The Sun. — 1852-08-10 (London, England)

HAYMARKET THEATRE. The Adelphi company have moved hither for a month, and opened last evening with a new three act piece from the Mortonian mint, entitled The Writing on the Wall. There is an ancient country family with a murder twenty-five years old in its annals. Neat there is a grasping, sinister neighbouring proprietor, who is the murderer, and who, by the spoil which he carried off on the occasion, lays the shrinking heiress of of his claims upon forcetthh ee foundation horse, a m se, b by taking marriage kaagi nfeogrwt nitnhe and ultimately comes to advantage , her spendthrift brother. But there is also a sort of conscientious and comic villain, a village fiddler, who has been an accomplice in the murder, and who is the thorn in the principal criminal's side. It appears that the dying man, to the knowledge of the fiddler, wrote his murderer's name on the wall in 'his own blood before his death. This terrible piece of evidence the fiddler concealed, by pushing a screen against it, and the room has since been closed up, and of course haunted. Now, however, the musical accessory before the fact threatens to disclose al!, in case his demands for money are not complied with; and so the murderer determines, as he has access to the house, to break into the room where the crime was committed, and efface the implicating lines. He accordingly forces the door, when he is confronted with his intended bride, who had taken refuge in the deserted room, and who denounces the bridegroom— pointing to the terrible " writing on the wall." The bride elect is restored to her real lover, and finds a father in the sudden re-appearance of the murdered gentleman's brother, who has been falsely accused of the crime. The comic element is contributed by Mr. Wright, in the character of a cockney who comes down to the country to establish a " model farm," and who falls in love with the fiddler's sister, who has been an equestrian lady in the hippodrome, but who captivates the model farmer as an unsophisticated country girl. The scene in which the economy of the " model farm" is displayed is capital. All the labourers, male and female, are dressed in a species of rural uniform, with " model farm" inscribed upon their smockfrocks and pinafores. The former are discovered asleep, each man on a truss of straw. When Mr. Wright awakens them, they go to dinner—when he tries to thresh the corn himself, be hits his own head—when he goes to quiet the dog, he is chased round and round the stage by a fine Newfoundland, capitally trained ; and when he goes to feed the pigs, he lets them out ; when two of the young porkers, to the vast delight of the audience, jumped into the orchestra. Finally, after having been most outrageously swindled on all hands, and ill-treated by his model labourers, who get drunk and disorderly, the model farmer gives up agriculture, and his rural sweetheart re-appears as his bride, in a fascinating riding habit. Mr. Emery, as the villain of the piece, played with great care in the rugged and earnest style which characterises him; and Mr. Paul Bedford was admirable in the passages in which he recalls the circumstances of the murder to the perpetrator. Mr. Wright was as droll as usual, and created just as much merriment. Miss Woolgar's assumption was as clever as is her wont, and Miss Chaplin and Mrs. Leigh Murray, in their small parts, were as efficient as need be. The applause at the close was uproarious.  Sr.