Clandestine Marriage. Sterling is a well drawn uniform character, mounted upon the stilts of property, aiming at and boafting of taste he has not: grappling at pelf of which he has a fuperfluity; selfish and positive, where he dare excercife authority; oftentatious, methodical and ignorant; thus compounded he gives considerable life to those scenes where he is concerned, when assisted by Mr. YATES's inimitable talents for fuch characters; but in the hands of Mr. Love sinks beneath criticism, and seems only calculated to lull attention to sleep; it is a great pity this monotonous gentleman rose any higher than Serjeant Flower; the florid unvarying importance of physiognomy he commonly wears, being better adapted to a lumber headed lawyer, than any other character. Lovewell engages an audience by his tender senti, ments, and affectionate fincerity; his situation affects, and his manners please 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 suited not only to his external appearance, but his internal feelings also, he satisfied most agreeably every point of expectation; even Mr. CAUTHERLY, though far beneath the original, is not an insufferable Lovewell. : The lawyers are drawn in a masterly manner, and for the reason assigned 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 successor, as he supports at least the weight of the character with equal merit. 1 Clandestine 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 expression well into the Swiss Dialect, and cringes through the part in a very characteristic manner. Brush is an excellent contrast of the assuming English valet, and while in view, claims some notice -the late Mr. PALMER deserved and met more applaufe than could be expected to attend so short a character, where tipsey he was highly laughable; his fuccessor and name-fake if not quite so pleasant; has nevertheless a confiderable share of merit. As Farquhar faid in respect of Sir Harry Wildair, that when Mr. WILKS died or left the stage he might really go to the jubilee; so without exaggeration we may say that Mrs. Heidelberg was lost to the public when Mrs. CLIVE retired; the ignorant affectation, volubility of expression, and happy disposition of external appearance, she was so remarkable for, will render it difficult to find an equivalent; in many characters she 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 passages were much improved by emphatic illustration, in such undertakings we have never seen her equal, and doubt if ever we may, Mrs. HOPKINS is fcarce a shadow of her. Miss Sterling, a character quite unfinished, says a good deal to very little purpose is eat up with ambition Clandestine Marriage. bition, and I am afraid, with envy: the seems το have no commendable principles about her, her first scene indeed exhibits a confiderable share of harmless spirit though what follows rather speaks malevolence. 1 She is left at the catastrophe in a most undetermined, and we may add, notwithstanding her foibles, an unfatisfactory state; the authors have made something of her at first, to drop her into nothing at last; in this view, she 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 manifeft advantage of her fifter in fimplicity of manners, difinterestedness of affcction, and delicacy of feeling; her fituation alfo happily enforces the amiable parts of her character; Mrs. PALMER, the original in this part, spoke more both to the head and heart, than Mrs. BADDELY either does or can do; fome lucky hits, with a more pleasing figure, make her pafs off upon general opinion as well as her predeceffor, but where criticism interferes, we must 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 justice declined the infertion of her name in the drama for fo infignificant a character; a character far below her capabilities; almost 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, Clandestine Marriage. tality, this unhappy lady is shoved on for many things, which would have been much better in other hands, and could not be worse in any. Why, why will managers so far mistake the judgment of an audience, as to venture the intrusion of fuch creatures as understand little, and express less. The chambermaid, according to what is said of her, was as well figured and played as ever the will be, by Miss 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 essential to draw comic scenes fuccefsfully; of this the CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE is a pleasing proof; however, some of the scenes are heavy, and a few trifling; the dialogue is not so spirited and easy as Farquhar's, nor so luxuriant and nervous as Congreve's, yet agreeably disengaged; the fatire well pointed, and the sentiments lively, though not generally instructive: if standing the test of closet criticism be the fairest and most estimable degree of merit, we must not venture to place this piece among the foremost; 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 possess those very requifites the CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE wants. THE THE FAIR PENITENT. A TRAGEDY by Mr. ROWE. THIS dramatic composition was wrote at a time when genius received nourishment from the beams of royal favour, ere the muses of this isle were germanized into stone; and stands to this day in estimation at least equal to any except those of Shakespeare. It opens with Horatio and Altamont, two persons 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 shewn 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 shewn by him to a dead father, in yielding himself to prison, that his father's corpse, which had been arrested by rigid creditors, might obtain the usual rites of burial. Sciolto at his entrance expresses himself in terms suitable 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 scene 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 |