MISS BARTOLOZZI AND MRS. HUMBY.
THE theatrical event of the week is the birth of liveliness in Miss JOSEPHINE BARTOLOZZI, hitherto the automaton of the critics. Let it be recorded, that on Wednesday evening, the 10th Septem- ber, this young lady left the quiet and corpse-like state of the chrysalis, for the gaudy volatility of the full-winged butterfly : she who had been marble grew into life, revivifying under the hands of the Pygmalions of the Press. We bear witness, that in the part of Annette, in the " Lord of the Manor," this favourite debutante did use many of the airs and graces supposed to be peculiarly the property of her sister—that she assumed much archness and gaiety, and candidly laid open to public admiration all those winning ways which the critics have given her credit for, but which she never before consented to display. It was impossible that the " Dashing White Sergeant," for instance, could be sung with more animation ; and in her practical illustration of the " March, march away !" she crossed and re-crossed the stage with all the ease of a recruiting non-commissioned servant of his Majesty, and with something, too, of his impudence. The ice is broken—adieu, then, all that placid incrustation which seems only to have been assumed for the pleasure of making a crash in the breaking of it. In future, the world may expect an actress of the breed in vogue —the race of strutters, jutters, (see °TWAY) and swaggerers. There is an actress at the same theatre with BARTOLOZZI, who is a great favourite there, and yet not a breeches-wearer. Mrs. HUMBY has attractions in her line, and yet it is a complete puzzle to say in what they consist : it is not in her person, for it is not graceful ; it is not in her voice, for it is harsh ; it is not in her skill at personation, for she is always the same. She excels, however, in a curious simplicity, and this may be the secret. She has a drawl which is piquante : she wonders with a gravity extremely risible ; her astonishment smacks of extreme innocence, and at the same time of extreme archness. She always enacts the clever girl by nature, by remote education rendered the most simple of God's creatures, Her tone half smart half whining, her look half stare half smile, her manner half bold half afraid, speak of a kind of internal contest extremely droll. The philosophers who say that laughter springs from the pleasure of detecting inferiority in another, might maintain. that the amusement Mrs. HUMBY gives her audience consists in detecting an accidental inferiority in know- ledge, combined with natural powers, which flatter the observer on the ground of a common nature. At any rate, Mrs. HUMBY is very droll: that is her merit—and really it is a great one, at a time when actresses seek only to produce an effect by the accidents of person, if those charms may be called accidental which are so often made on purpose.
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