The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-29 00:00:00

SADLER'S WELLS THEATRE.

Massinger'e Fatal Dow,y (his chef dceuvie according
to some critics, one of his greatest works according to
all) was revived here on Wednesday, with all that attention
to the nice eu vent which has so faveurably distin-
guished the management of Mrs. Warner and Phelps at
this theatre. This play is the joint production of Mes-
singer and Nat Field, the actor—to the latter, however,
we are not disposed to award any large portion of the
drama, and we think that even Mr. Gifford allows too
much to him. That Messinger, a poor author, was glad
to avail himself of the name of Field, the popular actor,
and was thus led to announce him to the world as his
rollabotateur, there can be no doubt. That Field may
have given hiin hints as to his stage eff. cts, &c., and that
after the book was delivered at the theatre, and during
the course of the rehearsals he may have " gagged- the
play in various parts, we can readily believe; but there
is such a perfect. unity, not only of construction but of
thought and language, about the tragedy that we can-
net bring ourselves to think that it was the wells of
more than one mind. One or two of the comedy scenes,
indeed, we are disposed to assign to Field, because they
are so disgusting to good taste that we feel intuitively
that they are interpolations; that 'Messinger, alth..ugh
he might have tolerated, could not hare written them,
and it is only because Messinger could not have written
them that we assign them to Field. These were of course
all rigidily excised last evening, awl we do not believe
that in the Fatal Dowry, as it is acted at Sadler's Wells,
thete is one line of Field's, except, perhaps, the open-
ing scene of the second act, between Beau:wile, Della-
pert, and Florimel. The Fbtal Dowry was a stock play
from the time of its production to the time of the great
rebellion, when plays and players were proscribed, as
well as thrones and kings. For royalty there was a
restoration—for the drama a revolution. The works of
the manly, rough, vigorous poet dramatists of the
preceding age—works which were thoroughly and in-
tensely English, and thoroughly and intensely
dramatic, were utterly neglected for the heavy
heroics of Dryden, or the digusting filth of Mrs. Aphra
Behn. Poor Messinger was more vilely treated
than any of his contemporaries. They were suffered to
rest in oblivion—he was first plundered and then abased.
Rowe, having stolen a great portion of the language and
plot of the Fah? Dowry, diluted down the proceeds of
his theft with a sufficient quantity of maudlin sentimen-
tality to suit the vitiated taste of his time, and produced
The Fair Peniteht. Its success was complete—FO
complete that Rowe found it to his interest to represeut
Messinger as an author not worth the attention of any
critic or scholar. For more than a century the " Fair
Penii.ebt," the most " wishy-washy " and most immoral
of dramas, kept possession of the stage, to the exclusion
of the Fatal Dow, y, one of the most nervous and the
most moral. Even Dr. Johnson, sturdy old moralist as
he has been somewhat inappropriately called (bigoted
old conventionalist better describes the cha-
racter of the man)—even Dr. Johnson penned
a heavy eulogium on the Fair Peniteht. At
length, in the year 1786, Cumberland wrote
three papers in his periodical (the " Observer ")
for the purpose of drawing a comparison between the
Fatal Dowry and the Fair Pen ent ; and when Massin-
ger and Rowe were thus placed in juxta•position, tire
superiority of the elder writer was at once appareet.
Shortly afterwards Gifford undertook his edition of May.
singer ; and from that time justice has been done to
the genius of this " mighty master." This play, the
Fatal Dowry, was produced at Drury-lane some few
years since, when Wallack appeared as Charalois. The
version then produced is the one followed at Sailer's
Wells. The following was the cast of last night
Rochfort, Mr. G. Bennett ; Novali, Mr. H.
Charalois, Mr. Henry Marston ; Young Novell, Mr.
Buckingham ; Romont, Mr. Phelps ; Beaumelle, Miss
Cooper ; Bellapert, Miss Lebatt ; Florimel, Miss
Midden. In this version the first act and the
commencement of the second are given nearly
as they were written by Messinger. There
is a slight alteration at the conclusion of the
second act, which is also an improvement. In the scene
in which Charalois accompanies his father's funeral to
the gates of the prison, and is there stopped by his ree
rnorselesa creditors—the procession is interrupted by the
appearance of Rochfort and Beaumelle—and Rochfort,
overcome by his admiration of Charalois' virtue, re-
leases him by paying his father's debts, and at the same
time gives him his daughter. This not only gives an
effective concluding scene, but avoids the awkwardness
of the marraige procession following directly upon the
funeral one. The manner in which the guilt of Beaumelle
is discovered is necessarily altered. In the original the dis-
covery takes place in a manner too gross to be tolerated
in these modern days. Charaleis having found a letter
from young Novell to Beaumelle, appointing an assigna-
tion, meets the guilty .pair, and kills Novell. This
alteration is also judicious, but we could wish that the
adaptor had left the catastrophe, as far as it re-
lates to Beaumelle, in the same state in which lee
found it. It is a magnificent scene—is that in the ori-
ginal, in which Charalois, calling upon old Rochfort to
resume once more the functions of a judge, produces
before him his own daughter as the criminal ; beautiful.
too, is the repentance of Beaumelle, which invests her
character with an interest which it is impossible to
feel for her as represented in the adaptation ; and when
the father sentences her solemnly to death, and seeing that
sentence so unexpectedly executed by Charalois, throws
himself upon the body of his dying daughter in an agony
of grief, a climax has been attained perhaps the most
heartrending in the course of the drama. In-
stead of this, however, Charalois appoints }foal-
fort to meet him at the tomb of his father—there
brings forward his accusation, and when the old man
has devoted his daughter to death shows her corpse
to him and tells him judgment has been already
executed. Here we have indeed the fine passionate
burst of paternal anguish from Rochfort, but it is neither
so natural nor so effectively delivered over the dead as
over the dying daughter. The piece was admirably
acted. Phelps never appeared to greater advantage
than as the rough, honest, plain• speaking, bold Romont.
It is one of those characters full of vigour, energy, and
power, with an occasional dash of sentiment which
is exactly suited to the effective, but somewhat
coarse style of Phelps. The scene in which
he frightens young Novell (most amusingly represented
by Mr. Buckingham) into confesftiostniroter:neawnnaods
Enesoxertsoilrwtt:tv:froy'
ad-
mirable.himawritteren.
Bennett,promise taosseeßßoceha
effective. His last scene was beautiful. The leegubrions
voice of Mr. Marston was rather advantate-eous to him
than otherwise in his delineation of ISliaralois. He
had evidently studied the character r: ell, and thoroughly
understood his author's meaning, As a whole his
Charalois was a pathetic and scholar-like performance.
but he must beware of SP 'occasional tendency to rant.
The other character', were all well supported. The
house was crowded. 'to excess. and the audience were en-
thusiastic in their applause.

