The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-22 00:00:00

LYCEUM THEATRE.

' a,sn,aa, lec,bb tfieatre re- opened on atur-
day evening, won a new dream, entitled The Cricket on
the Hearth; a Fairy Tale of Home, united on Chiaties
Dickens's new Chri,amas tale, and dramatised by Albert
Smith. Now, either Albert Smith is the most clever of
adapters, or this is the most dramatic tale that Charles
Dickens has yet written, or perchance both may
be the case, for it is certain that the drama
is a well-built, conipact, interesting play, .the plot
of which is developed most dt amatically, and
may, consequently, be clearly und.-rato' d by those
who have not yet read Dickens's book, which is
more than can be said for the dramatic versions of the
other works of Dickens. The play, like the tale, is
divided into three " chirps," and on the curtain drawing
up at the commencement of "chirp the first;"
we find ourselves in the interior of the cottage of John
Peery bingle, the carrier. His wife, familiarly known
as Dot (Mrs. Keeley), is preparing the evening meal for
him, awaiting auxi,,usly his return from his journey.
"Fair she was and young, though somewhat of what is
called the dumpling shape." The teapot is on the hob,
the cold knuckle of ham, the butter, and the crusty loaf
on the table ; the kettle is singing on the fire, and the
cricket is chirping on the hearth. " The kettle and the
cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some
powers of amalgamation liest known to themselves, sent
each his firesid, song of comfort streaming into a ray of
the candle that shone out through the window, and a
long way down the lane." John Peerybingle (Mr.
Emery) now enters—" That lumbering, slow, honest
John—that John so heavy, but so light of spirit ; so
rough upon the surface but so gentle at the core so
without so quick within ; so stolid but so good."
Ha is warmly welcomed •by his darling little wife, who
is somewhat younger than himself, and he greets her and
her baby with all the warm 'affection of a true-hearted
husband and father. This little Peerybingle is confided
to the care of " Tilly Slowboy" (Miss Turner), who is
thus described by Dickens :—" She was of a close and
straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her gar-
ments appeared to be in constant danger of falling off
those sharp pegs her shoulders, on which they were
loosely hung. Her costume 'was remarkable fOr the par-
tial development, on all possible occasions, of some
flannel veetment of a singular structure ; also for
affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a
corset or pair of stays, in colour a dead green."
Miss Turner " made up" the character exactly, and
acted it with the most quaint awkwardness. Verily the
baby must have been a most hard-hearted little piece of
humanity to have withstood the collisions with dressers,
doors' and posts, which were c'nstantly occurring.
Jolrn Peerybirgle, before arranging his parcels for deli-
very, introduces to the ciittage .! a stranger " (Mr. F.
Voting), old and deaf, who had joined him on the road.
" His garb was very quaint and odd—a long, long way
behind the time. He had loin, white hair; good fea-

b 'ld and %Neil-defined for an t3lcl man ;
and dark, bright penetrating eyes." If you please I
was to be left till mired for, said the stranger, mildly.

kDo not mind me.' With that he took a pair of epee-
tacles -from one of his large pockets, and a book from
Inc other, and leisurely began to read. he carrier and
his wife exchanged a 10..)k of perplexity." While the
stranger is thus engaged, Dot examines- the parcels
bicbJ,.hn has hrom.3,ht h • ;me, and among them discovers
a vtr.dding.eake fir old Teekleton, a toy•nikker—a hard-
Iteirted, el.-se-fisted, ill-tempered, sour old bachelor,

whose sole delight to make every one about
3 m as miserable, us p ..ssiblP. This old fel

sw •is about to be mmrried to May Field-
ng (Miss Howard), the prettiest girl in the ♦il-
lage, who loves him not, but who consents to accept

ai her huiband, because her mother desires it, its
the old curmudgeon is rich. Tackleton (Mr. Meadows)
now enters to retch his► cake. "He didn't look much

like a, bridegroom, as he stood in the carrier's kitchen,
with a twist in his dry face and a screw in his body,

and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his
bands stuck down interthe bottoms of his pockets, and
his whole sarcastic ill•conditioned self peering out of
one little corner of one little eye. like the concentrated
essence of any number of ravens." And a concentrated
essence of ravens he is, for no sooner does
he eroaking old scoundrel enter this abode of
happiness, than he makes John's mind uncom-
torta,hle by artfully insinuating that it is impossible
a young woman can love an old man. While he is thus
playing the part of a domestic 'ago,' Dot, into whose
ear the stranger, unperceived by John, has whispered
one single word, gives a loud scream. This creates en
alarm, and John. and Tackleton, and Caleb Plummer
(Keeley), Tackleton's journeyman, who has come to
fetch a flower and a wo: k-box for his poor Hind daughter,
gather around her. To all John's anxious inquiries
" she only answered by beating her hands together and
falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then sinking from
his grasp upon the ground, she covered ber face with her
apron, and wept bitterly." The stranger retires 'to his
room, and thus ends chirp the first. The scene of chirp
the second is laid in the abode of Caleb Plummer the
toymaker. We find Caleb and his blind daughter
Bertha (Miss Mary Keeley) at work, " the blind girl
busy as a doll's dressmaker, and Caleb painting
and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable
family mansion. Caleb, poor and wretched, and
miserable—hard-worked and ill-paid by the grasp-
ing Tackleton, has determined that Bertha shall
live in a world of splendid imaginings. He took
advantage of her blindness to make her happy— de-
scribed to her his miserable abode as a palace of rich-
ness, luxury, and splendour, and himself as young,
joyous, and handsome. Tackleton, who came in fre-
quently to inspect their work, was represented to her
by Caleb as the kindest of benefactors, and his rough

language as merely assumed, to prevent their offering
to him their thanks for the comforts and luxuries which
his benevolence had bestowed on them. The blind girl
grows up to womanhood in this belief, and believing,
Tackleton to be all that her father had represented
him to be, she loves him. The poor girl fancies her
father-is ill and low spirited. To convince her that such.
is not the case, Caleb commences singing, when Tackle-'
ton enters, and tatresses him after ih6 brutal fashion:
"Go it—l can't sing—l can't afford to sing—l'm glad
you can—l hope you can afford to work, too—hardly
time for both I st,ould think ;" while Caleb, to keep up

