The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-21 00:00:00

HAYMARKET THEATRE.

Mr. Macready appeared last evening as Othello,
" for the last time previously to his final representa-
tion of that character." ?Jr. Macready's very fine
personation of the jealous Moor fully merited a re-
petition of all the eulogies which it has so often re-
ceived and deserved. His rez.-diug of the character
from first to last was most impressive and effective.
Mr. Davenport's lago was a very creditable perform-
ance. The gentle Desdemona found a very pretty
and pleasing representative in Miss Reynolds ; and
Mrs. Warner's Emilia, especially in the last scene, was
excellent. Mr. Macready received, at the close of the
play, the usual ovation before the curtain : a compli-
ment which was afterwards extended to Mr. Daven-
port, Mrs. Warner, and Miss Reynolds. The house
was crowded to excess in every part.

SADLERS' WELLS THEATRE.
The chef d'ireuvre of John Webster, the Duchess of
Malfi, was revived here last evening. It hae.been
adapted to the exigencies of the modern stage by Mr.
R. H. Horne, who has exhibited a reverential regard for
the magnificent work of ono of our finest old dramatists
in the alterations which he has found it necessary to
make in order to adapt a tragedy, originally pro-
duced in 1612, to the tastes of an audience of
1850; indeed, he has been almost too reve-
rential, and we could have wished that he had
altogether omitted the fifth act (in itself an anti-climax)
or greatly altered the denouement, so as to have avoided
the almost burlesque termination of the play, in which
all the principal characters left surviving (the Duchess,
it will be recollected, is murdered in the fourth act) kill
one another. The plot of this work is simple to the
last degree, but the author has filled it with horror, men-
tal and physical, to its extreme complement. The Duchess
of Amalfi, in Italy (corrupted to "Malfi"), secretly mar-
ries her own steward; and her brothers, a prince and a
cardinal, by means of a hired miscreant, deliberately
murder her, as a punishment for the stain on the
family honour. Prior to her death, however, they
visit her with a series of moral tortures. She is
made to see a wax figure, which she takes for
the corpse of her husband ; all the inmates of a
madhouse are turned loose about her to terrify her with
their horrible antics, a funeral dirge is sung over her
while she is still living, and at last her windpipe is closed
by the fatal cord. The scene in which this banquet of
horrors is presented is the most renowned in the
piece, and here we may cite the comment of Charles
Lamb, one of the most admiring of Webster's
critics. He says, " All the several parts of the
dreadful apparatus with which the Duchess's death
is ushered in are not more remote from the con-
ceptions of ordinary vengeance than the strange cha-
racter of suffering .which they seem to bring upon
their victim is beyond the imagination of ordinary poets.
As they are not like inflictions of this life, so her
language seems not of this world. She has lived among
horrors till she is become ' native and endowed unto
that element.' She speaks the dialect of despair, her
tongue has a swatch of Tartarus and the souls in bale.
What are Luke's iron crown,' the brazen bull of Pha-
laris, Procruste's bed, to the waxen images which coun-
terfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the
tombmaker, the bellman, the living person's dirge,
the mortification by degrees? To move a horror
skilfully, to touch a soul; to,the quick, to lay upon fear
as much as it can bear, to wear and weary a life till it is
ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments
to take its last forfeit—this only a Webster can do.
Writers of'an inferior genius may upon horrors' head
horrors accumulate,' but they cannot do this. They
mistake quantity for quality, they 'terrify babes with
painted devils,' but they know not how a soul is capable
of being moved; their terrors want dignity,
their affrightments are without decorum." The
play is :well :put :upon 'the stage and is very
strongly cast ; Miss Glynn personating the Duchess;
Mr. Phelps Ferdinand, and Mr. G. Bennett, Bosola.
In the earlier scenes with the Steward, Miss Glynn acted
the part as a light comedy one, exhibiting quite a
spirit of coquetry, and was, as it struck us, in all
the earlier scenes of the play, indeed, up to the
conclusion of the third act, somewhat deficient in
dignity. The scene in which she parts with
her children, at the conclusion of the third act,
was very finely given, and the whole of the fourth act
was acted with terrific earnestness. Mr. Phelps was
very fine in Ferdinand—we have seldom seen the ago-
nies of remorse more finely depicted; and Mr. G. Ben-
nett, as Bosola, was perfect. Taken as a whole, Bosola
was the best acted character of the play. The applause
was enthusiastic, and at the conclusion all the principal
artistes were called on, and there were loud calls for Mr.
Horne. The house was crowded.

ST. MARTIN'S HALL.
MONTHLY CONCERTS.

Mr. Hullah commenced, last evening, a series
of monthly concerts (to consist of eight) in the
large room of the new building in Long-acre, called
St. Martin's Hall. The audience was numerous, and
decidedly of a less mixed character than is now
usually met with at public concerts. It was re-
markably of the style called " fashionable," a style
which was not only evident in the general aspect of
the company, but sustained with unvaried consis-
tency throughout the whole of the entertainment.
Whilst no passage of peculiar beauty was de-
nied a due recognition, still there was not
any break in the refined smoothness of a watch-
ful, but almost silent criticism, by even one
burst of loud (not to speak of enthusiastic) approba-
tion. The performance was in every part perfect,
the works selected faultless, the auditory (without the
exception of an individual or an instant) satisfied, de-
lighted, but evenly content with that satisfaction
Sand
delight, and utterly thoughtless of any conventional
obligation to express refined pleasure in boisterous
acclamation.

The first part comprised only Beethoven's Mass in
C major, of which, after the manner in which it was
produced last night, it would be a very pardonable
slight, even to Haydn, to pronounce it the finest
mass now extant. Indeed, it is difficult to
think, on a brief consideration, of any sen-
tence in the whole range of sacred music so
forcibly expressive of faith, awe, and mystery, as the
sublime transition in the " Crede" to the important
words " Genitum non facturn." The magnificent
phrase was magnificently given, and a feeling audi-
ence manifested its profound sympathy with an in-
tensity which could not be expressed by any rude
applause. The 'vocalists Miss Birch, Mrs. Noble,
Mr. Lockey, and Mr. Bodda, together with Mr.
Hullah's pupil choristers, and the entire orchestra,
acquitted themselves in a manner altogether worthy
of this noble subject, and their cultivated audience.
The second part of the concert was Handers powerful
but somewhat monotonous reduction of Milton's
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to choral music, in
which was introduced a new vocalist iss
iCearns
a debutante who promises to rank'
high the musical world, ana do justice
to the reputation of her distinguished father,
the late William Henry Kearns,'! an orchestral com-
poser, whose least elaborate works constitute some
of the most attractive portions of those nightly con-
certs which attract the greatest crowds in this most
musical season. Miss Kearne's voice is soprano, of
fine quality, pre-eminently clear, sweet, and pure,
and her execution in a rare degree even and unforced.
In the several recitatives and airs allotted to her she
sustained to perfection the precision, accuracy, and
harmonic truth which characterised the whole per-
formance, and reflected upon the conductor, Mr.
Hullah, the highest possible credit. The success of
Miss Kearns was more like that of an established

favourite and mistress of song than of an unknown
candidate at a musical reception. The other vocal
Darts wera admirably sustained by Miss Birch, Mr.
Lockey, and Mr. Bodda, who was honoured with the
only encore which interrupted the refined suavity of
the evening.