The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

SURREY THEATRE.

Last night, after the interesting and effective drama
of Stella Bitters(lorf, the Captiee of Silesia, a new
piece in two acts, illustrative of Dickens' much-
admired recent work, called A Christmas Carol, or
the Miser's Warning, was played to a numerous
audience. This attempt to bleed the gay with the
serious was altogether a novelty, and the house was
filled with curious and eager spectators. Although
the construction of the drama is in some respects at
variance with the usual business of the stage, in con-
sequence of the introduction of theology, it neverthe-
less contains comic and joyous scenes, which keep the
audience in a roar of laughter. The design is to
eulogise Christmas hospitality, and expose the selfish-
ness of the niggardly persons who, from mercenary
motives, would check, and even annihilate, the hap-
piness which Christmas festivities bring to all classes.
The first act opens with the miser, Ebenezer Scrooges,
counting-house in the City, on Christmas Eve. He
refuses the invitation of his nephew to dine on
Christmas-day, and with difficulty pays his clerk
Bob Cratchet (Vale) his week's salary of fifteen shil-
lings. Spurning all sorts of seasonable happiness, which
he calls humbug, he falls asleep by a miserable
expiring fire. His dream then begins. The Ghost
of Old Christmas (Lewis) rises clad in holly, and
directs his attention to several splendid tableaux of
Christmas enjoyments in years past. The Miser is
led by a second spirit to scenes of a more serious
character : he is conducted to his own chamber of
death. He sees his own wretched apparel sold after
his decease ; his body laid out for interment, and the
tomb where he is buried, with a stone bearing his
name. This deplorable prospect of the fate which
awaits him is productive of horror. He is terrified
by a knowledge of the bad use he has made of his
riches. He promises the conducting spirit to reform,
if permitted to live, and become a better man. In
the agony occasioned by the dream he awakes, and
to compensate for past avarice, relieves his nephew,
who has been ruined by misfortune, settles all his pro-
perty upon him, and is disposed to make every one
happy. All this seems very heavy, and it is rendered
more so by the appearance of a dead body, laid out
upon the stage, something like the symbol of Chris-
tianity. To make up for this sombre cast, there is
the excellent comic acting of Vale, who gives to per-
fection all the life, fun, and spirit of a Christmas
dinner, with family plum-pudding. The several
characters were ably sustained, and the curtain
dropped amidst applause. IVith some judicious cur-
tailment, this bagatelle will continue attractive.

MR.WILSON'S ENTERTAINMENTS

Mr. Wilson, having recovered from his hoarseness,
repeated his new entertainment, entitled " Mary
Queen of Scots," last night, at the Store-street Rooms.
The interest manifested by the audience (not by any
means a small one) was of the strongest kind ; and no
doubt this new undertaking will become, as in other
cases, extremely popular. Mr. Wilson gives a
pleasant historical sketch of the unfortunate Mary;
he runs rapidly through the principal events of her
chequered existence from her birth at Linlithgow to
her death on the scaffold. He tells of her education
in France, of her domestic pursuits and marriage
there—of her coronation as Queen of Scotland—of
her connexion with Darnley—of her imprisonment at
Lochleven—of her abdication of the throne—of her
fruitless appeal to Elizabeth—of her trial, condemna-
tion, and execution. The episodes of the insane
passion of Chatelard, the murder of Rizzio, the in-
veterate opposition of John Knox, and other familiar
topics :;re alluded to in their proper place; so that
ill-starred
Queen. lecture is a complete historiette of the
Queen. The musical illustrations which are adopted
have not been obtained under such favourable cir-
cumstances as in the case of Burns or Prince
Charlie. The poetry and the tunes of the period
exist only in name ; but there is abundant proof
on record that the time was prolific in warm-hearted
effusions in tribute to the beauty and sorrows of the
hapless monarch. Mr. Wilson states the difficulty in
which he has been placed; but, beyond joining with
him in the general regret that these interesting bursts
of loyalty and gallantry are lost for ever, we have no
reason to be dissatisfied with the alternative he has
resorted to. He has made a selection of popular
Scottish melodies, and has adapted to them a series
of verses written expressly for the purpose by Mr.
Ballantine, a young gentleman of Edinburgh, who
displays in them much fancy, as well as a nationality
of style becoming a Scotchman. Some of these lyrics
are eminently good, particularly those having a grave
or sentimental cast.

