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1825.] 
ness, volume, clearness, and mcdulation— 
the last especially, to an extent, and with a 
judicious adaptation to the pathos and sen- 
timent of the scene, of which we remember 
no parallel. Her sotto voce in the passage, 
“Ab! che avviene! Dei! che intendo,”’ 
had a mysterious awfulness that vibrated 
to the very heart; and her modulation 
was not less effective in the most tender 
and the most indignant passages ; while 
the expressive and appropriate action with 
which she accompanied every transition of 
emotion, produced a unison of feeling which 
made even opera appear like a kind of 
nature. If we were to particularize, we 
would point to the delicious execution of 
** Ebbene-a-te ferisci,’”” in the second act, 
and the duet with Madame Vestris, ‘‘ Gi- 
orno d’orrore,”’ which, long and arduous as 
it is, was so enthusiastically and persever- 
ingly encored, that its repetition was una- 
voidable, notwithstanding the unmerciful- 
ness of the exertion. 
DRURY LANE. 
Jane Shore was attempted here on the 
9th. Gloster, by Mr. Archer! What a 
tumbling down from Kemble, Cooke, &c. ! 
Though it be not quite the Richard of 
Shakspeare, or even of Colley Cibber; 
surely, even in the diluted language of 
Rowe, it requires something more than vo- 
ciferation and stalk, with an occasional 
gnash of the teeth and poke of the chin. 
Even Belmour should not be dandied by a 
tall young lady in smallclothes, or a middle- 
aged youth, who looks, and. moves, and 
speaks like one. Terry, however, was 
respectable in Dumont; and Wallack did 
so much justice to Hastings, as, at least, in 
the midst of the group he was acting with, 
to seem entitled to considerable commen- 
dation. If his acting seldom exhibits strong 
feeling, and never overpowering intellect, 
it shows, in general, attention; and, perhaps, 
he may benefit by the suggestions, that in 
the scene where Gloster tampers with him, 
his eye and attitude betray a scrutinizing 
suspicion too early, and that, in his whole 
deportment, he brought too much of the 
green-room upon the stage. He seemed 
to have forgotten, that though in the former 
place, Mr. Wallack may be a very superior 
personage to Mr. Archer, yet in the latter, 
the protector of the realm is more awful than 
the Lord Chamberlain; and, whoever may 
be the Royal Highness pro tempore, his 
Chamberlainship should not appear to be 
the stately master of the boards. With 
this exception, however, and the want of a 
deeper pathos in the parting scene with 
Alicia, it was a meritorious piece of acting. 
It is long since we have seen the character 
so well sustained. Mrs. Bunn was also 
respectable, as times go, in Alicia ; but the 
furious passions and distracted ravings of 
this require more energy, mental and 
physical, than she can command. Mrs. 
W. West is perfectly incompetent to the 
character of Jane Shore. Without featural 
Theatrical Review ; and Music. 
461 
expression, without natural and varied 
modulation, and a voice responsive to 
the throes of suffering and contrition—in 
short, without deep and fine feeling, what 
can be done with such a character? The 
studied mechanism of art, imitated from the 
traditionary usage of the stage, will not do 
in scenes and situations were, if the heart 
be not touched, the attention will soon be 
weary. We did not see a handkerchief. 
applied to a single eye; and if the con-. 
vulsion of audible inspiration awakened, 
occasionally, our pity, it was for the injury 
the actress was doing to her health by a 
preternatural mode of declamation, not for 
the afflictions of the character, which it cer- 
tainly did not represent. 
The interesting story of William Tell, 
worked up into dramatic effect by the 
skilful hand of Mr. Knowles (author of 
Virginius and Caius Gracchus), was pro- 
duced here, on the 11th, with complete suc- 
cess, and has added alike to the reputation 
of the author and of Mr. Macready, by, 
whom the patriot hero was performed. 
It is in characters of this description, where 
the rough energies and home feelings of 
nature are to be represented, not the ima- 
ginative sublime, that the powers of Mr. M._ 
best manifest themselves. Mr. Knowles is 
betteradapted to his genius than Shakspeare. 
A new romantic drama, in three acts, 
on the old nursery tale of the Devil and 
Dr. Faustus, (recently re-edified by German 
poetry and German metaphysics) was pro- 
duced here on the 16th, with every em-- 
bellishment which music and dance, splen- 
did decorations, and splendid scenery, and_ 
almost magical mechanism of transforma- 
tion, could confer. Representations of this” 
kind, however attractive to the public gaze, 
are no fit objects of criticism in the detail. 
—Sutlice it therefore to say, that it is one 
of the very best of the kind that we have 
seen; magnificent in splendour, tasteful 
in picturesqueness and execution ; that the 
overture by Weber, introduced the wild: 
fable with an appropriate felicity, and the: 
music supplied by Bishop in his best strain, 
happily supported it; as did the efforts of 
the respective performers, both in song and 
action; a praise in which the workers of 
the scenery and machinery have an uncom- 
mon share. The necromantic sleight of 
multiplying Faustus and his pupil Wagner, 
in the twinkling of an eye, six-fold, so that 
they suddenly appear, at one and the same 
time, in six different parts of the stage, and 
as suddenly disappear, devil and all, with 
their ravished prize, was executed with an 
apparent verity of magic, that might (once) 
have entitled Mr. Wallack, the master of the 
spell, to a domicile in the dungeons of the 
Inquisition. The only drawback is the 
dull and abortive attempt at the humorous, 
which even the quaint and _ self-satisfied 
drollery of the vivacious Harley, with whom 
an audience laughs almost by instinct, could 
not make amusing. ‘ 
COVENT" 
