Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/708

702 natural acting, his boyish eagerness to get away, his delighted adoption of the new idea which offers him a means of doing so, his comical despair when everything turns against him, are all extremely funny, and kept in perfect good taste by the actor, whose looks and manners are in entire accordance with his character, and who never exceeds the fooling that is permitted to a gentleman. Another most excellent performance is that of Mr Blakely, in the person of the fat and unctuous missionary, who keeps the ladies in subjection, and whose tone and look are in the best and highest style of not unamiable caricature, – broad as the farce demands, yet most comically within the possibilities of the character. These two excellent actors make the piece extremely amusing and worth seeing, especially as they never carry the farce into buffoonery.

The extremely ridiculous piece, which has the same motif, and deals with the substitution of one "Private Secretary" for another, is the reverse of this – a piece of buffoonery from beginning to end. It has filled the theatre for nights, and made the fortune of the young author and manager; but there is scarcely a redeeming feature in the farrago of nonsense which nevertheless continues to delight the public. The poor little curate, who is the butt of the piece, and whose ludicrous appearance with what he calls his "goods and chat-tells" – consisting of a bandbox, a bag, a rug, an umbrella, and a pair of goloshes – delights the audience, – is knocked about as Molière's unfortunate butts are knocked about in the first transition from the purely pantomimic plays of the primitive stage – though even the "Barbouillé" is a world above the Rev. Arthur Spalding. As a proof of the utter imbecility of the piece, the words above quoted – one of the choicest morceaux in the composition – are received nightly with shouts of laughter; and the curate's drawl of "Do you know," with which he begins every sentence, is drowned in shrieks of merriment from the audience. The unfortunate hero is knocked down, thrown out of the window, sat upon, pulled to pieces in every conceivable way, to the growing enthusiasm of the lookers-on. The only thing that can be said is, that the acting of two of the company is admirable. Mr Hill and Mr Penley make their parts individual and highly amusing; but it is a kind of degradation to two excellent actors to attain even a succés fou by such means.

The same thing is more or less true of "The Magistrate" at the Court, which is also a tissue of improbable situations redeemed by excellent playing. This is specially worth pointing out, as the author of the play has been complimented on all sides upon his knowledge of the stage and the construction of his piece, which repeats with more pretension the faults we have already pointed out – a motif quite inadequate and of the most ridiculous description, and incidents so farcical as to be scarcely above the horseplay of the most primitive efforts. Mr Posket, a police magistrate, has married a widow with a son by her previous marriage, and has been led by her to believe her age and that of her son to be five years less than they really are. This deceit the wife is very anxious to keep concealed, and on hearing of the arrival in London of an old Indian acquaintance who knows her real age, she goes in the evening to a café where he is dining to