his dominion. Mokarrah, in the Rajah's absence, determines very wisely, that his supposed son shall marry the Emperor of Delhi's daughter: she has set her affections upon some one else, and will not consent to the match. Mokarrah is very obstinate, and determines the match shall take place. There is an Englishman of the name of Jack Robinson, who is servant to Mordaunt, an Englishman in the service of the Rajah, who does not like these proceedings. Jack Robinson has read Robinson Crusoe, and nothing else, and is smitten with a desire to imitate Crusoe in every thing. A plan is formed, somehow or other, that the Rajah shall be informed of the proceedings going on in his absence; and he arrives in time to prevent the marriage between his supposed son and the heir-apparent of the Empire of Delhi. He then discloses that his son is a daughter, whom he had imposed upon his subjects as a son, because the law required him to sacrifice all of his female posterity. Mokarrah then excommunicates the Rajah, unless he gives up his daughter to his entire controul. Mokarrah takes her to the temple of Juggernaut; and there she is delivered from his thraldom, by an attack being made upon him by the Rajah and the Brahmin's own troops, whom Mordaunt, by a speech, much in Jack Fuller's style, had in a moment converted to Christianity. This sudden conversion is laughable enough; but there is laughable matter in the piece more than we can advert to. We say at once, that we think the piece a disgrace to the Theatre-Royal. We smile disdainfully upon the people of London for patronising such pieces as this, and call them Cockneys, and call ourselves Modern Athenians. The applause bestowed upon this piece last night was unbounded; and we think it time to admonish our fellow-citizens, though they themselves are the worst Cockneys: they should disuse the term at least. The first scene is very grand, so was the last. Cook's brutes are pretty enough, though, generally speaking, they have the marks of servility about them. They took the stair-case remarkably well; but in the course of the play we did not see one of them lodging; that they could not do, though exercised since November last in almost every Irish Theatre. To shew the sagacity of one of them, a scene in Lodowiska was introduced, where a horse takes up in its mouth a standard. In this piece the standard had to be thrust into the horse's main. It is not a little extraordinary, that in the Liverpool Advertiser of Saturday last, we should see Mr. Cook advertised to appear there in the Circus upon Monday, while, in point of fact, he appeared here last night. Mr. Usher was advertised to appear in Liverpool last Monday, and here last night; and in our bills, we see a Mr. Crossman, who has been "food for worms" these some years past. Gentlemen desirous of possessing this Publication, may have it delivered at their houses, by leaving their Address with the Publisher. Our Publisher has Published the Drama of Cherry and Fair Star at the small charge of Sixpence. All Communications (Post Paid) for the Editor, addressed to the Publisher, will be immediately attended to. PUBLISHED DAILY BY J. L. HUIE, 14, INFIRMARY ST Theatre-Ropal. This Evening will be performed, the Comedy of THE HEIR-AT-LAW. Daniel Dowlas, alias Lord Duberly, Mr. Mackay. Deborah Dowlas, alias Lady Duberly, Mrs. Nicol. After which will be performed, for the 2d Time in this Theatre, the Melo-Dramatic Spectacle, originally produced at the TheatreRoyal, Drury Lane, and entitled, The CATARACT OF THE GANGES, OR THE RAJAH'S DAUGHTER. Ackbar, Emperor of Delhi, Mr. Faulkner. Jam Saheb, Rajah of Guzzerat, Mr. Lynch. Mokarrah, Grand Bramin of the Jahrejah Tribe, Mr. Calcraft. Iran, a Young Warrior, Mr. Pritchard. Mordaunt, an English Officer, Mr. Denham-Mokayee, Mr. Mason. Jack Robinson, Servant to Mordaunt, Mr. Stanley. Ambassador, Mr. Wynn The First Brahmin, Mr. Smith. Mahratta Chief, Mr. Rae. Officers, Messrs. Duff, Hillyard, Miller, Power, Aikin, J. Stanley, and M'Gregor. The Princess Dessa, Daughter to the Emperor, Miss Eyre. Matali, a Peasant, Mrs. Nicol Ulra, her Daughter, Miss Nicol. EQUESTRIANS, BY MR. COOKE, Messrs. Woolforde, Evans, Bell, Buck, Thomson, Crossman, Caledonian Theatre. This Evening will be performed, The BOMBASTES FURIOSO. THE CATARACT OF THE GANGES. Supported by Mr. Powell's Stud of Fourteen Horses, The Characters in this piece are the same as that in the Theatre-Royal, with the difference of the Performers names. Dramatic Review. "....Good, my Lord, will you see the Players well bestowed ?