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THE DRAMA. 



MINCE-PIES and turkeys, twelfth-cake and pantomimes, which were 

 meant, no doubt, to connect in friendship the old with the new year, 

 like most things of venerable date, seem to be now at a most awful dis- 

 count. Verily, ours is the age of innovation ; and even the Christmas 

 festivities appear to suffer from the prevailing rage not that we mean 

 to insinuate that the taste for mince-pies and turkeys is on the decline. 

 Heaven forbid ! that would indeed be a bitter reflection on the glories 

 of John Bull but we maintain that the merit of those friandises as 

 symbols of certain festivals and enjoyment is fast going to decay. The 

 genius of pantomime is dead ! Farley Farley himself, we are afraid, 

 has shone to the awe-stricken eyes of nursery-maids and children, 

 in the last effulgence of his magic and when he is gone, alas ! But 

 the subject is too pregnant with melancholy speculations ; for the pre- 

 sent, we are happy to announce that Farley is in a sound state of health 

 long may he live to pantomimize at Covent Garden theatre. This is 

 as much as we can say about the pantomimes this year ! 



Take some ridiculous dresses, supposed to be the old Spanish costume 

 get some faded scenery collect from plays, most venerable for their 

 antiquity, those incidents " stale, flat, and unprofitable," which have been 

 stage-property these hundred years provide yourself with a ladder of 

 ropes, lanthorn, disguises, &c. &c. write a competent quantity of bad 

 prose, and worse verse give a bad part to Farren, and two or three 

 bad songs to others, and the whole will produce a musical drama. We 

 are extremely partial to the musical drama, and we must pronounce 

 " JMy own Lover" one of the very best specimens of its kind ! It pos- 

 sesses one extraordinary merit, that if the gods and fate permit its ever- 

 so-frequent re-appearance, you witness the last representation with the 

 same pleasure as the first. During the performance you laugh or yawn, 

 cry bravo or pish ! pooh or pshaw ! and then when the whole is over, you 

 are as much at a loss as ever to know what it is about ! We have heard 

 that an opera must be seen half a dozen times before one can form a just 

 estimate of its merits perhaps the same rule holds good with regard to 

 a musical drama. When we have seen it six times (!) we may speak 

 with a more corrected judgment -until then, we do consider it neither 

 just nor prudent to say more. 



There was once an astrologer that was no astrologer ; he has a long beard 

 and a wand ; people flock to his study to consult him. Among others 

 there is a count, called St. Megrin ; he is in love with a married lady, and 

 that lady was the Duchess of Guise. She reclines on a sofa dreams 

 awakes. The lovers meet fort apropos. They say something of the 

 tender passion. There is a little stamping of feet behind the scenes, 

 Holloa ! he comes ! The astrologer, who is no astrologer, here smuggles 

 the Duchess away. Enter the Duke in a rage. The Count likewise 

 gets into a fury but no murder. Exit Count ; and the Duke picks 

 up a cambric handkerchief. Flame and furies ! 'tis the very identical 

 handkerchief which the Duchess had bought two or three days before 

 at Howell and James's, or some such emporium. The Duke very natu- 

 rally falls into a fit of jealousy. He had read Shakspeare's Othello, and 



