blunder of going to
Naples instead of Dublin, mistakes Vesuvius for the hill of Hoath, is
the most laughable character of the piece. What could be done for it
Hardinge did. A song of his was spoiled by the neglect of the band,
whose conduct deserved reprehension from the manager.

The Lady of the Rock is the production of Holcroft. Had he not himself
given it to the world as his own, we should have thought it a libel upon
his understanding to ascribe it to his pen.

No pantomime has ever made so deep and so universal an impression as Don
Juan. The merit of the original belongs to the celebrated Moliere.
Averse on principle to pantomime, we have often felt ourselves indebted
to it for relief from the drowsiness induced by some modern plays; but
that perhaps was more owing to the badness of the play than the value of
the pantomime. Of all pantomimes Don Juan is the most blamable. It is
good in its kind, but the kind _is bad_.

THIRD WEEK.

_Monday, Dec._ 4. SPEED THE PLOUGH--ELLA ROSENBERG.

The comedy of Speed the Plough is deservedly reckoned among the best of
the modern stock, and considered as reflecting great credit upon the
muse of Mr. Morton. The plot is very skilfully mixed up, notwithstanding
the difficulty that always must attend carrying on, in connection with
each other, two interests of a totally distinct and opposite nature,
connecting two contradictory agencies without either encroaching on the
other, and conducting an alternation of serious and comic scenes to one
end, without making them clash. This Mr. Morton has, to a considerable
degree, successfully accomplished; making that which occasions the
difficulty subservient to one of the most desirable but arduous ends in
dramatic writing, that of concealing the final unravelling or
denouement, as it is called, of the plot.

A striking beauty in this play, and the more striking because seldom met
with, is the fidelity with which some of the characters are drawn from
life; not as it is found in a solitary individual, but as it appears in
a whole numerous class. Such is farmer Ashfield--such is dame Ashfield.
Yet the characters in general are not very impressive, and there are
some inconsistencies in them as well as in the arrangement of the
incidents. A young lady's suddenly, and at first sight, falling in love
with a peasant boy, though it may have happened, is an occurrence too
singular to be perfectly natural; and as a dramatic incident, it is