The pleasing delusion of the blind girl, says to le r,
-.lf you'd en ly see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me—
such a man to joke." The blind girl greets Tackleton
affectionately, and takes his hand to kiss, while he calls
her idiot ; but at length even he becomes
somewhat softened by her tenderness, grati-
tude, and affection, but instantly relap,ine, he
oititters something about " Bedlam broke loose," and
Caleb stands stupified at his own handiwork, for it is
his handiwork that burst of affection .of the blind girl
for her father's hard taskmaster. That little flower and
that work• hie( which Caleb had fetched from the carrier's
had been given to Bertha, by him as a present from
fackleton, that she might not suspect the privations
which he himself voluntarily, endured in order to make
her happy. A merry party now assembles at Caleb's.
It is Mrs. Peerybingle's pic-nic, which she makes once a
fortnight at Caleb Plummer's, and the bustling little Dot,
and John, and filly, and the baby, all arrive, and Dot
cleans up the place for poor Bertha, and makes every-
thing comfortable; and May Fielding, Tackleton's bride
elect, and her mother, Mrs. Fielding (Mrs. 41,' oollidge), a
stately lady in a majestic cap, who tells long stories
about the indigo trade, are all there, and Bertha and
May converse together—they had played together as
children' and Bertha loved May, for she had been ever
kind to the poor blind girl. To her and to Caleb, Bertha,
in the mo-t pathetic manner, confides the secret of her
heart. She loves Tackleton, or rather loves that being
whom her father had described to her, and implores
May's forgiveness for her love, calling heaven to wit•
ness that she could not desire to see him married to a
wife more worthy of his goodness than " While
speaking she had released May Fielding's hands, and
clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplica-
tion and love. 'Sinking lower and lower down, as she
proceeded in her strange confession, she drooped at last
at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the
folds of her dress. Great God,' exclaimed her father,
,mitten at one blow with the truth, have I deceived
her from her cradle but to break her heart at last.' "
This acne was most touchingly, most truthfully acted
by Miss Mary Keeley (who made on this occa-
sion her first appearance on the stage). It was
worthy of Miss Kelly in her best days.
The stranger joins the party, and John and Mrs. Field-
ing sit down to a hand at cribbage. `a he stranger and
Dot have left the room, and Tackleton calls John from
his game to look out at the window, and there he sees
Dot lecked in the arms of the stranger, who has di-
vested himself of his grey hairs, and is a stalwart hand-
some young man. " The carrier clenched his strong
right hand at first, as if he would have beaten down a
lion ; but opening it immediately again, he spread it out
before the eyes of Tackleton, for he was tender of her
even then, and fell down as weak as any infant." Emery's
acting in this scene was very fine—it was quite worthy
of the name he bears. Chirp the third takes place in
John's cottage. He is sitting at his desolate hearth
heart-broken. He thinks of his wife, of his fond love
for her, of her deceit—but stilt he makes excuses for

her. A darker mood conies over him—the stranger,
the destroyer of his peace, is sleeping under
his roof. There is but a door between them.
He glances round the room—he sees a gun—he seizes it—
rushes 'towards the door—the stock of the gun is up lifted
to break it open—when he hears the chirp of the
erieket on hi' hearth—that sound which his wife so loved'
to hear, that sound which hitherto had been to him the
herb tiger of hoppieess--and instantly his better nature
returns , be lays aske his gun, and, sinking in a chair,
hurts into tears. the spirt of the cricket appears to
him for all the cricket tribe are potent spirits, even
though tf, e people who hold converse with them do not
know it (which is frequently the case) ; end there are
not in the tins en world voices more gentle and more
true, that may he so imolieit.y relied on, or that are so
give non, but tenderest counsel, as the voices
a ith is h the spirits of the fireside and the hearth
ttoonislves
io human kind." 'Fire spirit of the
htil. c
cricket appears aed speaks to him words of comfort,
coujuring up to him fairy visions of home which calm
his troubled spirits, and assure him rat Dot is still true
and faithful. ion has passed away, and Taekleton
and .oeleas4eurs to.,comple're th.' work of desola.
;`sun witch h ha.!' I,egha, but ith that. strong
fai:h in thogo and beamitul and ale pure and the
true—fur all that is ktioA and beaus Sul and pure is true—
which eimstitutes the..same time the strength of a()
triwing
heart and its reward, resists the machinations
the tempter. " I sat moon .that heart,-," he says,
night, all night. I e lied up her .whole life day by day ;
I had her desr sell in its even.' passage, in review before
• me; a d upon my s-ul is' innneeni, it there is one,
to j Age' the ienoc, 'nt.rnd Slid does Taekle..
ton, who has come tii hid John'to his wed-iter, pour
the lepr'us diStilment" into his ear; and John. at length,
unahieku dew: the ruth (0-tlf, oevular demons, ration !hilt
1..„3 had had itf his alf:'sfaisahookdeter•rnines to send her
hack to her. I:aro-its. but at her cnticitati m dt.f-rs the
I periotief her departurg for a •sh,rt time. "/ he period of
-1 lier departure approaches, Dot Imam anxious—the