable of producing a tragedy that would occupy the boards of a theatre for a few nights. In this limited hope, however, we have been mistaken; but the want of success, is not always a proof of the want of merit in a new play. Every thing new stands upon tender and delicate ground: the audience are upon their guard; they consider that every act of approbation or disapprobation, is more or less a test of their taste and judgment. Hence it happens, that every individual fears to trust to his own judgment, and if there be any among them who possesses that determined character that prompts him to applaud or condemn, without consulting the feelings or sentiments of the house, those around him take it for granted, that whenever he hisses or applauds, all his claps and hisses are the involuntary ebullitions of a feeling over which he has no controul. They assume the character of natural impulses and natural feelings; and those who will not venture to think and feel for themselves, take it for granted that he

is the child of nature, that he acts in! voluntarily, and that the play must be good or bad according as he applauds or condemns. They accordingly join with him in his approbations or disapprobations, and if he be really governed by the instinctive impulses of his own feelings, they are generally right in thinking so. When we say generally, we mean to say, that when a man acts according to the impulse of his own feelings, he generally acts according to human nature, but we should be sorry to have it supposed, that instinctive impulses are always right. There are false feelings as well as false reasoning, and whoever is present at a play which he has never read, (and, we believe, there are numbers of such people where a new play is represented) is likely to condemn those very parts and passages which are entitled to most praise, from mistaking their application, from not perceiving the harmony that exists between them and all the other parts, from judging of them per se, than which no judgment can be more fallacious. In a word, from being totally ignorant of the general plot and the unity of design that reigns throughout. Such a man, supposing him to act according to the natural impulses of his own feelings, will frequently applaud where he ought to condemn, and condemn where he ought to applaud. And yet, unfortunately, the house will sympathise with his ebullition of feeling, whether it be right or wrong: they consider that he is governed by an irresistible impulse, and they consider all such impulses natural, without reflecting that they arise from his total ignorance of that harmony which exists between all the incidents, circumstances, situations, peculiarities, and eccentricities of character which are represented on the stage. Another reason may be as

signed, or rather there is another cause that prompts a great portion of the audience to join in the claps or hisses of speh an individual: it is, that the portion of the audience to which we allude are as ignorant of the plot, characters, and propriety of each particular act and scene as he is himself. Numbers go to see a new play without having ever read it; and among these numbers, how many are there whose auricular fibres are too blunt to hear, each individual word and sentence uttered on the stage, The consequence is that if they mistake it, the next sentence, or something that occurs in the next act will appear perfectly ridiculous to them; and, accordingly, if they do not hiss it themselves, they will instinctively Join in the hisses of any individual, who, from the reasons which we have already assigned, may happen to do so. The merits of a new tragedy, should not, therefore, be determined by its success on the first night of re, presentation, and unhappily there are other reasons why the public should Suspend their judgment on such an occasion, independent of the merits and demerits of the work itself

We have never, perhaps, perused a dramatic production that unites as much poetical beauty and sentimental feeling with as great a portion of that high pathos, which is the soul of tragedy, as the Vespers of Palermo; but unhappily it has too little of the latter and too much of the former. Indeed it is impossible to unite both, for the more poetical and sentimental a play is, the more it weakens and tends to destroy that passion, which arises from deep and tragic situations. The sympathy which we so naturally and so unhesitatingly indulge for the woes of others become trost bitten the moment we hear them pour forth their sorrows in highly poetical and elaborate strains, for we well know, that all poetical measures and poetical embellishments are the productions of art, and that the genuine language of sorrow is the language of nature, the spontaneous effusions of a soul, that so far from seeking to express itself in fanciful images or elaborate diction, seizes instinctively the very first words it can Jay hold of, or in other terms, the words that the passion or emotion by which it is agitated first suggests. Of this we have a fine instance in that emphatic expression, me, me, adsum qui feci. He who is under the influence of some strong and powerful emotion, generally expresses that first which acts most powerfully upon him,

