The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-25 00:00:00

ADELPHL

Even if those " sweet recorders," the play-bills,
were more modest and less lavish of their promises
than they generally are, one would have many reasons
for expecting a treat on Easter Monday, In the
first place, after the rigours of Lent, during which,
of course? as good Christians, we hare observed all
that the rubric and the most precise and normal
divine doctor would enjoin, we are anxious, and na-
turally so, for a little relief, and betake ourselves to
our ordinary mundane amusements ; and, in the next
place, considering how we have been la' ely kept
within doors, muffled to the mouth, and as near as
we could well sit to as large a fire as we could
well have, it is not to be wondered at if we
were ready to enjoy the first day of spring,
and willing to find good in everything. But that i*
a dangerous state of feeling for one to enter a theatre
with, who is supposed to be as rigid at Themis her-
self, so we allowed ourselves to cool down as much as
possible before witnessing St. George and the Dra-
•glta, the Easter--piece at this theatre, the plot of
which is as simple as can well be, and simplicity is a
charm whenever it does not run into—and the parti-
tion is very easily overstepped—silliness. St. George
(Miss Woolgar), and the other six Champions set
out upon their adventures. St. George arrives in
Egypt, where he falls into the very best so-
ciety—that of King Ptolemy (Mr. Selby), and into
the very best love—that of the King's daugh-
ter, the Princess Sabra (Miss Chaplin).
But the Princess is too pretty not to have more com-
petitors for her hand than St. George. Almidor,
Emperor of Morocco (Mr. Wright), and the Dragon
(Mr. Paul Bedford), are his rivals. The scenery is,
therefore, principally Egyptian, and it is really beau-
tifully executed. The Egyptians had a taste for the
grand and. beautiful, and any one who reads Lu-
can's description of Caesar by Cleopatra will be of
our opinion ; and though we cannot boast of having
seen the old Viceroy, or the Pyramids, or the three
hundred-gated Memphis, or the Nile, we had a good
deal realised for us last night, and saw living
and moving representations of what we be-

fore only knew through mummies and the Museum.
The scene of the grand procession and the last tableau
were exquisite. With regard to the dialogue, it was
of the liveliest character, and well sustained through-
out. The jeux des mots told with the happiest of
effcct. The St. George was, of course, the great re-
dresser of wrongs—not a gambling booth, not a
thimble-rig or loan society, in upper or lower Egypt,
that he did not put an extinguisher upon ; not a pill
or bolus sold by the _quacks that a certain Egyptian
medical bill gave them a liberty of dispensing the
effects of which he did not destroy ; in short, he did
everything that a good legislator ought to do, or upset
everything that bad legislators often do, and for his
reward he obtained the hand of the fair Princess, and
distanced his rivals. And the best of the thing was,
and herein the moral of the piece consists, that he
effected all this, not like the St. George of old, but by
the aid which modern civilisation employs—public
opinion and the press. The acting of Mr. Wright
and Mr. Bedford was, what every one knows it to be,
all that could well be desired. The piece was emi-
nently successful, well applauded by a full house, and
likely to have a long run.