The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-29 00:00:00

HAYMARKET.

Atter the new dramatic entertainments, both of
which seemed even to improve on their previous
success, a new ballet was introduced at the Hay-
market yesterday evening, in which the talents of
the whole of the Leclercq family were brought into
play. Being called " The Oddities of the Ohio," the
reader will have little difficulty in guessing what it
was about. Old Dan Tucker and his pretty daugh-
ters, Ohio boatmen anxious to run away with them,
and negro " helps" ready to assist the hopeful pro-
ject, and dance with most extraordinary contortions
through every difficulty. The dancing of Miss Louise
Leclercq was exceedingly clever, not only as danc-
ing but as character dancing, and showed that this
graceful and gifted young lady uses her head a little
as well as her heels in the practice of the popular
art. Her two brothers made capital negroes, and
danced those wonderful movements which we are
told are indigenous to the cane-brakes, with sur-
passing agility and comic effect. The ballet, taken
altogether, is a lively Whitsuntide entertainment,
but a few cuts from the pantomimic portion would
make the really good dancing go off with greater
briskness and more sustained success.

The entertainments here last evening commenced
with a new comedietta in two acts, on behalf of
which we cannot, " with the very best intentions,"
to quote the cant phrase of one of its personages,
find much to say. A more absurd or an idler con-
junction of stale incidents and the cheap second-
hand materials of farcical effect, has not very often
been seen. The plot, if such a confused story can
be so called, is indeed so far original that it is
more unnatural than almost any other stage
conception yet represented of probable events in
the London life of the present day. In this play,
which bears the title of " Appearances," there is a
young fellow, a snob in mind and manners, who,
having had a fortune left him, changes his name of
Tommy Puff for that of Montgomery de Courcy
Plantagenet, and purchases an old-fashioned por-
trait, warranted by the picture-dealer for a genuine
" Holbein," to make believe it is that of a noble
ancestress of his own family. The portrait has
been seen in the shop by an interesting pair of
young ladies, Mrs. Mowbray, a rich widow, and
her cousin, Miss Cecilia, who recognise it
as the likeness of a deceased female relative,
mother to the second, and aunt to the first.
They come to buy it, and are referred
to Mr. Puff, who is coxcomb enough to fancy
they are both in love with him. The mysterious
deceased lady had also a baby son, who was en-
trusted to an unprincipled nurse, and somehow mis-
laid " on a doorstep in Doughty-street," A wicked
old man, guardian to the two ladies, who was privy
to making away with the infant for the sake of his
inheritance, is led to fear that in gallant Thomas
Puff will be discovered the long-lost boy. Hence
some tampering with the dismal old woman, for-
merly the nurse, and now the housekeeper, " all
unbeknownst," at Puff's lodgings. Two genteeler
men, an artist and an accomplished barrister, ena-
moured respectively of the two fair cousins, come
in to cross the pretensions of Mr. Montgomery Plan-
tagenet Puff. It would be tedious to describe the
inconsistent and not very intelligible mistakes and
accidental detections that ensue. The upshot of it
all is that, by the agency of May Marigold, a slighted
poor cousin of Tom Puff's, the mislaid orphan is
found in the person of Mr. Vincenti the deserving
young Templar, who obtains Mrs. Mowbray's hand,
whilst her cousin makes the artist, Mr. Florid,
equally happy; and the luckless Puff, having been
thrashed, and snubbed, and bullied in a variety of
ways, at last condescends to requite May Marigold's
affection. The dialogue is poor, abounding only
with tedious repetitions of the same verbal blun-
ders and misapplied phrases, with which, however,
the gallery audience was diverted to the end ; and
as the good Vicar of Wakefield remarks, " if there
was less wit, there was all the more laughing." Mr.
Clarke, in the character of Tom Puff, was broadly
humorous and funny enough ; Miss Baton ap-
peared as the elegant widow. The author of the
piece was called for, and announced to be Mr.
Palgrave Simpson.