and which is the chief cause of the passion by which he is agitated, though in the order of construction, the term which expresses it should come last in the sentence. Passion wears no refiued disguise, seeks not to clothe itself in the luxuriant imagery of poetic associations. It says at once what it means, and says neither more nor less, But which of our modern dramatists have paid any attention to these undeniable truths? Which of them bave not endeavoured to make the dramatis persona express the commonest sentiment in the most pompous and elaborate diction. In the very opening of the Vespers of Palermo, we have peasants talking in so high a poetical strain, that we cannot help considering every expression of theirs as mere cant. We well know, that so far from peasants being able to talk so refined, polished, and courtly a language, neither Mrs. Hemans herself, nor the most highly favoured of our poets could talk it impromptu; and no expression should be put into the mouth of a speaker, which is not supposed to result from the circumstances or situafion in which he is placed at the moment. We would leave it to Mrs. Hemans herself, if the speeches which she has put into the mouths of these peasants have not cost her as many hours to compose as it took them minutes to deliver them, and if they were too poetical for her to speak or composé off hand, how much more so for simple peasants. All our modern tragedies fail 'principally from this fault alone. Our dramatists depart altogether from nature, and instead of speaking the spontaneous language of passion, a language without which there can be no dramatic interest, they speak what the merest noodle can distinguish from it. We say the merest noodle, because all men recognize isstinctively the language of passion, but it requires taste and science, and critical acumen to perceive and relish the beauties of poetical expression, and even with these advantages, we cannot always perceive them without time to reflect upon them, a time which is never afforded us at the theatre. Mrs. Hemans, therefore, like all our modern dramatists, has failed from not confining herself to the simple language of nature.

The failure, it is true, has been ascribed by many of the daily and weekly papers to very different and opposite causes, and who shall decide when doctors disagree." Indeed, we had never a clearer proof of the wretched state to which criticism is reduced at

the present day than the illiberality, inconsistency, and stupidity of the critiques who have commented on this tragedy. They all agree in condemn ing the tragedy, but the petty tribe of would-be critics to which we allude, think they can never say enough upon any subject, a propensity which no doubt arises from a consciousness that whatever truth they speak, they have it at second hand. They generally follow in the train of more liberal and enlightened minds, and repeat in other words, the substance of what they glean from them; but as "the wicked man flyeth when no man followeth," so do these gentlemen tremble lest their stolen ideas should be stripped of the new garments in which they have clothed them, and traced to their original source. Hence they always mix up something of their own along with them to render the theft more incapable of being detected. In the present instance, they have followed those who justly ascribe the failure of the play to its own radical defects, but fearing they would get no credit for saying what was so well said already, they took care to hunt out for additional causes of their own, lest they should 'be deemed the mere echo of others. Accordingly, they ascribe the failure, partly to defect of interest in the play, and partly to the manner in which Miss F. H. Kelly performed the part of Constance. But how did they happen to discover that Miss Kelly, whom they had themselves so highly lauded on former occasions, was on the present occasion the chief cause of the play being damned? (So says the grave editor, or the grave writer of a critique in the Literary Museum.) Why forsooth, 'because she was hissed;-and think you, gentle reader, why they praised her so much before? Why, truly, because the audience applauded her. This class of critics are the mere echo of whatever they consider to be public opinion. They know they live by the public, and therefore it is right and fit that they should please their employers, no matter whether they do it at the expense of truth and justice or not. If the public is satisfied they are satisfied, and think they have played their card well. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrutes, sed magis amica veritas, appears to them one of the most seuseless lines that ever was written. The discovery of truth is not their object, but the discovery of what the public consider to be such. Tell them once what is the public feeling on any particular subject, and they will instantly tell

you, or at least can tell you what view they intend to take of it; but tell them that this public feeling is wrong, that it is only the feeling of the moment, that it will immediately subside, and that the public have been imposed apon, they will tell you that the present moment is every thing to them, that they are determined to swim with the stream, and can only turn back tò truth and reason when the public sets them the example. Instead, therefore, of assuming the high office of directing the public taste, an office they have arrogated to themselves (if this be not their office, what are they useful for), they mould their every form and feature to the whim and fashion of the times.

