COVENT GARDEN REVIVALS.
'NE management of Covent Garden has this season resumed the course of revivals, recommencing on Tuesday with Iltsaustowr and am:cum ; a vein as pure as any (the SHARSPERE lode excepted) in the rich mine of the old English drama, and capable of yielding more sterling ore and freer from dross than the comedy first selected. The Spanish Curate is Spanish in plot and incidents, but English in spirit ; and this sound core imparts a wholesome flavour to the luscious fruit, despite the rot- tenness of some portions, which have been cut away freely to make it palatable to modern tastes. The beautiful Amaranta, with whom the young spark Leandro has an intrigue, is represented as the ward instead of the wife of the knavish old lawyer Bartolus; and his jealousy, which Leandro lulls asleep by assuming the guise of a simple student sent to him to study law, is accounted for by making hint contemplate a mar- riage with his ward for the sake of her money. The character of that profligate dtemon Violante, Don Henriques mistress--who tries to seduce his younger brother Jamie, now called Juan, to revenge his own injuries and her spite, by murdering Henrique and his castoff wife and son Aseanio is softened down—but its monstrous wickedness only appears more glaring from the want of apparent motive. The lean and hungry Spanish curate Lopez, and his voracious sexton Diego, have very slight connexion with the two main plots ; but they afford the best part of the fun ; and so perfectly do FARREN and KEELEY enter into the spirit of the 'humour, that any one might fancy the parts had been written expressly for them. FAJIJiEN, when he first enters in his tattered and threadbare cassock, pinched with hunger and soured with discontent, scents hardly to have breath enough to speak, and deals in scanty sentences : his first words, "Thin world, indeed:" conjure up images of depopulation and famine— he is the penultimate man at his last gasp. KEELEY'S plUIRKIOSS is but hollow and gasping ; he looks as it his superior vigour was derived at the expense of the wasting of his master.. Diego's appetite is mutinous, but that of poor Lopez has not stamina left to rebel : the Curate is the personification of famine, and the Sexton of hunger. Their talk is cadaverous : KEELEY's mouth yawns like an open grave yearning for a tenant ; and FARREN looks like a goul starving in a barren churchyard. Neither quick nor dead have they to comfort them : their fee-fumbling lingers clutch vacancy till they close on Leandro's gold. The parish seems stagnant—eximintate : the people have not life enough left to die, much less to reproduce living beings. " The air's too pure—they cannot perish!" exclaims Lopez. " They are starved, too, yet they will not die—they will not earth," echoes Diego. Even the " Doctors kill but slow, vet they're certain "—" Oh for a good stout plague cries the Sexton, " an air that is the nursery of agues, such as will shake men's souls out." " We must remove them," replies the Parson, " into a muddy air—a most contagious climate." And so the pair go on bandying ghastly jests on their forlorn condition ; till Fortune, as if its pure pity, sends the wealthy scapegrace Leandro to re- plenish their coffers—not their coffins—by bribing them to further his scheme against old Bartolus : then the Curate sports a velvet cas- sock, and Diego a new suit and sombrero ; they rate their torpid and slack parishioners soundly, and are only prevailed upon to remain among them by assurances of a speedy supply of old men for the grave and of infants for the font. The unexpected good fortune so inflames Diego's imagination, that he is able to play the part of a dying miser so as to deceive the old rogue Bartolus, who swears to become executor to a will of the most lavish bequests, which he is bound to find funds to administer. This scene is the richest in the comedy and being rele- gated to the fifth act, revives the merriment of the audience towards the end. The other characters are mere outlines, but the Curate and Sex- ton are a pair of finished studies, replete with satirical wit and humour • and perr,onated by the two best comedians eat the English stage. VEsTLEs, as Antaranta, sings a sweet Spanish air to some pretty verses ti.ken front The Cl“rnees 111: At to Ni' and Fla:m.11En: CITAILLES MaTrrEW!', its her lover Lognr/r0, displays his skill on the guitar, and wears a superb Spanish lint and cloak gallantly ; lint he is not suffi- ciently disguised either in look or manner as the shy student. II.Urr- LEY, as Ilartolus, blusters and fumes tit his discomfiture ; ANDER ,•0:•;, as Juan, beards his brother manfully ; Mrs. Bitouorts7.!, as 17e/ante, beenmes a dress of riaht royal splendour very well ; and Miss Coeera gives to the poor boy . Iseanie a quiet, touching beauty, said' as the authors intended.
The se:ieery, though not a principal feature, is in floe taa:e through- out; : the Lodge:me and garden scenes glow with the warmth and bright- ness of a sunny clime ; and the interiors and street-Feencs are of the true Spanish character.
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