Clandeftine Marriage. Sterling is a well drawn uniform character, mounted upon the ftilts of property, aiming at and boasting of tafte he has not: grappling at pelf of which he has a fuperfluity; selfish and pofitive, where he dare excercife authority; oftentatious, methodical and ignorant; thus compounded he gives confiderable life to those scenes where he is concerned, when affifted by Mr. YATES's inimitable talents for fuch characters; but in the hands of Mr. Love finks beneath criticifm, and feems only calculated to lull attention to fleep; it is a great pity this monotonous gentleman rofe any higher than Serjeant Flower; the florid unvarying importance of phyfiognomy he commonly wears, being better adapted to a lumber headed lawyer, than any other character. Lovewell engages an audience by his tender fenti, ments, and affectionate fincerity; his fituation affects, and his manners pleafe us; Mr. POWELL never made a more agreeable figure in comedy, nor perhaps so good a one as in this part, which being placed in a station of life that he himself had filled not long before; and being happily fuited not only to his external appearance, but his internal feelings alfo, he fatisfied most agreeably every point of expectation; even Mr. CAUTHERLY, though far beneath the original, is not an infufferable Lovewell. The lawyers are drawn in a masterly manner, and for the reason affigned above, we think Mr. LovE had merit in the Serjeant-would he had never been removed, however, it must be allowed that Mr. BRANSBY is a worthy fucceffor, as he fupports at leaft the weight of the character with equal merit, Canton Clandeftine Marriage. Canton is an admirable delineation of a foreign fycophant playing upon a vain English nobleman; the picture is instructive, and held to view in a very just advantageous point of light by Mr. BADDELEY, who breaks expreffion well into the Swiss Dialect, and cringes through the part in a very characteristic manner. Brush is an excellent contraft of the affuming English valet, and while in view, claims fome notice -the late Mr. PALMER deferved and met more applause than could be expected to attend so short a character, where tipfey he was highly laughable; his fucceffor and name-fake if not quite fo pleasant; has nevertheless a confiderable fhare of merit. As Farquhar faid in respect of Sir Harry Wildair, that when Mr. WILKS died or left the ftage he might really go to the jubilee; fo without exaggeration we may say that Mrs. Heidelberg was loft to the public when Mrs. CLIVE retired; the ignorant affectation, volubility of expreffion, and happy difpofition of external appearance, she was so remarkable for, will render it difficult to find an equivalent; in many characters fhe proved herself mistress of a fund of laughter, but was in none more luxuriantly droll than in this, every line of the author was very becomingly enforced, and many paffages were much improved by emphatic illustration, in fuch undertakings we have never feen her equal, and doubt if ever we may, Mrs. HOPKINS is fcarce a fhadow of her. Mifs Sterling, a character quite unfinished, fays a good deal to very little purpose is eat up with ambition Clandeftine Marriage. bition, and I am afraid, with envy: the feems to have no commendable principles about her, her first scene indeed exhibits a confiderable share of harmless fpirit though what follows rather fpeaks malevolence. She is left at the catastrophe in a most undetermined, and we may add, notwithstanding her foibles, an unfatisfactory ftate; the authors have made fomething of her at firft, to drop her into nothing at last; in this view, fhe must rather be a dead weight upon any performer; however, Mifs POPE, furmounting difadvantages, renders the young lady rather more than tolerable. Fanny has a manifest advantage of her fifter in fimplicity of manners, difintereftedness of affcction, and delicacy of feeling; her fituation alfo happily enforces the amiable parts of her character; Mrs. PALMER, the original in this part, fpoke more both to the head and heart, than Mrs. BADDELY either does or can do; fome lucky hits, with a more pleafing figure, make her pafs off upon general opinion as well as her predeceffor, but where criticifm interferes, we muft think much more favourably of the paft than the prefent. Betty will never again be performed with merit equal to the lady, who with much juftice declined the infertion of her name in the drama for fo infignificant a character; a character far below her capabilities, almoft as far as it is above Mrs. LOVE's execution, of whom it was literrally cruel to make an actress--yet by foine unaccountable fatality, Clandeftine Marriage. tality, this unhappy lady is fhoved on for many things, which would have been much better in other hands, and could not be worfe in any. Why, why will managers fo far miftake the judgment of an audience, as to venture the intrufion of fuch creatures as understand little, and express lefs. The chambermaid, according to what is said of her, was as well figured and played as ever the will be, by Mifs PLYMM. To speak of the piece in a complicate view, it certainly has a great deal of acting merit-a thorough knowledge of life and character is effential to draw comic fcenes fuccefsfully; of this the CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE is a pleafing proof; however, fome of the fcenes are heavy, and a few trifling; the dialogue is not fo fpirited and easy as Farquhar's, nor fo luxuriant and nervous as Congreve's, yet agreeably difengaged; the fatire well pointed, and the fentiments lively, though not generally instructive: if ftanding the teft of clofet criticism be the fairest and most eftimable degree of merit, we muft not venture to place this piece among the foremoft; but in representation, we are willing to allow it every point of approbation, which the indulgent public has favoured it with, and much more than many others can claim, which poffefs those very requifites the CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE wants. THE THE FAIR PENITENT. A TRAGEDY by Mr. ROWE THIS dramatic compofition was wrote at a time when genius received nourishment from the beams of royal favour, ere the mufes of this ifle were germanized into ftone; and ftands to this day in estimation at least equal to any except thofe of Shakespeare. It opens with Horatio and Altamont, two perfons of rank in Genoa, from whom we learn, that it is the latter's bridal day; there appears to be strong links of friendship between these two characters, and that Sciolto, a nobleman, father to Altamont's bride, has fhewn particular marks of favour to Horatio, on account of being Altamont's brother-in-law and friend; his attachment to Altamont arose from a peculiar mark of filial duty fhewn by him to a dead father, in yielding himself to prison, that his father's corpfe, which had been arrested by rigid creditors, might obtain the ufual rites of burial. Sciolto at his entrance expreffes himself in terms fuitable to the feelings of a tender parent, on the day which disposes of a favourite daughter according to his wishes, and as he imagines of her own; this fcene is mere congratulation, except where Altamont mentions the coldness and concern of his bride; this the father naturally interprets to arise from the real or artificial coyness of her fex, and con |