His

try, as in the instance above mentioned. Di piacer is full of smiling delight and anticipation, as the words imply. Sometimes he is not deficient even in tenderness, as in one or two airs in his Othello; but it is his liveliest operas, such as the Barbiere di Séviglia and the Italiana in Algieri that he shines. mobs make some of the pleasantest riots conceivable; his more gentlemanly proceedings, his bows and compliments, are full of address and even elegance, and he is a prodigious hand at a piece of pretension or foppery. Not to see into his merit in these cases, surely implies only, that there is a want of animal spirits on the part of the observer.

As we are not so fond of sharp criticism, as when we were young and knew not what it was to feel it, we shall say nothing of one or two of the fair singers on this occasion, except that they did not appear to have a sufficient stock of the spirits we have been speaking of. To animal spirits, animal spirits alone can do justice. A burst of joy will be ill represented by the sweetest singing in the world that is not joyous, and that does not burst forth like a shower of blossoms. Of Miss Goward's singing we can yet form no judgment, as she had a very bad cold; but she did her best with it, and did not apologize, which gave us a favorable opinion of her; and her acting increased it. If she does not turn out to be a very judicious person, with a good deal of humor, she will disappoint us. Madame Vestris, though she does not insinuate a sufficient stock of sentiment through her gayeties to complete the proper idea of a charmer to our taste, is always charming after her fashion; but

from what we recollect of her, we doubt whether her performance in this piece is one of her favorite ones. The song of Is't art, I pray, or Nature? she gave with too little vivacity; and her part in the bolero she seemed to go through more as a duty than a pleasure - which is anything but boleresque. Mr. Wood has great sweetness of voice, with taste and sensibility; and the sweetness is manly. He was encored in the 66 romance - Deep in a Dungeon; but we preferred him in his first pleasing air, Farewell, thou Coast of Glory. We shall be glad to see him again, and to say more of him. We suspect he has more power than he yet puts forth.

There is no necessity to criticise the dialogue. The author himself probably regards it as being nothing more than one of our old unpretending acquaintances, yclept "vehicles for music;" carriers of song, as Messrs. Clementi's are of piano-fortes. There is one scene, however, upon which we shall say a word. It is that in which a maimed husband comes back from the wars, and is received by his wife with aversion and ridicule. It is true the caricature is evident; it is the only way in which such feelings can be made ludicrous; but there is something in it from which the heart revolts. It is a dangerous point to divert ridicule from its proper objects, and give degrading representations of humanity. There is something, too, on these especial occasions, when the joke is carried far (as is the case in violent double meanings in company), by which privacy itself is turned into publicity, and we become painfully conscious of the presence of those, with whom we could best interchange

the most pleasurable ideas. We profess to be anything but prudes; we have no objection, for instance, to Zanina's being reconciled to "little fellows," whose ways are delightful; but because we are not prudish, we become the more jealous in behalf of what may be called the humanities of license.

We must own we could not help laughing at some passages of Miss Goward's acting in this scene; and perhaps we scan the matter somewhat too nicely. Those who laughed most would probably have been among the first to hug the remnant of their maimed friends to their heart. But the experiment is dangerous. There is not too much sentiment in society after all; and it is better not to risk what there is. With what relief did we not call to mind, in our graver moments, the sight we had once, in those boxes, on the left hand, of a charming woman sitting next her gallant husband, Colonel C., who had returned from the wars with the frightful loss of his lower jaw. His wife married him after his return; and this, we were told, was she. He had his mouth and chin muffled up. But how did he not seem more than repaid in her sweet and loving presence, which we fancied that she pressed still closer to him than was visible in that of any other woman seated by her husband's side. When she looked in his face, we felt as if we could almost have been content to have lost the power of kissing with lips, that we might have received in all its beauty that kiss of the soul.

1828.

LADIES' BONNETS IN THE THEATRE.

'N default of having anything better to write about

IN

in our present number, we beg leave to remonstrate with certain bonnets, and other enormities, with which the ladies put out our eyesight in the theatres. The bonnet is the worst. If you sit right behind it, it shall swallow up the whole scene. It makes nothing of a regiment of soldiers, or a mountain, or a forest, or a rising sun; much less of a hero, or so insignificant a thing as a cottage and a peasant's family. You may sit at the theatre a whole evening and not see the leading performer. Liston's face is a glory obscured. The persons in your neighborhood, provided they have no bonneted ladies before them, shall revel in the jocose looks of Farren or Dowton, and provokingly reflect the merriment in their own countenances, while you sit and rage in the shade. If you endeavor to strain a point, and peep by the side of it, ten to one (since Fate notoriously interferes in little things, and delights in being

66

contrary," as the young ladies say) — ten to one but the bonnet seizes. that very opportunity of jerking sideways, and cutting off your resources. We have seen an enthusiastic playgoer settle himself in his seat, and evidently congratulate himself at the evening he was about to enjoy, when a party of ladies, swimming into the seats before him, have been the ruin of all his prospects. Even a head-dress, without the bonnet,

shall force you to play at bo-peep with the stage half the evening; now extinguishing the face of some favorite actress, and now abolishing a general or a murder. The other night, at the Queen's Theatre, we sometimes found ourselves obliged to peep at the Freemasons in a very symbolical manner through the loops of a lady's bows. But the bonnet is the enormity. And we are sorry to say that the fair occupants who sit inside them, like the lady in the lobster, too often show a want of gallantry in refusing to take them off; for, as we have said more than once, we hold gallantry, like all the other virtues, to be a thing mutual, and of both sexes; and that a lady shows as much want of gallantry in taking advantage of the delicacies observed towards her by the gentlemen, as a man does who presumes upon the gentleness of a lady. We felt, the other night, all the reforming spirit of our illustrious predecessors of the Tatler and Spectator roused within us, and in the same exact proportion to our regard for the sex upon witnessing the following prodigious fact: A lady, who came with a party into one of the boxes at Covent Garden, joined very heartily in expressing her disapprobation of some person in a seat below her, who was dilatory in taking off his hat. It chanced that this lady got into the very seat that he had occupied, and her bonnet turning out to be a much greater blind than the hat, what was the astonishment and the merriment of the complainants, upon finding that she was still less accommodating than the gentleman? Nothing could induce her to perform the very same piece of justice which she had joined in demanding from the other.