Græculens esuriens ad Cælum jusseris ibit. In attributing the principal part of the failure of this play to Miss Kelly, they greedily seized on the happy circumstance of her being hissed. When we say happy, we use the term in reference to them, because it relieved them from the labour of finding out the true cause, while it made them acquainted, as they themselves imagined, with the feelings of the house, and this, as we have already observed, is all the knowledge they want at any time; for if the applauses which Miss Kelly received that night were unmixed with hisses, they would have then become the willing trumpeters of her fame. But supposing

there were some people in the house who either from jealousy or any other motive felt no friendly feeling towards her, and accordingly thought proper to indulge in a hiss, would it be fair to consider such a hiss as the expression of the general feeling of the audience? For our parts, we neither do nor can think it would, and at the same time we see nothing improbable in the existence of such a party. It is a duty which we owe to the public, and it is a duty to which we shall at all times sacrifice all other considerations, to inform them that the party whose existence we have supposed possible, had a real and a virtual existence in the house. We know there was such a party there, not from mere surmise, not from communications which we have received from others, but from our own individual knowledge; and if at any time it be necessary we are prepared to prove it. We shall not therefore say more on the subject at present, thinking it right that the public should give us credit for what we assert from our own knowledge, particularly as we promise to maintain and

prove the truth of it if called upon; but we cannot help adverting to the glaring inconsistency of those critics who, supposing the hiss came from the house, joined in the cry and hissed at her also through the medium of their humdrum, stupid commentaries. Save us good heaven from this

Lowborn, cell bred, selfish, servile band," And place us

"Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest."

We have already alluded to the sweeping sentence passed on Miss Kelly by the Literary Museum, Miss Kelly has no opportunity of retorting upon them; she has no weekly paper at her command, and therefore she must submit, and they may revel with impunity in their career of dullness. At least so they think, and who can doubt for a moment that whatever they think is not true. We strongly sus pect, however, that they will henceforth find themselves mistaken, and that if there be none to keep them within the sober limits of common sense but ourselves, we shall either do so, or at least have the satisfaction of letting the world know what stuff they are made of. At present we shall merely observe, that after labouring through a long article to prove that the Vespers of Palermo is not only a wretched composition, but so irredeemably wretched, that all attempts to improve or remodel it is useless; they tell us very gravely, and in a very few words, that the principal cause of its failure was owing to Miss Kelly. Is it necessary to point out to the reader the absurdity of such language? Is it necessary to tell him that Miss Kelly could not give interest to a play which was so irrecoverably wretched, that neither the pruning hand of the critic, nor the glowing mind and delicate touches of original genius could render it successful? We regret that our limits will not permit us to say more on the cant of periodical criticism, but we intend to devote a separate article to it regularly every month, commencing if possible in our ensuing number. We shall give the following extract,

however, from the British Press, to shew that the secret of Miss Kelly's having been hissed by a party, and not by the house, is not confined to ourselves. Indeed, the universal clapping that took place whenever these partial hisses commenced, would, of themselves be sufficient to prove the fact. “Miss Kelly having come forward and received the greetings of the audience, had scarcely uttered a sentence, when a most dastardly and unmanly attempt was made in the pit to hiss her. This paltry and ungenerous spirit was at once put down by the indignant feeling of the house. An attempt of this kind would have damped the energies of the most experienced veteran in the profession; but, on a youthful and peculiarly sensitive mind, it had quite a thrilling effect; so much so, indeed, that, during the entire piece, Miss Kelly was so dispirited, that she was perfectly disabled from going through ber part. But let her not be dismayed: she possesses talents which only require to be matured by experience, which must raise her beyond the reach of any petty malignant hostility, come it from what quarter it may."

Miss Kelly is accused of being too free and familiar in her manner, of possessing too much naïveté, simplicity, and nature. But who are they who accuse her? Those who have neither nature nor simplicity themselves, who cau relish only that formal and affected manner which passion never assumed under any of its modifications. this humbug pomposity, which is so well calculated to vitiate the public taste, we shall speak more at large hereafter, and endeavour to shew that that the simplicity and naiveté of Miss Kelly is not only more natural, but that, it is nature itself.

Of

We regret that the extent of our observatious on the Vespers of Palermo, will not permit us to notice the other performances of the month at this theatre. We can only say, that the new pantomime, which according to custom is brought forward at this season, was received with great applause; that the scenery was of the most splendid and brilliant description; and that it is likely to have a successful

run.