The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-11 00:00:00

VICTORIA THEATRE;

Perfected by a week's rehearsals, the Christmas pieces,
on their nightly re-appearance, now pass off with im-
proved rapidity and eclat. Before a crowded gathering
of merry juveniles, who abounded in gay looks and
laughters, Geraldine, or the Twin Orphans of St. Pre
led the van of last evening's entertainments. Little
brilliances of attitude and surprising positions—unex-
pected developments that produce a "syncope and
pause "—so vary the scenes of this domestic drama, that
excited interest was sustained throughout. In the sunny
hamlet of St. Pre, reside a brother and his fair-haired
sister. A very village-queen for beauty, we )ers soon
aspire to the hand of Geraldine St. C'l tir,
but the successful suitor is Edgar Hunting-
don, a dashing Englishman, whirling on pleasure
through France, and who, with the art and array of the
cavalry officer, wins the sweet girl's affections, and then
flings her, like a weed, away. Righteous indignation
takes posseSSion of her brother's breast. Armed with
weapons of vengeance, he sets out in pursuit of the
seducer. They meet in encounter, but the interposition
second
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laws,.the 3111100011 • t brother talls,_ and in passion Edgar
.stranglus his sister, and flies. Five years elapse, and
Edgar Huntingdon has entered into possession of the
Bose-court estates, but, regarding himself as the mur-
derer of St.' Clair and his sister, dreams haunt per-
petually his nocturnal rest, and gold and pomp avail no-
thing to quiet. his disturbed spirit. Geraldine,
meanwhile, miraculously recovers, and, in .the guise
of an abbess, still hovers round his steps, and
nets as his preserver ; and when Larole, her brother's
friend, tracks the seducer to his estates to slay hint,
she throws herself in the poniard's way, and receives
the death-wound dealt at Edgar. Excellent. as is the
piece for representation, the moral aimed at is undoubt-
edly strained, and of a false school. The notion that.
Geraldine, having received in her own person the deepest
injury of Which human nature can be susceptible, shoeld
still with unswerving firmness of ptirpose so cling with
her first love to her seducer as to allow the sacrifice of
her own avenging brother and his friend, is uncoun-
tenanced by any canons of moral criticism. However,
this objection is not over-palpable to play-goers.
Gardner, in Jemmy Joule, and Paul, in Davy Glib,
sustained the comicalities scattered throughout, with
great naivete and humour ; the logic of the former was
highly flavoured with the spice of the:Epicurean school,
and his syllogisms were truly savoury. Miss Vincent,
as Geraldine, threw all the Customary sweetness and
pathos which she is so accomplished a mistress of, into
those.parts that fitly required them. Her first costume
has too much prudery about it ; but her second dra-
peries of mourning, and her third of white, suited her
gracefully. The pantomime of Peter Wilkins, with its
bright silver-is nged amlais, and floating forms, opened
charmingly its display. Haa ing noticed it on its first night,
it is only necessary reeapitulatively to remark, that
practice has made its interminable variety of trick,
masquerade, and knavery, perfect in their changes.
Among its sly sarcasms, was that of an Irishman's
blessing, in wishing for a benison on a child, that
" every hair of its head might become a mould candle,
to light her up to glory." The dissolving Diorama
was a Imirable ; the advance and retrogression of
a bright scene or portrait, now obtruding itself
close upon the view, and now retiring so appa-
rently remote as to seem like a lucid star, was managed
with great adroitness. What with the merry din of the
music, the posturings of the silver-boddiced Columbine
and Harlequin, and the fulsome dazzle of the scenes,
the midience is; warmed with gratification. The infinitely
amusing drama of the Illustrious Stranger wound up the •
evening, with its broad burlesque and humour,