THE THEATRES.
THE third attempt of the lessee of Covent Garden to fill his great house has failed: the French Children have not found favour with the Eng- lish public. The first appearance in London of Les Enfans Castelli attracted but a scanty audience, and the attendance was not more numerous subsequently. The bill of fare was unpromising, and the entertainment proved unsatisfactory : it was all interlude and after- piece ; consisting of a brace of ballets, a dull English farce, and a fa- miliar French vaudeville, interspersed with comic songs and dances. Moreover, there was a strange medley of French and English, juvenile and adult performers ; and the children, whom people came on purpose to see, only appeared when the patience of the house had been wearied with two tiresome pieces played by grown-up actors. Had the ballet in which the whole troop of Le Gymnase Enfantin were on the stage at once, been given first instead of last, the impression would have been more favourable : even as it was, this portion of the performance was most applauded.
The Lilliputian corps is well drilled, and includes two or three very clever little folks ; one in particular, M. COLBRUN, the LEVASSOR of the party, sings chansons in character, and acts in vaudeville and ballet- pantomime, with the skill and address of a veteran : in fact, he is a juvenile genius in his way. Mademoiselle LEONTINE, WO, is a very pleasing actress ; sings couplets nicely, and dances with graceful agility and ease. But to appreciate their merits in a large theatre is out of the question : to persons near the stage their tiny features were scarcely discernible withont the aid of a glass, while to those at a distance they must have looked like fautocetni figures ; and few could understand what was said or sung. The badness of the pieces played by the adult English, and the want of interest in those which the French juveniles performed, provoked disapprobation loud and long-continued : the feats of M. LAURENcON, a full-grown gymnast, who dislocated his joints and shook his head as if he would sling it off his shoulders, were neither ex- traordinary nor agreeable ; while the clever singing and acting of the young vaudevillistes were unintelligible except to the initiated. The clamour increasing, little COLBRUN shrugged his shoulders and sat down despairingly : whereupon the manager came forward in angry mood, and denounced "those blackguards in the gallery," as hired dis- turbers; threatening them with ejectment by the police. This rash and intemperate proceeding irritated the malecontents, and dis- pleased the well-disposed portion of the audience ; and the inter- ruptions, though less noisy, became more frequent. There may have been an organized opposition, as Mr. WALLACH asserted in a letter to the papers ; but at the same time, dissatisfaction was very generally felt with the evening's entertainments : some were bad of their kind, and others were unsuited to the theatre and to a mis- cellaneous audience. Indeed, Mr. WALLACH himself admits that the CASTELLI company has not come up to his expectations, and that the public is not so favourable to performances of this nature as he antici- pated. The result has been the closing of the house on Tharsdayi to be opened for the manager's benefit on Monday. Mr. FARREN'S illness has thrown the Haymarket manager on his other resources; which have been made available for the production of novelty. MURPHY'S amusing comedy Know Your Own Mind, which contains the germ of the "School for Scandal," was revived on Tues- day, and went off very pleasantly. Madame VESTRIS, as Lady Bell Bloomer, was dressed with consummate taste and elegance, sang very charmingly, and played the coquette in a most captivating manner ; Mrs. GLOVER, as the intriguing Mrs. Bromley, tyrannized over her de- pendent, Miss Neville, with the skill of a professor of the art of inge- niously tormenting ; and Mrs. E. YARNOLD, as her victim, excited the sympathies of the audience. Mr. H. Howls Millamour was too hard, abrupt, and noisy, for that fickle fool of impulse ; CHARLES MATHEWS, as Dashwood, became the witty, well-bred coxcomb, admirably, and uttered the retorts of the dialogue with the conversational ease of im- promptu; and Mr. STUART looked the hypocritical scoundrel Malville, the prototype of Joseph Surface, to the life. The costumes are correct and handsome ; and the performance taken altogether, such as to sus- tain the character of this the best company of comedians extant. On Wednesday, a new French melodrama, called Victor and Hor- tense, or False Pride, was produced ; of which Madame CELESTE is the heroine. Hortense, an imperious young lady, to recover the rank she has lost by her mother's mesalliance, marries a gamekeeper on her estate, who is discovered to be a Duke ; and having thus gained the title of Dutchess, she leaves her illiterate lord in the lurch, for all she finds he is over head and ears in love with her. The Revolution puts the proud woman at the mercy of her husband ; for he has become a Colonel in the Republican army, and she is denounced as an aristocrat ; and the result is their reconciliation. Madame CELESTE played with her usual galvanic energy ; and WEBSTER, as the rustic Duke, looked picturesque, and acted with judgment and pathos. BUCKSTONE, as a corporal, enamoured of a "splendid woman," is extremely amusing ; and Mrs. W. CLIFFORD, as the object of his adoration, materially aided the effect of BUCHSTONE'S drollery by her grave burlesque of pompous arrogance.
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