Nature and Art, December 1, 1863.] 
THE DRAMA. 
249 
called “Hunted Down, or the Two Lives of Mary Leigh,” 
does not produce the old kind of effect. It is skilfully 
enough manipulated by Mr. Boucicault, whose dramatic 
manufactory must be in full work just now. It is founded, 
as it is supposed, on a novel by a popular living authoress, 
though the story, that of a man marrying a woman 
for her money and running away from her, is very much 
older, and has been put on the stage sixty years since, as 
may be seen in Cobb’s “ Wife of Two Husbands,” produced 
on November 1st, 1803, at Drury Lane Theatre. This old 
piece was, however, itself taken from a French drama by a 
Mons. Pixerecourt, the Boucicault of his day. So popular 
was it that no less than three translations were made into 
English ; one of them being by Miss Gunning. Such, how- 
ever, is the larceny of the stage, that no doubt the French 
author stole it from some earlier play, and the modern 
novelist and dramatist have probably taken the story from 
some more recent version of the Parisian stage. Whatever 
the merits of modern story-tellers or playwrights, it certainly 
does not consist in invention of original plots, though they 
have considerable ingenuity in weaving a more interesting 
web out of old materials. 
It as a relief to pass from the close and artificial drama 
of this kind — oppressive from its criminal odour and fetid 
with a very far-fetched kind of morality — into the more 
natural atmosphere of an English domestic story like that 
of “ Meg’s Diversion,” at the tiny Royalty Theatre, by Mr. 
Craven, who wrote the genial little piece, and acts the 
hero himself. Whoever has seen his “ Milky White,” or 
the “ Post-boy,” or any of his domestic dramas, will know 
with what perfection he delineates a domestic circle of 
homely English life, and creates a story and an interest by 
developing- the feelings of his dramatis personal as wrought 
upon by circumstances. He delights in portraying middle- 
class English life ; and this he does with the humour of a 
Wilkie- and the delicacy of a Mulready. In the paresent in- 
stance his hero is a simple-minded, uneducated country- 
townsman, who has come in to property, but still retains a 
very modest notion of his own qualities and capacities. A 
country wit and beauty, charmingly played by Miss Patty 
Oliver, unrefined but not unfeminine, makes a butt of him, 
and, through the misrepi-esentations of a designing father and 
sister, excites him to a declaration, and jilts him. The skill 
exhibited by Mr. Craven, both in the drawing and the acting 
of the hero, is truly dramatic. It is never over-strained ; it 
is never false, though it is moving. There may be, indeed 
- — for nothing is perfect to a critic’s eye — a leetle too much 
of his excessive goodness, and the least bit of self-conscious- 
ness of it, in the autlior-actor. It has been well said, he 
should act more to his stage-companions, and less to his 
audience. Nor is this chai-ming picture of English life con- 
fined to one character. Several others are well sketched in 
by a firm hand and with an observing knowledge of cha- 
racter. The idea of a sublimely self-sufficient gentleman, 
who exercises a pseudo kind of libei-ality, and would educate 
a poor girl for his wife, or marry a widow that he might 
train up her children so as, he expresses it, to create models 
of perfection according to his own standard, is ingeniously 
conceived, and marked in a satirical way without exaggera- 
tion. The selfish boor of a father, his own better-educated 
but more worldly brother, and the minx of a sister, are all 
capitally delineated, we must also add, exceedingly well 
played, by the very clever company Miss Oliver has got 
round her. Nothing can be farther removed from the coarse, 
criminal, and mechanical drama called sensational, though 
it has really no exclusive right to that epithet ; for this 
little drama is highly sensational, if that term includes the 
affecting strongly the emotions. Indeed, it adopts the [ 
reigning stage fashion to some extent, and realizes in one 
scene Mi-. Calderon’s popular picture of “ Broken Vows.” 
