The Express.
London, England, 1857-12-28 00:00:00

HAYMARKET.

It is just seventeen jeers since Madame Vestris
astonished the hialitair of Covent Garden Theatm by the
spondee/ and sompletenass with which she produced the fairy
loth of the Sleepily Beauty as a burlesque. The fair lessee
thin at the height of her reputation and in the
maturity of her Manly, gem in the character of the heroine
their full point and sparkle to the refined drolleries of
Manche—the unctuous Bland threw all hie oleaginous dig-
nity into the part of the King of No-land—and Harley also
had the funniest of characters, the name of which we forget;
but it is of no oonsequenor, sa, whatever might be the name;
the nature and manner wee always unmistakeably Harley-an
and nothing else. What a change in s few years I The fair
sleeper of the woods has since then gone to her eternal reel;
the temple of her triumphs, after many vicissitude*,
bas been liaised to the ground ; and the troops of lithesome
young fairies, whom nobody knew better than Vestris how •
to select, have, moat probably, all attained Lae matronly
dignity, become the proud mothers of whole families of young
Wm, end in their own persons attained the respectable
ammo ef thirteen stone avoirdupois or thereabouts. The
eplathersr of the burlaps* of that day the blooms • tradi-
tion el the piss room, and therefore it showed some moral
mere. eis the part of Mr. llockatome again to wake up the
Ihnews illsepiwg Beauty from one of her long tam and
mike her do duty in the year of grace MIL as the heroine
Mlle Caria's& pententhall. On compariog the libretti of the
Uwe plass% a perms of particularly options nature might be
Withal ft seeped that the Haymarket manager had
porldbly leaked into the Covent-garden manuscript
bake dieing down to write his own, but we mot do him
thejosties to my that, Hen it has only been that he might
eller every word the more oarefolly, and religiously expunge
el the ha sod sparkle which made the &apex; Brody
• MA as intellectual treat as wells a most gorge°. pec-
toris. It is bathing new in either ancient or modern liters-
ten tor rival great dramatic writers to seiss on the same
esbject, and to treat It each scolding to his own fashion ;
and why not Bookstalls, es wall se &Omits or Euripides,
at Corinth* or Hering? Of direct plagiarism we give him a
doll acquittal, as then le not a line of his pantomime which
geoid be mistaken for one in Planchi's burlesque, if we ex-
empt the emphatic " Cock-s-doodle•do," with which the
eiriennies hanquet is interrupted in both piocea. Taking
▪ grented that every word of the original fairy
tale :le " household," that the recollection of the
Commt-prien tnelesqua bee not yet died out amongst
tbia eider playgoers, and that the young generation
which the intervening seventeen years have raised up, will
be bast plemed to watch the development of the story chem-
ists's', we shall only my that in The Sleepiwy Beauty its
tole Weed which Lams this year's Christmas Pantomime
et the Haymarket, the original story is textually loam&
swept that the elms i trensdarred from Nn-Lod to the
squally isopertent kleckso of dpindledom, the whole royeby
M which will, no &sob% be MEd carefully set demo la the
admasec de Goths, whet aitheal camodele et the borlseges
' mimarclus* • of Terstside Zunge. The re* baby le la dee

foam MEd, manifest In the royal emery, earthily tried by
her three nurses, Mesdames thump, Betsey Prig. and. Minis,
when the latter unfortunately attempt to "WON =mike
mimed by excesstve watchfulness, with copious pastime
et tea mode after the approved Nkkleby receipt, and thus allow
the malignant fairy to aims In and eases her spells over their
%het charge. Bat there sever was • whited fairy
to do mischief bet there wee • good Airy to counteract
her, and so, while Venoms plots mischief, Brightens pro-
vides antidotes, end thus the struggle ems cm from the Royal
merry to Fairy Lend, with its sam phis cliffs, thence to the
banqueting ball of silver oakum," on through Cloudlend
end No-roan's-land, in the air, end under the earth, with
abort intervals of • hundred years or thereabouts—which. by
the way, the emus shifters seemed bent upon teething as
ma es possible—until at led we all find 0111114116, nobody
to dearly tell how, or why, in " The Oda. Ono of the
Bens Fairies," with their glorious "marsatithe ineder
refulgent with coloured light. Tien the magic eremil
Brighteyes, by dint of patient waving, at length induces*,
most obetinats of menery to change, and we land ea
Dover New Pier, where Harlequin, Pantaloon, awl
Clown are seen worthily emulating the well Mares
ihrocity of the Gime of bar llebtetre meter
by turning every hapless piesenger who leads inside out, In
the err& for coon-lathed luggage. The bedequinede Shit
him is much above the average. Mr. Arthur leriereg,
___reed as • Beet appearance, le a real harlequin, tell if
pees sed agility, who demise kegs. end postures is
wrap of this peleth e days of Ids aria hr leather
worthily emulates him as downs sad Mr. Mackay, a peel
tiler, tams his blows, We, end ether sit erica terments,
with ell the eddies of an American Indian or • fineten
boy. Mies Louise leclurq, the . fliesping Bratty," mother
drat appearance at the Haymarket, made a dealdelly
favourable Irapremion on the audience. She Is yaws*.
era- favoured, and gifted with an almost elsetric
vivacity. She delivered her &elegise la the erring with
peed and peepriety, sad danced through the herlisquindle
with untlegglag gram end oda Mee Penny Wright theie
es 'tailed columbine, and the red of the innumerable
direetetit prams got up rows, *yid tricks, and did the
ether . bieleme" in • very creditable end Isugbler-modng
mow. There me • good meay kicks, bed in the ma-
jority of instances the kw Wee led la the damp of the'
machinery, • fault which, hewer.,, will be remedied In
Attars repreethistioes. Oa the whay we ere Inclined to
think that the pantomime will psis make with the juvenile
silence, and that Mr. Beirkstons will led that his laboor
ha net he.. ti vats, hot should he lave to empetulate
Wardf en that consummation of meesgsrld Ella, • long sad
pregame "run,' he will owe much of his good fortune to
Mr. Wood, who the painted for the deco some of hi. bast
liedempos, and in the pest trenalimetioe some has
entabliehed • reputation in a branch of the sit upon which
he bed not previously ventured. The golden penes of the
bilsina, with their antersothiete edema form • meth es nr
workable for the aided., of Ile eonesplion, es far the
beauty and splendour of Ito enemata'. It wee recehod with
thunders of applause, and the modem east wee obliged
evidesally with greet reluctance—to come le the foritaltds
. _

mid mean theicemers of an nestles Mr. EuelaleatTled
him firth with m each gallantry se if he wen the ample'
Meaty boassi{ god evidently rejoyed the triumph et his eel-
beget as iteseigy self it had been Ida own. Taking the plus
eltogether, eadgiers, the grate and eveetty ofXlse Legere,
sad the agility of her seek brothers, the kesatal smog
of Mr. Caret, mitt a little wholesome eompressite is the
dialogue of the introduction and the " hears" of the pan-
tomime, we think we may fairly ea down the Bimetal
peatotaime se one of the moat promising acoveltiss of the
Berea.