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via in custody, and brought before the justice, as it appears, forseducing Rose; her intimacy with military weddings is not very characteristic, for a young lady of fortune and genteel education; and when she speaks of paying whores with a pinch, it is still a greater trespass on due bounds; indeed the whole scene means little, and but for honeft Bullock, would be very infipid.

Melinda and Worthy, according to conjuror Kite's prediction, meet, when after some altercation, in which he charges her with cruelty, and she him, with base designs upon her virtue, which he repents not having put in practice; they patch up a strange, unprincipled accommodation; the three enfuing scenes contain small matter of entertainment, nor is that of the justices and recruits much to be admired; Sylvia's behaviour before the bench, is confiftent with her design of provoking them to press her; yet, some of her remarks might as well have been omitted, particularly that when the constable charges her with a rape, and receives this reply, " is it your wife or daughter, booby? I ra-wished them both yesterday."

Brazen's rencounter with Worthy; their feroci ous intentions; their battle and no battle, with Lucy's method of diffipating the storm shew the author hard fet to accomplish his catastrophe, which is still more plainly evinced by Ballance's short interview with his steward; the remainder of this act

hurries on without any manner of spirit, humour, intricacy or furprize.

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To consider the plot of this comedy in general, we shall find it vague, unconnected, and depending on very low shifts, the fragment of a torn letter being a main instrument; one remarkable incongruity is, that Sylvia should appear in a fuit of her brother's cloaths before her father without difcovery, though we find, on the steward's bare mention of those cloaths, he immediately fees into the deception; Silvia's contrivance of being given to Plume as a recruit, is a pitiful, equivocal method of keeping her promise given in the second act, that she would never give herself away without her father's confent; Ballance's way of founding whether Plume is privy to the scheme, and the captain's generous method of discharging the supposed recruit, to oblige his friend, are circumstances of merit. All the under-plot of Lucy is a mere make-shift, and utterly contemptible.

Plume is an agreeable well drawn character; fenfible, easy and spirited; possessed of courage without being fond of shewing it; feeling to love yet free from amorous weakness, gallant but not vicious; liberal in sentiment, unaffected in expression, and difengaged in action; a credit to his author and a compliment to the army; confidered in this amiable light it is not to be wondered that so few performers hit him off happily in representation; the ease of an accomplished gentleman, and the milder virtues are much more difficult to exhibit pleasingly, than low humour, strong passions or fashionable vices-a very humane honest man may aflume successfully the tyrant or villain in full contrast to his own naVOL. I.

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ture; but it is impossible to put on the port and demeanour of a gentleman, unless the actor is really one, at least, in external appearance; the late Mr. PALMER was much respected in this part, and indeed for the drunken scene, deserved extensive applause; but in all the rest, had far too great a taint of the coxcomb, which was so very natural to him in private life, that he could hardly ever shake it off on the stage. Mr. RYAN, under the heavy disadvantages of advanced years and a most unfavourable voice, fupported the captain with characteristic spirit, but we must give Mr. SMITH an undoubted fuperiority for uniform ease, elegance and suitable vivacity; being the unaffected gentleman in private life, he is necessarily so on the stage; and it may with critical justice be faid, that he is both as much and as little of an actor in this part, as any one who ever undertook it.

Mr. LEE figured Plume extremely well, and had confiderable merit in performing it, but from laborious attempts, which are usual with him, to make more of the character than the author intended, he abated much of that pleasure the propriety of more spontaneous action must give in this part.

Brazen is very happily contrasted to his brother officer; free without ease, talkative without sense, vain without consequence, full of false fire, yet not without fome sparks of real courage; Farquhar in drawing this military coxcomb, has preserved due respect for the army; he has indeed rendered him ridiculous, but not contemptible; we may laugh

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at his follies, but cannot frown at his vices, for unless some few harmless invasions of truth, to flatter his own vanity, may be deemed vice, he does not appear to have any; as a gallant, he appears more venal than affectionate; as a companion, more diverting than rational, and as a man, more made up of unpremeditated whim, than fubtile design.

THE. CIBBER was by no means infipid in this part, but he often pleased upon wrong principles, particularly here; as he ran into the evident abfurdity of adding Abel Drugger's grimace to the elegant deportment of Foppington; both which are totally inconsistent with Brazen, and utterly incongruous to each other; the smart and the beau are each a diftinct species of foppery, and should be carefully marked.

Mr. WOODWARD, as in every thing he does, displays much pleasantry; yet, like the last mentioned gentleman, makes us laugh in contradiction to judgment, by using a fententious quaintness of expression instead of the precipitate, snip-snap, rhapsodical mode of utterance, as is plainly intended for the character; we must also lament, as we shall often have occasion to do, that so many of Harlequin's misplaced, pantomimical beauties should be transplanted with fuch unlimited luxuriance into the chaster scenes of comedy.

After saying thus much of two capital comedians, I hope it will not be thought partial to remark, that Mr. O'BRIEN's perfon, manner, and executive powers displayed the true je ne scai quoi of acting; and that criticism had very little left to wish for

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even on his first appearance, though a more ticklish part never fell to the lot of a young beginner.

Balance is a consistent, sensible, worthy countrygentleman, and, as drawn, much more becoming a commission of the peace than many real magistrates; in performance, no peculiar excellence can be expected; however, Mr. QUIN made him extremely respectable, and Mr. SPARKS was several degrees above any present competitor; many parts assist the actor, but this is one of a larger number which lie heavy on him; therefore doing it justice claims the greater merit.

Serjeant Kite, with moderate executive abilities, must please, as he speaks to the feelings in every line; there appears little difficulty in representation, and yet most, who have undertaken him, vary from ftrict propriety; some turn him into a noisy bully, and others into a subtle sycophant: that he is partly comprized of both we own, yet they should be fo blended that neither may visibly predominate; his cunning should foften his consequence, and felf. sufficiency render his art plausible. Mr. BERRYa good actor in some things was here heavy to a degree, Mr. ANDERSON quite infipid, nor is Mr. MORRIS, though nearer the mark by far, what we could wifh.

Bullock need not feek for a more adequate friend than Mr. DUNSTALL; as to the Recruits, they are laughable simpletons, that feldom fail of proper effect; to diftinguish any in these parts, where all we have feen are so much upon a level, would be partial, and setting down the whole would be giving an uaneceffary

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