The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-30 00:00:00

end Sir Llarrv. The latter is guilty of ahnost the only
unrest and h •n urali',• act of his life in acquitting Lady
iplashton of particirttion in his guilty wishes, and pur-
poses, and she and her Lord are finally reconciled, and
agree to retire into the country with Sir Simon to een-
notnise and. to shun the vain society of the fashionable
world. This rt solution. and the cc,nsent of Old Counter
to the union of George Foster and Emily, after it is tot.
!ate to avoid it, with the ridiculous exposure of the Major
entrapped by Jenny, wind up the comedy.
The comedy was excellently acted. Mrs. Gr.ovEtt
made an inimitable citizen's wife, easy, assured, and vul-
gar, yet without the slightest tinge of caricature. Wm.-
LAcK, as Lord Splashton, was spirited, and at times
impressive, but uniformly too boisterous. Miss
MoanaUNT made a delightful lady of fashion, and
evinced consummate taste, elegance, and no slight portion
of vivacity. FARREN was worthy to be the mate of
Mrs. GLovER, though he was rather too pedantic in his
allusion to trade, which it was his business to sink, rather
than to thrust ostentatiously forth. But this is Lord
GLEIttcALL's fault. Of JONES, it iS frith regret we would
say:anylthing severe, but:the truth—however unwelcome—
must out. He was a hundred years behind hand in the
style and quality of his acting. As a representative of one,
of Wycherley's, Congreve's, Ca-Awes, or Centlivre's fops
this actor is inimitable. But he does not seem at home in aping
the absurdities of modern fashion. He is too formal, too
precise, too affectedly elaborate. Flis Lord Splashton of
the present is too much the echo of Lord Foppington of
the past century. Nevertheless, he is always gentlemanly,
always intelligent. Of the language of the comedy we
may speak in high terms of praise. It is chaste, spirited,
sometimes witty, very frequently sarcastic, and full of
allusions resulting manifestly from a perfect acquaintance
with the interior of the Temple of Fashion. As regards
the incidents, they are numerous and ingeniously con-
trived, but have too much of the imitative about them.
The scene, for instance, wherein Lord Splasliton expresses
his affection for his wife, when he supposes she has eloped,
is taken from the screen scene in the School for Scandal,
where Lady Teazle overhears Sir Peter praising her,
and is reconciled in consequence. The denouement
is precisely similar. The scandalous conversation in the
third (or second) act lies open to a similar objection;
though Lord Glengall has exaggerated, and very I,u-
-mourously, the richness of the scene by making the com-
pany go out together, fearful of leaving their characters
behind them. This practical joke Sheridan has hinted in
a sentence. The marriage of Major O'Simper with the
waiting-maid is a third adroit plagiarism front a mas-
terly scene in the Old Bachelor, where Congreve's
crusty Heartfree espouses the lady's maid by mistake.
But independently of these blemishes, which, after all, we
believe result more from indolence than dearth of invention,
Lord:Glengall has quite original merit enough to entitle him
to take high ground as a comic dramatist. His
" Follies of Fashion" is worth a dozen trashy
adaptations from the French, and at least two dozen
of such original absurdities—half farce, half panto-
mimic—as are daily crammed down our throats by
Beazsleys, the Planehes, and the other thousand and
one ephemera of the modern drama. We shall
hope to see his Lordship again in the capacity of a writer
of comedy. He has ease, sprightliness, intelligence, the
pungent humour of the satirist, and the high-bred polish
of the gentleman.