The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-05 00:00:00

SURREY THEATRE.

Novelty is still the order of the day at the Surrey
Theatre, though the merit of the last production is
not of that high order which characterised some of
the former dramas which Mr. Creswick has presented
to his patrons. True, these latter novelties were
preceded by Mr. Justice Talfourd's classical tragedy
of lon, rendered with the utmost elaboration and care
that the resources of the house could command, and
if the management can find no better subject for
translation than the lachrymose affair called Hearts
at Fault; or, Six Years Afore, it would better please
the public, and more enhance its own reputation, if
it eschewed the French school altogether, and con-
fined its exertions to the masterly works of some t f
our modern dramatists. The company possesses all
the elements necessary for realising the fanciful pic-
tures or tragical scenes which so largely abound in
our national drama, and we are therefore less sur-
prised than delighted with the admirable style in
which lon is produced and performed. The Adra‘-
tus of Mr. T. Mead is a fine piece of acting, worthy
of a more aristocratic house ; nor is the
,youteful
lon of Mr. Creswick deficient in beauty, while
the gentle Clemanthe finds an impassioned
representative in Madame Ponisi. The scenery,
too, is on a 'par with the acting, being
highly finished and classically correct. Tse tragedy
was followed last night by an original domestic
drama, taken from the French, and bearing the title
we have already mentioned. The incidents, founded
upon the everlasting theme of love, are of a dull and
flimsy description, and the dialogue
pointless, weak,
and eak,
and insipid. The only one redeeming feature in it,
which owed nothing to the translator, was the happy
mode of " making up" which one or two of the actors
displayed, but no artistic exertion in the world could
have saved it; and, though the intonations of Mr.
Shepherd's voice, who sustained the role of the chief
character, are not exactly adapted either to the serious
or the sentimental, it is nit to the acting, but to the
inherent defects of the drama itself that its failure
will have to be attributed. An audience after one
disappointment is seldom in a humour to receive a
second original effort with due impartiality ; but the
farce of Adam Buff, also played for the first time,
made up for the deficiency of the translation, and its
humorous and ludicrous ecenes soon restored the
equilibrium of the house. The success of the farce
was hailed, probably, with more satisfaction than
usual, because it again introduced to the world a
dramatic author who has been too long ab-
sent from the stage. Mr. E. L. B lanehard, s
farces are irresistibly droll, and. well entitled to the
invariably
tickle ppe appellation atthioenfanofcie's' socfretshmein audience e nci
since c en
n e theysmall
all
degree.
Adam Buff, though not quite equal to some of his
other labours, is nevertheless a clever piece of conceit
Adam Buff is a philosopher in his way, who one fine
morning wakes up to find himself minus a shirt and
a purse, and the interest of' the farce turns upon the
adventures of Adam while doomed to thread the
streets and byeways of a metropolitan suburb shirt-
less, with his coat buttoned up to the chin. Many
are the excuses he has to make for the absence of a
shirt collar, but good fortune at length overtakes him,
and he is invited to dine at the house of a credulous'
old gentleman, where a dark suspicion of his having
fingered his host's silver spoons leads to the discovery
of his nakedness and the recovery of a shirt. Wid-
dicomb played the part of Adam Kith much spirit
and animation, while little Rogers as a doctor's boy
was comic beyond measure, iutrod •of the
scenes in one
scenes u amusing caricature of the " blood and
thunder" school of cheap literature. The dialogue is
smartly written, and at the close of the farce the
curtain fell amidst considerable laughter, and applause.

THE BRAZILS.—LIVERPOOL, MONDAY.-- Tria the
United States we have intelligence from Rio de Janeiro
the 7th, and from Pernambuco to the 22d of January.
The Brazilian Legislature commenced its sitting on the
Ist of January, the Emperor opening it in person. His
brief speech adverted chiefly to the recent disturbance
in Pernambuco, and dwelt on the necessity of increasing
the force of the army and navy. A provisional treaty
had been formed between Paraguay and the Argentine
Confederation. Pernambuco advises of the 22:d of
January report—Sugar, white, 1,950 to 2,650; brown,
1,540 to 1,600 ; bides, 100. Wiping abuutiao,
change 9111411d9P A"'