— My Lord, I will use them according to their desert." SHAKSPEARE. No. CCCXLVI. SATURDAY, FEB. 21, 1824. Vol. VII. R Theatre-Ropal. THE HEIR-AT-LAW.-This comedy, though Mason has no part in it, is exceedingly well calculated to exhie bit the comic strength of the company to advantage. We have repeatedly entered our protest against Mackay ap-s pearing in genteel comedy. The part of Lord Duberly, however, is dashed with so much vulgarity, and has so much bonhommie, as to be peculiarly adapted to Mackay's good, but limited capacities. We have heard it objected to Stanley's Pangloss, that he does not, like Fawcett, give his quotations and hem aloud, but aside. Unless we are to suppose Pangloss to be a fool as well as a knave, d Stanley is decidedly right. His knavery is embodied and shewn forth to the audience in those quotations; and the hems which follows is specially designed to slur them over. Murray's Zekiel Homespun is the finest piece of acting upon the stage; and Lynch's Kenrick is admirable. There is a visible improvement in Pritchard's Dick Dowlas. THE CATARACT OF THE GANGES.-This is the only new piece produced by Mr. Murray, besides that moni strosity, The Father and Son, which we have not strenu ously supported; and the reasons of our opposition,+ though not many, are substantial. We detest the mean,s pitiful spirit which prompted the getting of it up. Heq first brings out the antiquated piece of Cherry and Fair Star, when he might as readily have brought out The Cataract of the Ganges; and he produces that piece now only for the purpose of competing with the Caledonian, and crushing it with the weight of his opposition. Secondly, we consider the Theatre-Royal degraded by equestrian exhibitions. Can a more humiliating spectacle be imagined, than that of a crowd of rational bengs shouting with delight at seeing a horse dancing a hornpipe-a feat, by the bye, which any horse may be made to perform by a good rider, who has strength of arm and makes use of a double bridle? Few, indeed, of the audience know what horsemanship is; but they are delighted with the discovery, that horses are endowed with about as great a portion of reason as themselves. Mr. Murray has really no apology for his conduct in the taste of the public. Such exhibitions may attract some; but they shame many more away from the Theatre. It will scarcely be denied by Murray himself, that the performances of Vandenhoff drew ten to the house for one that Cherry and Fair Star did; and, in the face of that fact, what pretence has he for, exhibiting quadrupeds? As for the piece itself, it is the worst horse piece we have yet seen, as Timour the Tartar is undoubtedly the best and the first of its kind. Jack Robinson, we allow, though a mere creature of fancy, is an agreeable humourist of the English breed; and Mokarrah is a sketch of considerable vigour but all the other characters are superlatively trifling. There is no room for much display of equestrian sagacity; at least Cook's stud display very little. They are beautiful animals; and, in noticing them, we must correct a mistake made in yesterday's Number, where it is stated that they bear the marks of servility about them, when senility was the word intended. Many of them, too, look as being either very hard wrought or indifferently fed; but then they are tolerably well trained to the stage, and perform their evolutions with respectable accuracy. scenery is peculiarly grand; and the machinery is worked in a style of precision which reflects no little credit upon Mr. Murray's abilities. It gives us no pain to see, that the piece is likely to receive but slender encouragement; and we shall conclude our remarks with a very appropriate quotation from The Rejected Addresses "Hence, pedant nature! with thy Grecian rules, Here hooted grooms usurp Apollo's place. Hoofs shame the boards that Garrick used to grace; The stage a stable-yard-a jockey-club the pit." |