266 
ENGLISH OPERA-HOUSE. 
The Frozen Lake.—The name of 
this piece is the best thing about it; 
it is also the only original point it 
has to boast of, for the whole is an 
importation (La Niege) from a Minor 
French Theatre, brought over by that 
determined smuggler of Parisian non- 
sense, M. Planché, though a little 
the worse for the wear. This per- 
tinacious gentleman is as trouble- 
some to playgoers as the ghost in 
Hamlet ; a perfect “ hic et ubique.’? We 
visit Covent-Garden, and there we 
have him as Robin Hood, or flourish- 
ing with Indian tomahawk and feathers, 
and riding triumphantly over the head 
of Shakespear by the assistance of 
Ducrow and company. We shift our 
» ground to. the Adelphi, and there we 
find him figuring away in Adelphic tra- 
gedy. Again we run over to the Eng- 
lish Opera-House, and he pops out 
upon us as a Vampire: there is no 
getting rid of him; he sticks to us like 
a leach, and sucks out the very life- 
blood of our patience. Really, Mes- 
sieurs Managers, gentlemen of the 
golden monopoly, this is too much; 
soup for breakfast, soup for dinner, 
soup for supper, nothing but soup, and 
that too of the very worst kind; a thin 
washy sort of composition, as flat as 
the flattest drainmgs of the new-invent- 
ed intermediate. The public have a 
right to expect other things froma ma- 
nager like Mr. Arnold, who. is capable 
of producing for himself better pieces 
than any that are written for him; we 
could forgive him for patronizing Frozex 
Lakes, if he would but set to work him- 
self and write another Up all Night, or 
Frederick the Great ; there is no living 
author, with whom the stage is acquaint- | 
ed, so fitted by talents and experience 
to produce agood opera as himself, and 
one such from his pen would be suffi- 
cient compensation for a score of bad 
pieces from the hands of others. 
As>to this Frozen Lake, it is, as 
might be expected from its name, a 
very cold piece of business, but this we 
suppose tells in its favour in a summer 
theatre; it does not agitate the nerves, 
or create any extraordinary emotions, 
which, considering the great heat of the 
weather, would be not alittle disagree- 
New Music and the Drama. 
fOct.A, 
able. The interest of the drama, or 
rather the drama itself, for it has no 
interest, turns upon the private mar- 
riage of the daughter of the Grand 
Duke of Swabia with a protegé of her 
father. To conceal the husband’s se- 
cret visits, he is drawn in a sledge 
across the Frozen Lake, and in the end 
the Duke, like a dutiful father, relents, 
and forgives the lovers, according to 
the established custom on all such oc- 
casions—that is on the stage—in real 
life things are managed somewhat other- 
wise. Certainly we should like to see a 
drama with a new catastrophe, nor can 
we conceive why death or marriage 
should be so universal a conclusion. 
At present, one or the other is certain 
to the heroes and heroines of the stage : 
there is no escape for them; so that 
the spectator always seems as if he 
only came in at the fag end of their 
life, just as they are going either to die 
or to marry; and of the two events 
there is no difficulty in guessing which 
will take place, when once the play-bill 
has told us whether comedy or tragedy 
is behind the curtain. And yet why 
should marriage be considered so face- 
tious an affair? Many people find it no 
joke; but these are high and secret 
matters, which we leave to be settled by 
the initiated. 
On the same night when the Frozen 
Lake made its appearance, a new farce 
was presented, under the name of Jona- 
than in England, from the pen of Mr. 
Peake. ‘The object of it is to exhibit 
Mathews in the caricature of an Ame- 
rican, and as a caricature it is well 
enough, full of equivoque and puns, 
some good and some bad, and perhaps 
the better for being bad; at least, so 
say the punsters, who must be the best 
judges of their own art, and we are not 
inclined to dispute the point with 
them. 
It has happened, however, to Mr. 
Peake, as it happens to the author of 
Waverley, the hero of the piece is quite 
lost in the superiority of. others, and, 
“ absit invidia dicto?’? we think the 
chaste humour of Mr. Bartley a much 
more prominent feature than all *the 
mimicry—excellent as it undoubtedly 
is—of our favourite Mathews. 
METEO- 
