The National Register.
London, England, 1809-12-24 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

nEc. N.

On the opening of the second act, some very obliging
domestics of sir. "t'ransient's household, inform us that
their master having made his fortune, has retired to one or
the modern fashionable squares, where amidst the noise of
routs, drums, and hurricanes, and the din of fops, sharpers,
and ladies of quality, he contrives to forgct his hini:bie
origin; whilst his nephew, Mr. George Transient mixing
in, and courted by fashionable society, is infected with a
rage for being a man of business, and by dint of offers of pa-
tronage, and promises of assistance, continues to be followed
by a crowd, and to have ten thousand things to do, whiiit
doing nothing. -.41r. Transient, the vulgar imitator of
high life, the deceitful friend, the treacherous guardian,
the half formed villain, and the dupe of a sharping min nf
quality, is here as ably pourfrayed by DowTos, as such a
character will admit of, yet as what it wants of nature
must be mae up of caricature, it fails to strike, teen in
the hands o Mn. DowTos; a very short passa,?..e, brings
Mr. Sidney to England, whose sudden arrival, induces Tran-
sient to hurry Young Torringham off, in order to join his
ship for a foreign station ; but Miss forringham hastening
to town, to take leave of her brother, is rescued by Sidney
from he broken down stage-coach,whilst the ('ountess,whona
from her deficiency of maiden bashfulties.s, we suppose, must
)1m a youug widow, endeavours, by her marked encourage-
ment, to drawforth a declaration of love from the young sea
1 Soldier, and of course to delay his departure. With these ma-
ineuvres, the tricks of Old Transient to escape detection, and
of the young one to deceive his uncle, the w itticisins of Balily-
moony, and some bungling attempts at situation, this and
the third act lingered on the scene; but as George Tran-
sieni takes up the trade of fortune telling-, and thoreby de-
s elopes the whole of the little plot, if plot it can be cal-
led, " that shape had none," the spectator is left to won-
der at what can be found to fill up the measure of the
acts. After many meagre attempts at bustle, Young
fronsient by a violent exertion writes and seals five letiers,
at a coffee-house, and then falls asleep, a opera Lon in
which he would certainly base been joined by a :;1 e.: t pro-
portion of the audience, had ii not been for the loud his-
ses of the remainder. This doze, which lasts as long as
Mr. Sidney's passage from Hamburgh, to England, is again
exhibited at the opening of the fourth ;let ; and sonic un-
lucky wits observed, thai the author bad a happv knack
at making his audience sleep during the acts, and his per-
formers between them. 'transient, however, directs his
letters, and the expected equivoque from his blunder pro-
duces a scene which we presume the author considered as a
finished one; happy indeed should we have been, if it had
finished the piece. The fifth act presents us with Baron
Brandenburg in all the Austrian costume of 1% iskers, tas-
sels, &c. &c. this part was performed by 11 A sisio sn, who
towered so much above his fellow c, that on his first an-
nouncement, a wag in the pit, exclaimed " you are wrong,
'tic Baron Brobdignag !" Him we soon discover to be
Major Torringham in disguise, but why or wherefore,
would puzzle the EMPEROR OF THU CONJURORS to tell US ;
7ve find, indeed, that some clums)notions of the point of
honour, prompt him 'o produce ~ilfrrd who is now disco-
v;ered to be Mr. Sid:try, a determination which a:rords the
author some very fine common place observations against
duelling; so at last (as story-tellers say,) all is cleared up,
the duelist and the roguish merchant are converted, and
becorhe peaceable and honest members of society, the busy
man of business is quieted by a wife, and the bashful ma-
rine officer is led to the altar by the civil Countess !

To sum up all in one sentence, the plot is trillitr;, and
easily seen through, the business of the stage is spun out
into tiresomeness, the language is humble, except where
interlarded with commonplace and claptrap s, the s►tnations
are forced, and the cquivoque is nothing more than elninsy
blunders; in fact, we are fully convinced that nothing.
'Lved the piece hut the acting of MATTut.ws, much or
which was overdone; nor do we think that it would
have survived its autiouncemen! fur a st•cond represeutat►u►),