THE THEATRES.

THE Monopoly hangs its millstone weight round the neck both of Tragedy and Comedy at the two Great Theatres. We went on Saturday to see the Jealous Wife, and found it as dull an affair as could well be. MACRE A DT'S Mr. Oakley was the only genuine personation of the whole cast. Whatever minor objections it may

be open to, it is at least an easy, natural, graceful, and forcible performance. It made still more evident the Brummagem quality of the rest of the " gentlemen " of the dramatis personm. BART- LEY'S caricature and Cooppa's mechanical mannerism were unen-

durable. A Mr. BARNARD appeared as Captain O'Cutter. He had one qualification for the part—impudence—the gross vul- garity might have been spared. GREEN'S Lord Trinket was a foot-

man's assumption of the airs of a man of fashion. He only apes the fop; he affects affectation. He is hard both in feature and in manner. DOWTON begins to show the marks of age; and Mrs.

GIBBS is superannuated for youthful parts. Miss PHILLIPS'S Mrs. Oakley was a clever piece of acting; and with any other representative but MACREADY for her husband, would have been more successful ; his naturalness exposed by contrast all the arti- ficiality of her stage manner. Her sister, Miss E. PHILLIPS, made her debut as Harriet. She is a very pleasing young lady, and did her little part with unaffected ease and propriety.

Having satisfied ourselves of "the nakedness of the land," we have since been content to trust to the reports of others • and

shall continue to do so, unless any sign of improvement should be

manifest. Mrs. SLOMAN'S performance of Belvidera has given us no hope of the revival of tragedy. It is described as being a respectable piece of declamatory acting, in the conventional man- ner of the stage; marked only by an extreme and literal attention to the direction, "suit the action to the word." Its best quality

seems to have been a freedom from rant. ELLEN TREE has re- turned to the stage of the Great Theatres; where half the beau- ties of her acting are lost to the majority of the audience. Mr.

KIIVG does not appear to have falsified our anticipation of his un- fitness for personating Romeo. GREEN'S Mercutio was, it seems, a caput mortuum. The performances are perpetuallychanging, but their character does not vary. Mediocrity has set the leaden seal of dulness upon them. The Manager keeps moving, but advances not a step. He is very busy doing nothing.

. At the Adelphi, YATES has promptly repaired the mistake he made at setting out; and has produced a new drama of the better sort, putting the spectacle of Lekinda in its proper place, as a last piece. Grace Huntley is likely to he as popular as Victorine ; and as far as regards the acting, it deserves to be so. The story is soon told. Grace Huntley is married to a man of bad character,

who is leagued with others more desperate than himself. In order to save her child from being trained to crime by his father, she

has her husband brought to justice for a burglary, which she dis- covers he had committed with the aid of the boy. Her husband forgives her, and vows to live an altered man; and she promises to rejoin him across the seas. The character of Grace Huntley - is developed with great simplicity ; and is personated by Mrs. YATES with genuine feeling. It is a most beautiful and touching performance. The pictures she gives—first of the loving and con- fiding girl, fearful of offending her father, who is averse to her marriage with Joseph Huntley, yet yielding to the impulse of her affection for her lover—then of the unhappy but patient and de- voted wife—and last, of the fond mother, frantic at the thought of her child being brought up to the gallows—are vividly true to na- ture. YATES'S Joseph Huntley is also admirable. But the cha- vacter is a repulsive one; and moreover he has to contend with two or three glaring inconsistencies, which injure its effect, and indeed lessen the merit of the drama. Huntley does not seem to - have sufficient temptation-to bear out the character of a man not

naturally vicious and ill-disposed. The arguments of Sandy, his tempter, are such as would not be heeded by any one standing in need of them. Again, it is a useless absurdity to threaten his wife with bringing the neck of their boy within the noose of the hangman, if she does not shut her eyes to his proceedings, while he is all the time doing the very thing he threatens. A man of the character he turns out to be, would shrink within himself from the contemplation of such a prospect, even while he employed his son in a way to lead to it. Lastly, is it probable that a man like Huntley would live without food for a long time together? or, being in that famished condition, would he refuse to eat a loaf that his wife sets before him, because it is not made of the finest flour? The hungry man would have eaten first, if he grumbled afterwards. 0. SMITH as Sandy, a rustic villain, brutally igno- rant and insensible, and hardened in crime, which he looks upon as his calling, makes us shudder while we admire. An interval of twelve years is supposed to elapse between the first and second acts ; during which time Grace is married to Huntley, and their child grows to the age of eleven. This was not needed. Indeed the first act might have been dispensed with altogether; for no essential change takes place in the character or circumstances of any one of the dramatis personas. We should not have liked to lose Mrs. YATES'S beautiful acting in the scene between her father and her lover ; but then, we would willingly have been spared Huntley's participation in the robbery of the old man, and the murder of hire by Sandy—which smacks too strongly of the Newgate Calendar.

REEVE as a baker, and BUCKSTONE as a black servant, rivals in love, are very amusing; but they have no share whatever in the action of the drama, nor are they in the remotest degree con- nected with the plot.

The scenery, by TOMKINS, is very picturesque. In the scene on the common, with the tile-kilns, however, the moon shines too brightly, considering how much wind and rain there is ;—the sounds of which, by the by, were capitally imitated ; it was better than the rain at the Olympic, and as good as VESTRIs'S thunder— which is quite Olympian.

SHERIDA.N KNOWLES appeared at the Victoria on Tuesday as the Hunchback, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheering by a full house. They have got up a new melodrama there, from the bal- lad of William and Margaret, in most elaborate style. " Mar- garet's grimly ghost" literally "glided in." The scenery, espe- cially a view of Lord William's castle by twilight, was beautiful. We have heard that the painter is Mr. BENGOUGH, a son of the actor of that name.

The little Strand Theatre has been suddenly closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain ! What an odious branch of the Cham- berlain's authority is this miserable meddling with the players, and how degrading its exercise, to a nobleman of high spirit—the Duke of DEVONSHIRE cad (as it were) to BUNN ! Here are about fifty persons thrown out of bread in an instant, and the town de- prived of one of its pleasant amusements—for what? Psha! the thing is not to be argued about. Let contempt alone speak.