ADELPHI THEATRE.
A new one act spectacle, entitled the Boy Lag, was
'produced here last evening. The Boy King is Louis
XV. of France (Madame Celeste), who was married at
15 years of age, and the action of the drama takes place
on the day of his wedding. In honour of the occasion
a grand fete is given at Court, at which all the youthful
nobility of his own age (represented by Miss Woolgar,
Miss E. Chaplin, and several of the ladies of the estab-
lishment) attend, and there is a review of an army of
" Infantine Infantry," who go through their exercises
admirably. The tutor of the king has arranged that his
Majesty aad his youthful Court shall go to bed at ten
o'clock, and that himself and his coadjutors shall enjoy
a good supper after. The Boy King, however, demurs
to this arrangement. He determines to write " man" from
that day,and as a man to sit up to supper. He finds certain
blankletters decachet which have been left by his Ministers
for his signature, and filling them up with the names of
his tutor and those friends whom the tutor had invited
to supper, he consigns them to the Bastile, and enLoys
himself with his youthful friends. Eventually the Regent
frees the tutor and his companion:, but not until the
King and his friends have sat up to and eaten the
supper, and from that night the King not only reigns,
but governs. This trifle is put on the stage in exqiusiie
taste. The " Infantine Infantry" are admirably drilled,
and go through their exercise with the most laughable:
precition. The curtain fell amidst considerable applite.se,
and the piece will no doubt have a run. It was pre ceded
by Sweethearts and Wives, with Munyard PA B 1 y
Lackaday, the best Billy Lackaday that ha.% appeared
since the days of Liston. The house was crammed- to
suffocation.

CIIESTEAFIELD RACES.—The Duke of Devonshire
has been induced to renew the support, so Piing afforded by his
ancestors and himself, to the ancient rac'es of Chesterfield, awl
his Grace proposes to give a 501. platy, to these races. —l)e-ddy
paper.

DERBY RAcas.—We unciferstand that our races are
fixed for Tuesday and Wednesday, the 14th and 15th of Oct.o
ber. From the very strong feeling existing in favour of re- es-
tablishing these races, na doubt they will be very. we?;sup•
ported. The time fixed is undoubtedly late, but it t! 'intended
to hold them earlier in fuVure years.—Dttiv
Mere ury
We are unaffectedly concerned to le-arn that the
.
declining health of Mrs. Sheil, and of Mr,, Shell, jun., impe-
ratively requires a visit to the snore genie clime of Madeira--
Tipperary Fite Press.