100 Theatrical Review. 



of *' Robert," another wrecker, whose daughter is witness of the foul 

 deed ; and, having lately parted with her father at that spot, she sup- 

 poses him to be the criminal. " Robert's" knife has been found in the 

 body, and this fact, with the addition of other circumstantial evidence, 

 and his daughter's testimony, are sufficient to convict him. " Black 

 Norris" offers to prove her father innocent, but demands as a price 

 her hand in marriage. To save her father from the gibbet, she con- 

 sents, though with reluctance and horror. By some unaccountable 

 means " Robert's" liberation is effected, and *' Norris" claims the 

 performance of" Marian's'' promise. The marriage is happily pre- 

 vented from taking place by the appearance of " Wolf," an accom- 

 plice in the murder, at the altar, before which the ceremony is about 

 to take place. Remorse has deprived him of his senses, and he con- 

 fesses their joint crime, to the discomfiture of the villain, who stabs 

 him, and the delight of " Marian," who is restored to a lover returned 

 from sea in good time to be present at the closing scene. Such is an 

 imperfect outline of the improbable plot. We now turn to the dra- 

 matis persona3. Knowles himself filled the part of the father. For 

 his claims as an author we have a high respect, though we attribute 

 not a little of the great popularity of his earlier dramas to Mac ready's 

 personation of the principal characters. His genius gave a higher 

 stamp to those productions than their intrinsic merits, though consi- 

 derable, entitled them to receive. Without his invaluable aid to sup- 

 port their character they would probably have met with a transient 

 success, and then have been consigned to oblivion, like many other 

 works displaying both talent and industry. But Mr. Knowles, who, 

 with a pardonable vanity, conceives himself the fittest person to em- 

 body his own conceptions, had he been the original representative of 

 Virginius and William Tell would have drawn down on his own plays, 

 immediate and irrevocable condemnation. A remarkably strong 

 brogue, and a convulsive twitching of the countenance under excite- 

 ment (though these last may, perchance, be attempts at expression) 

 wholly unfit him for the higher walks of histrionic art ; and he has 

 in his mode of utterance a bonhommie, a "how-d'ye-do" " very-well- 

 I-thank-you" kind of style, which gives a burlesque tone to the most 

 serious and affecting sentiments. In fact, we consider that Mr. 

 Knowles, if he had a more youthful and active double to go through 

 the leaping and tumbling, would make an inimitable pantaloon in 

 our Christmas mummeries. It is really distressing that a man of ac- 

 knowledged ability as an author should be weak enough to thrust 

 himself into a profession for which nature and art have totally unfitted 

 him. Miss Huddart played with much spirit, especially in the scene 

 with " Norris," where he offers her father's life as the price of her 

 consent to wed him ; and in the last act, where, half insane, in the 

 extremity of her wretchedness, she recounts her fearful dream, the 

 audience were electrified, or as nearly so as they have been of late 

 years by actors of tragedy. Warde was excellent, especially in 

 the scene with *' Wolf,'' in the third act, where they go over the mi- 

 nutia of the murder, and " Norris" discovers the victim to be his own 

 father. Cooper played the sailor-lover, a part in which he did not 

 seem at home, and in which he accoutred himself in a strange ano- 



