[50° J [Jan. 
THE THEATRES. 
Drury Lane has exerted itself with very considerable success during 
the month. Solemn tragedy has been dovetailed with sprightly farce ; 
opera has been interlaced with melodrame, and ballet has filled up the 
intervals; the whole as a preparative to pantomime, which, like its 
favourite Grimaldi, will distend its painted jaws, and swallow the whole 
ere those shoes are old, in which we followed Miss Philips’s tender 
triumphs, and Braham’s unconquerable bravura. 
Miss Philips, of whose promising performances we have already 
spoken, and who, if she be no more than seventeen, is one of the most 
singular instances of early power upon the boards, has added to her 
distinctions by playing Juliet. The character though, as every one 
knows, the perpetual first step of young tragedians, and scarcely capable 
of being a failure, where youth, prettiness, and simplicity, are to be 
found in the actress, is yet one which might display a very high reach 
of the performer’s genius. To do common things in an uncommon 
manner, has been proverbially difficult since the days of Horace ; and to 
give a character with any degree of novelty after it has been harassed 
and hackneyed through a thousand shapes, is perhaps as difficult an 
exploit as the stage can display. 
It would be idle to say that the present actress either electrified or 
dissolved the bosoms of the multitude ; but it would be as untrue to 
deny that her performance exhibited much taste and tenderness, as it 
would be unfair to estimate her future powers by her present. She is 
now the best Juliet upon the stage. The praise does not amount to 
panegyric, for this is not the day of theatrical glories ; but it implies 
success: it is the expression of popular feeling in favour of the young 
actress, and Miss Philips will greatly disappoint criticism, if she does 
not rise to early honours in her profession. 
Mr. Kean, jun., whose appearance last year was so amusingly magni- 
fied by mystery, until the doubt was whether the manager had not some 
elephant on a new construction, or a live mammoth, to exhibit on the 
rising of the winter curtain, was the Romeo. This young actor’s 
powers are scarcely yet in a state to be appreciated. Nature has been 
unfavourable to his exterior : he wants figure, countenance, and movement 
for the stage ; while the faculties whose ripeness might counterbalance 
those formidable defects, are still immature. The similitude of his 
manner to that of the elder Kean is extreme ; and he seems to be pos- 
sessed of all those peculiarities which make the prominent and unpleas- 
ing distinctions of that style, the abruptness of step, the interruption of 
voice, the rattle in the throat, the hysteric laugh ; though with these too, 
is retained a good deal of the peculiar power, the strong seizure 
of certain passages, and the new and sometimes vivid embodying of the 
poet’s thought. On the whole, the performance was more than “ credit- 
able.” We have seen actors of established reputation less interesting in 
the part ; and it may rest with the young performer himself, whether 
he is to overcome his original disabilities, or, after a little celebrity on 
the strength of his father’s successes, to sink into the palpable obscure 
of his profession. 
“ Charles the XIIth ;” a little romance from the French, as usual, 
pleasantly arranged by Planche, has been performed for some nights. 
The story is one of those customary coups de grand homme, which the 
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