The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

283

TAs Speteh ef the Bari V Shselesbunt, March 1011 s.
Murray.
SPeceher stclic•Ttsl is the House (!1* Colonions,oo the Turkish
Qur.ijon , Ity A. 11. Lu;%ttal, Esq., M.P. Murray.
The Potato Disease; its Origio, .Natetw, and ('use. Hon.
(inuitley Berkeley. Longman and Co. '.
fat giraM3.,' '-'•!- :;:.,-;-- '.',.. ..
•
HAY MARICI"T ItitATltE. .
Willikind and hys I)innh it Sn'ittempt to take ad-- '
vantage of the present popularity of a song which has
already been popular and forgotten five or six times
over, and to introduce in a new dress the time-
honoured story of cruel parents and broken-hearted
lovers. The piece is worked out with but little
variety. 111 r. Corti, the stern father, raves and sings
parodies; Mr. Buckstoue, the disagreeable pretender,
raves and sings parodies ; Mrs. Fitzwilham, Miss
Howard, Mrs. Caulfield.-llituih, Wiliikitul, and the
fond mother—all rave and sing parodies. With this
is mingled a variety of hits at the topics of the day,
more or less successint The thing is, in fact, a frag-
ment of a burlesque, put up without any framing, -
and when there was already another burlesque in the
bills. We would fain have one thing or the other, ~
and cannot quite approve of a morsel of a burlesque •''
served up instead of a farce. Fur the relit it. was
well sung and acted. The hest part was the death of
Lima, who laid herself out amid the cabbages, .
labelled her bosom, put on her nightcap, and poi-
soned '.
herself with British brandy cooled with W
ham ice, after a very amusing fashi' - /1•;.
. , . - .. • •
PRINCESS'S. .s .7 . • . ,
Wit cannot afford space upon our critiell,Wheal,.to • •
break such a fly as the new farce, A Storm in a Tea-
cup, produced last Monday at this theatre. We will '
content ourselves with stating that the pains and
energy with which Mr. and Mrs. Walter Lacy act
very indifferent parts will probably succeed in making •
this piece the stopgap for whi. . Aiia, qh : • • ie...,' • --
Am .
• -," -
tended by the management. - -
.. , '
APELPItt: ''' 44. '.l" 1"'
AN " Adelphi " melodrama of the genuine sort is a
wonderful thing and eke a good thing; and o aof .
the wonderfullest and best is the specimen produced .:
on Monday night, front the pens of Mt. Tim kylor
and Mr. C. Reade, under the title of Two Loves avid
a Life. That the play should be crammed full bf
.:
incidents, and that the incidents should be of the •
most sharply-contrasted, thrillingly-interesting cna-
racter, is a matter of Adelphi necessity. That the
characters should be numerous, comprising all the
most popular members of the Aelelpht company, and
bringing into play their most popular peculiarities, is
a dictate of managerial prudence. The new melo
drama, like its predecessors, fulfils both of these condi-
tions,
and much besides ; for, unlike most of its
predecessors, it contains nothing that violates nature, - -
outrages probability, or shocks taste, but presents a'
coherent, well-developed plot, worked out through a
succession of well- devised scenes depicted in lan-
guage
at once powerful and dramatic. The authors
of Two Loves and a L(ji have done much to rescuak-
the melodrama from the abyss of coarse effects , ,
vulgar horrors into which it was falling. Nor is'
their least merit that they,have done this without - -
either borrowing a French plot or—what is even
worse—infusing a French sentiment into their play ,
Our limits will permit us to give but the bare ske
ton of the story which the melodramatiets Zia
dressed and tinted so brilliantly. The two "loves" -
are those of the daughter, Ann, of a village post-
master,
and Ruth, his orphan protegee. The " life" ~
is that of Gervase Rokewood, a Jacobite gentlem ..
who is found, when the piece opens, living in '
guise on the coast of Lancashire, in company with
the Jesuit, Father Redeliffe, watching for and co-
operating with the Pretender's march into England -•
in the fatal year of the battle of Culloden. The
postmaster is a regular O. Smith-villain, and played
by 0. Smith capitally, who contrives to discover and
denounce the disguised Jacobites, in which perfor- -
mance he is assisted by a comic schoolmaster, whose
character, though quite subordinate to the mein
action of the drama, affords some excellent oppor •
tunities for Mr. Keeley. Both Ann and Ruth, as treks e
said, have fallen desperately in love with Ro • ' ' ••
They know of their rivalry, and, in a capital -
resolve to turn it into a mutual emulation who shag •
serve, or preserve, him best. Of course their endow. •
yours do but result (until the end of the drama) in
increasing his dangers and distresses, insomuch that
Rokr7road is captured, tried, condemned, married (to
Ann), and brought out on Tower-hill for execution.
Ruth, however, has previously rescued the Duke of
Cumberland and his regiment from the perils of a
fog and a rising tide, receiving in recompense .
of those rings so common in melodrama that
the giver to return the service in any wa
time it may be claimed. This ring ' ' _
Ruth so dextronely as to secure a pardon Tar
Roketrood, which, after a sharp struggle between I
love and despair on discovering his union with her
rival, she displays just in time to arrest the fall cf :