This is tastefully done and very well delineated by the scene- 
painter, Mr. Cuthbert ; it is, however, the background of 
this scene, which is entirely his own, that proves him to be 
a genuine artist. We wish we could say that this little 
piece, so charming both in its writing and its acting, was as 
attractive as the coarser dramas. We trust, at all events, 
that it fills the theatre nightly, and rewards the tasteful 
manageress for producing it. It will be well when this class 
of drama, somewhat perhaps enlarged and strengthened, 
resumes its position at the leading theatres. We say 
resumes, because it really is of the same species as the 
“ Heir-at-Law,” “Speed the Plough,” and the “Road to 
Ruin,” which so delighted our grandfathers and grand- 
mothers ; and is free from the caricature and extravagance 
| which have made them obsolete. It has their vivacity and 
healthy human character, and deserves to be the staple of 
modern dramatic delineation. 
At what ought to be the real home of the English drama, 
Drury-lane Theatre, the version of the German epic drama, 
“Faust,” is still running, and di-awing, from the name of 
its original author and the pictorial and stage effects, nightly 
audiences sufficient at all events to meet the expense of the 
hordes of witches, market-people, students, and soldiers who 
literally crowd the enormous stage. As a spectacle it is 
good, though not surpassingly so. Mr. Phelps’s Mephisto- 
pheles was expected to be something as markedly excellent 
as his Sir Pertinax MacSycophant or Bottom the Weaver; but 
it is not. There is, indeed, little scope for any expression 
but a continued dry sneer at the World and his particular 
victim, who, in spite of his philosophy, is a very great silly 
and something worse. Mrs. Yezin has been praised as 
Marguerite ; but as the character only requires a cherub- 
faced Gretchen of some sixteen years, she cannot fulfil our 
ideas of Retsch’s outlines. The pantomime at Christmas will 
probably suspend the great German drama, to the relief of 
many who pi-efer the broadest jollity to a sombi-e piece 
where the poetry and philosophy are necessarily eliminated 
to produce cumbrous stage effects. 
At the Olympic Theatre there has also been something 
like a resting on a great name in the production of a well- 
known amateur drama by Mr. Wilkie Collins, in which Mr. 
Charles Dickens (who was ably supported) performed the 
principal part. It has had a scene or two added, and is 
certainly well-written, admirable for its original intention 
but hardly elaborated enough for the public stage. All the 
foi-cible emotions are rather described than acted. It was 
not new to many who had seen it performed by the celebrated 
Amateurs. It is now called “ The Frozen Deep,” and to 
those who do not know it, we may briefly say it represents a 
band of Arctic voyagers snowed up, and ultimately escaping. 
Amongst them are the accepted and rejected lovers of an 
hysterical young lady, who is clairvoyant, and foresees at 
home what takes place in the icy regions. Miss Foote 
enacted this young lady with great force and grace. As the 
piece continues in the bills and was duly applauded, wo may 
suppose it is a genuine success. 
At the Princess’s one of those elaborated dramas wherein 
some remarkable scene is to afford pictorial illustrations to 
all the available walls in London, has been produced to suc- 
ceed the “Huguenot,” which has not sustained its popularity 
to the enormous length that the “ Streets of London ” did. 
The subject this time is Mr. Dickens’s historical stoi-y of 
“ Barnaby Rudge, ” though the drama seems rather to be 
founded on an American stage version than on the novel 
itself ; and instead of the half-witted boy and his sagacious 
raven being- the prominent figures, Miss Migg-s, transformed 
into a Yankee girl, is the heroine. She is played by a comely 
actress, Mrs. J. Wood, who has won her celebrity by a 
pretty, intelligent countenance, which she seems resolved .by 
no means to disfigure. It is evident that on the American 
stage this version of Miss Miggs is deemed the chief 
atti-action of the piece called “Barnaby Rudge;” but 
there being- no such notion here, and the novel and its 
writer being profoundly esteemed, there was a slight re- 
sentment at this unceremonious treatment of the English 
author. This, as is the foolish custom at this theatre, was 
resented as a personal insult to “a lady and a stranger;” 
but an audience know nothing of performers except as 
artists, and criticism has nothing to do with sex or private 
acquaintance. Mr. Yining, who is otherwise a clever and 
sensible manager, seems determined to provoke a trial of 
the issue as to the right of hissing in a public theatre. 
The state of the drama shows that audiences are quite in- 
different and critics lenient enough, and that a little whole- 
some opposition would be beneficial. The scenery of this 
piece is remarkable for its effects. There is a fire equal in 
