318 Dramatic Copyright, c$-c. [MARCH, 



But a livelier exhibition has been Married Lovers, a translation from 

 the French, by Power, with an Irish colonel inserted for his own 

 behoof. The scene lies in Paris., at the period of the regency of the 

 Duke of Orleans, of profligate memory. There are three wives, women 

 of rank, attended by their admirers, the husbands of the three, each 

 paying his devoirs to his neighbour's wife. The ladies communicate 

 their secrets to each other, and resolve to punish them all alike for their 

 infidelity. The husbands are directed to be at the postern of a hotel at 

 twelve. They are admitted one by one, and as they enter are forced 

 into the same dark apartment, where after a while, their fair expectation 

 is that their throats are about to be cut. They jostle each other in the 

 dark, and in the moment when they are expecting to be assassinated, 

 the doors are thrown open, their three wives appear with attendants, the 

 hall is lighted up, and the truant husbands acknowledge their errors. 

 This is one of the liveliest performances that we have lately seen. 

 Power's Irish colonel, though constructed on the model of vulgarity 

 which has so long answered for the dramatic Irishman, yet contains a 

 good deal of the quaint humour of the actor's style, and is of considerable 

 value to the piece. The old French marquis is a failure, though Bartley 

 plays it well. But the English husband is much worse ; he is repre- 

 sented as a mere wittol, a grave booby ; and, as we suppose Warde 

 could do nothing else with it, he plays it in the complete spirit of the 

 author. If the piece had not been a translation, the Englishman would 

 have exhibited a character more likely to do credit to his country. But 

 the most striking character in the play is performed by Miss Taylor, 

 who but for rather too much grimace in her features, and a great 

 deal too much gesticulation in her figure, is a very promising actress. 

 Her appearance as a page, with a more than usual display of leg, com- 

 pleted the public captivation ; she has very delicate limbs, and the pit 

 applauds them with remarkable assiduity. She sings two songs, both 

 very spiritedly, and both with repeated encores. The whole perfor- 

 mance, though touching on the extreme limit of theatrical allowance, is 

 clever, and is likely to be popular. 



NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 



We have glanced over the number of the Quarterly Review, which 

 has just trodden on the heels of its predecessor to rouse the country 

 to a sense of what the Whigs are doing in the matter of Reform. It 

 has added nothing to our convictions on any point. With the writer 

 of the article on Reform, we fully agree, that Whigs are awkward 

 experimentalists on a British Constitution ; and we equally agree with 

 him, in the opinion that the freedom of England will not depend on 

 the giving of representatives to Manchester, nor to any one, or one 

 dozen of towns, however populous they may be. (We find the Reviewer 

 after all, sliding into this concession to the " unrepresented.") But 

 this we say, that though a change in merely the number or place of the 

 towns that are to return members to parliament may be not worth a 

 straw, and though a demagogue parliament would be a curse ; still 

 such a parliament as the last was an offence in the nostrils of honest men. 

 Was not the last parliament successively the humble and eager tool and 

 dependent of three successive ministries, as opposite to each other as 



