December 21.—Town and Country, by Morton—Village Lawyer. Some of the British critics rank Mr. Morton with the farce-writers of the day, others again pronounce his comedies to be the best which the age has produced, and say that they will be selected by posterity from the perishable trash of the day. We agree with neither, thinking it likely they may remain for a few years among the stock of acting plays. To say that they will be admired by posterity is praise as hyperbolical and unjust, as ranking them in farce is calumnious and untrue.
The comedy before us is a very pleasing production. The plot is well imagined, and the author has contrived to condense into it more bustle and incident than can readily be found in a piece of the same length. Reuben Gleuroy, the hero, is a noble character, possessed of the most exalted virtues, which are continually brought into active exercise for the good of his fellow beings. He preaches little and does a great deal, and displays a generosity and greatness of mind touching, as the world now goes, upon the chivalrous. But that which makes him more conspicuously amiable and interesting is that while he takes the most ardent and active concern in the happiness of mankind, he is himself reduced by the wickedness of others to a state of misery almost of distraction, which awakens the most poignant sympathy for his situation. Deserted, as he imagines, by the object of his dearest affections, Rosalie Summers, who is supposed to have eloped with a villain of high rank of the name of Plastic, he goes to London and finds his brother in the last stage of ruin and despair by gambling, and stops his hand just at the moment he is attempting suicide. In the end he reforms the brother, discovers his Rosalie, and finds that she is innocent and faithful; and by a series of those events, which whether likely or not, modern dramatists without scruple press into their service, is made perfectly happy. The colouring of this admirable portrait is not a little heightened in its effect by a tinge of eccentricity caught from a life of rural retirement in the romantic mountainous country of Wales. On this character and that of old Mr. Cosey, a philanthropic, wealthy, and munificent stock-broker, whose cash, always at the disposal of his friends, enables Reuben to accomplish his purposes, the author seems to have dwelt con amore. The comic dialogue of the piece arises chiefly from the contrasted feelings of Mr. Cosey and Mr. Trot. Cosey admires the city, and is miserable in Wales, while Trot, a wealthy cotton-spinner, rejoices at the loss of a large share of his property because it furnishes him with a pretext for returning to the country and leaving the abominable city to which he was hurried away by the vanity of his wife.
Mr. Wood displayed in Reuben, much ability, sound sense, and fine feeling. No person that we know on the stage discloses in his performances so little of the mere actor. That indefinable something, which though obvious to perception cannot be described, but is understood by the term “plain gentleman,” tinctures all he says and does upon the stage. Whether this be detrimental to him as a general actor, we have not yet seen this gentleman often enough to determine: but this we will say, that while it stands a perpetual security against his being positively disagreeable in any character he may be obliged to act, it throws a charm over all those for which he is best fitted by nature.
The amiable, the inimitable Cosey, never was, nor ever can be more perfectly at home than in the person of Mr. Jefferson. Were the author to see the performance and to observe the correspondence of the actor’s physiognomy as well as action and utterance, with the sentiments of the character, he would from his heart exclaim in the words of Cosey himself, “NOW THIS IS WHAT I CALL COMFORTABLE.”
It would be great injustice not to acknowledge the pleasure we received from Mr. Francis in the character of Trot, which he conceived and executed with great humour and spirit.
A Mr. West from the southward made his appearance in the Yorkshire rustic Hawbuck. His face and person are well adapted to a certain class of low comedy; his voice still more so. If he will but avoid that bane of comedians, the effort to raise laughter by spurious humour and low trick, he will thrive in his department.
In the drawing of the female parts there is nothing sufficiently striking to call forth the powers of an actress. What was to be done was sufficiently well done by Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Wilmot. But, were they well cast? or, should they not change sides?