1825.) 
(eer y 
THEATRICAL REVIEW. 
—_—_— 
HAYMARKET. 
HE principal novelty here has been a 
new comedy in three acts, called Paul 
Pry from the pen of Mr. Poole. The scene 
is laid in a country village ; and the humour 
of the piece depends, in a considerable de- 
gree of course, upon the character from 
which it is named—a sort of village Mar- 
plot, who, for want of better employment, 
peeps through key-holes by the hour, and 
jumps in at windows at peril of his neck, 
to satisfy his restless curiosity about the 
affairs of his neighbours. It will readily 
be conceived how happily such a character 
is accommodated to the peculiar vein of 
Liston. The opportunities for indulging 
that humour, may be judged from a brief 
sketch of the plot. Mr. Witherton, a gen- 
tleman who, from dread of the restraints of 
matrimony, has reached the age of sixty 
unclogged by hymeneal fetters, is, however, 
not less enthralled under the dominion of 
two intriguing servants—Gvasp, his stew- 
ard, and Mrs, Subtle, his housekeeper ; who 
have contrived to prevail upon him, by a 
variety of frauds and deceptions, to disin- 
herit his nephew ; and the latter appears to 
be on the very eve of drawing him into that 
identical matrimonial snare, which he had 
hitherto so exultingly avoided. 
He has a neighbour, Col. Hardy, a 
good-humoured, arbitrary, retired veteran, 
““who was happy when he was a bachelor, 
happy when he was married, happy when 
his wife died, and has been happy ever 
since,” but who is very determined to have 
his own way, and very fond of plotting: 
in both which particulars he is imitated 
by his daughter and others of his house- 
hold. He introduces the discarded nephew 
and his wife into Witherton’s house, as a 
humble dependent, and a sort of upper ser- 
vant, to counteract the plots of the intri- 
guing domestics ; while with reference to 
his own family, he has determined, by mere 
weight of parental mandate, to marry his 
daughter to one Harry Stanley, but whose 
_very name he does not condescend to re- 
veal to the daughter, who is commanded 
to make herself ready to receive him. 
Miss Hardy, however, like “ Rosetta,”’ 
has fallen in love, without knowing it, with 
the yery person her father had resolved to 
marry her to; and disguises, equivoque, and 
impositions, the counterparts of those in 
“ Love in a Village,” lead, through resist- 
ance and counteraction, to the same harmo- 
nious conclusion: which the blundering 
curiosity of Paul Pry, while it appears to 
embarrass, eventually facilitates; as it 
does also the other part of the plot— 
the frustration of Mrs. Subtle’s matrimo- 
nial scheme, and the reconciliation of 
Witherton and his nephew. 
__ There was plenty of drollery on the part 
of Liston, and some good acting on the 
Mowraty Mac. No. 415. 
part of Farren, in the old Colonel; Mrs. 
Glover, in the intriguing housekeeper ; 
and Madame Vestris, in the arch chamber- 
maid Phebe (who introduced some pretty 
saucy songs): but why Mrs. Waylett 
should have been exhibited in the character 
of the lover, Harry Stanley, especially 
while such an actor as Vining was lying on 
the shelf, we are at a loss to conjecture. 
Actresses, who wish to advertise them- 
selves as in the market, may indeed be 
glad of an opportunity of shewing a neat 
limb; but surely the stage might afford 
opportunities enough for this in the dis} 
guises so frequent of feminine characters. 
Actual inversion of sex in the represen- 
tative of a character, to say nothing of 
the moral decency, destroys the illu- 
sion ofthe scene ; and, to a correct taste, 
produces disgust, instead of dramatic 
enjoyment. 
ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE. | 
Mr. Mathews has renewed his preten- 
sions here as an actor, and has been received, 
of course, asa favourite. In the Dramatic 
scene, however, we cannot regard him as 
being quite “‘At Home.” His Mr. Blush- 
ington; in the “Bashful Man,” did not give us 
back the image of our mind, as formed there 
by the original story. It gave us only Mr. 
Mathews, making himself at once, as bus- 
tlingly and stifly awkward as he could; but 
it was not the embarrassed awkwardness of 
a bashful man. It'may perhaps be ques- 
tioned whether the very eye of Mr. Ma- 
thews does not put the assumption of this 
characteristic, for any continuance, out of his 
sphere. But, in fact, it is not as an actor that 
the merit of Mr. M. appears conspicuous. 
His Mons. Tonson is, indeed, an unparal- 
leled instance of admirable mummery and 
caricature ; but his humour, generally speak 
ing, is of a class perfectly distinct from what 
may properly be called. dramatic: it dis- 
plays itself not in the happy identification, 
and consistent support of individual charac- 
ter ; but in shifting from character to cha- 
racter, or rather from caricature to caricai= 
ture, by rapid transition; and mingling a 
broad mimicry of the peculiarities of others 
with his own peculiar mannerisms, so as to 
effect the most ludicrous associations of con- 
trary impressions—at once the most glar- 
ingly like, and the most invidiously dissi- 
milar—which constitutes the genuine irre- 
sistible of mimic ridicule. In this piece,. 
however, Mr. Mathews has one scene |of 
genuine acting—the drunken scene, which 
we have sometimes seen him perform to the 
very top of admiration—passing through all 
the gradations and transitions, we might say 
of the physique and metaphysic of intoxica- 
tion: from its hilarity to its stupor; from its 
laughter to its tears ; from its moralizings 
and its prayers, to. its devil-may-care brava- 
does. But even this, on the present occa- 
2L sion, 