The music chosen generally is of that minor air pe-
culiar to the old Scottish taste, and which, when sung
with neatness and expression, becomes exquisitely
touching and beautiful. " The Veteran's Welcome,"
"Mary's Lament to France," "The Death-bed La-
ment of King James," " Mary's Lament to Loch-

<„
•• • 40.'7,--

Leven," and the dirge, " Weep, weep ye streams." are
of this class, and last night were listened to with great
attention. " The last Lay of Chatelard"—the modi-
lca'ion of an old French tune—was enthusiastically
encored ; and the great Scottish welcome, " Carle,
noo the Queen's come," the Covenanters' song—sung
with an irresistible nasal twang—and " Tammie and
Nannie," with other characteristic effusions, were
applauded, baculis pedibusque, until the room rung
again. Mr. Wilson sings the whole of these domes-
tic songs admirably. When the subjects are mournful
and tender—as in the threnodies—no one could pos-
sibly render them more affecting than himself ; and
when, on the contrary, they require broad humour,
with a him felicity he still preserves their keeping,
and gives them with an archness indescribably pi-
quant and diverting.

LITERATURE.
THE BROTHERS. 3 Vols.
Cclbs:rn, London, 1844.
The civil wars of the Fronde, the most inconsistent,
mismanaged, and puerile of any recorded in modern
history, in which neither party seemed to be in ear-
nest, or to have the slightest c nfidence in the wisdom
and justice of their cause; the principal leaders, and
among them that overrated character, the Prince of
Conde, changing sides just as often as suited their
convenience, as though the war was a mere holiday
pastime—these childish civil dissensions form the
subject of the tale before us, and having stated this,
we need hardly add that the incidents are supposed
to have taken place in France during the regency of
Anne of Austria and her wily Minister, Cardinal
Mazarin. The hero is a young Englishman, of good
family, by name Henry Mornington, who, having
lost all his possessions and many of his relations,
during the great cii it war in England, goes over to
France as a military adventurer, and obtains an ap-
pointment 2S chef d' escadron in the army raised by
the court party against the Frondeurs. While tra-
velling to join his division through a remote woodland
district, he is suddenly alarmed by the cries of dis-
tress uttered in a female voice, and hurrying up to the
spot whence the sound proceeds, he finds a carriage
overturned in the highway, close to which a beautiful
young girl is standing, wringing her hands, and exhibit-
ing tokens of the deepest affliction; while, at a few
yards distance, two men, who happen to be brothers,
are fighting with all the fury of desperation, and be-
fore the English traveller can separate them, they fall
mortally wounded by each other s swords. The lady
being thus left alone, and defenceless, is escorted by
Mornington to a neighbouring convent, where he soon
learns, from her own lips, the sad story of her life—
how she was an orphan, but heiress to large estates.
and how, in consequence, she was courted by the
two sons of her guardian, neither of whom she liked,
and who, being distrustful of each other, one of them
had resolved on carrying her off, and marrying her,
in spite of herself, but being overtaken by the other
on the road, a mortal battle had taken place between
the to o brothers. On hearing this painful narrative,
Mornington, feeling for the wholly unprotected state
of the Lady Isabel, makes an offer at once of his
hand, which she unhesitatingly accepts, and they are
privately married, at night, in the chapel of
the convent. Immediately afterwards, however,
the bridegroom is compelled to set forward to
join his regiment, and scarcely is he gone,
with the promise of a speedy return, than Isabel her-
self is carred off by a party of ruffians, and, after un-
dergoing a world of romantic adventures, is restored
to Mornington, with which auspicious event the story
concludes. There is no want of exciting incident in
the story, but its principal recommendations are its
battle scenes, which are pourtrayed with all that
vigour and picturesque skill which we admired in the
Author's first work, " Oliver Cromwell." We know
no novelist of the day—not even Mr. Lover—who
imparts such life and spirit to his deeriptions of
battles, as Mr. Herbert ; but when he attempts to
bring forth the nicer points of character, he almost
invariably fails, his various personages with scarcely
one exe ption, being deficient in individuality.