Now it so happened that we differed essentially from those inspired ones. We thought, as most critics who have seen him in England do, that Mr. Dwyer's Belcour was a most elegant and accomplished specimen of genteel acting—chaste, graceful, and where the character required and admitted it, interesting and impressive. And we had the satisfaction to perceive as the play advanced the audience conformed more and more to the same opinion. It is greatly to Mr. Dwyer's credit that all the applause he received, was extorted by his own merit, and drawn like drops of blood reluctantly distilled from languid hearts.
In Tangent a character in which broader humour afforded him an opportunity of coming nearer to the genteel taste. Mr. Dwyer met with a superior reception at first, and before the end of the play drew the most unequivocal acknowledgments of his supreme comic powers.
In the character of Ranger, (Suspicious Husband) though he was wretchedly supported by the performers of every character, save Strictland and Tester, he was no less successful.
In Vapid he was truly excellent and delivered the epilogue with a force and humour which merited and indeed received three successive rounds of applause after the curtain dropped.
The English critics concur in pronouncing Mr. Dwyer's the best wilding (Lyar) on the British boards. Nor will an enlightened critic, provided he be honest as well as enlightened, deny his great superiority in that part. Having seen Lewis, Palmer, I. Bannister, and several others, perform young Wilding, we have no hesitation to declare that in many parts of the character, but particularly in his account of the feigned marriage with Miss Lydia Sibthorpe, and the adventure of the closet and the cat, he was superior to any actor but the great original and the author of the piece, Sam Foote.
Of his Rapid we are unable to say any thing, having been detained from the theatre by business to a late hour. His Sir Charles Racket, which followed it, was, like Belcour, an elegant specimen of high genteel comedy. Something went wrong however towards the conclusion of the piece which occasioned it to end rather abruptly.
Upon the whole we must in justice say, that Mr. Dwyer, so far as we have seen him go, has shown uncommon talents for the stage—that he is an acquisition to the American boards, such as we had not dared to hope for, and that we trust next season will bring him back, and exhibit him in a range of characters more varied and extensive, and better calculated to call forth the great natural powers of which he seems to be amply possessed.
Grand Musical Performances.
In no country in the world is the practice of music more universally extended and at the same time the science so little understood as in America. Almost every house included between the Delaware and Schuylkill has its piano or harpsichord, its violin, its flute, or its clarinet. Almost every young lady and gentleman from the children of the Judge, the banker, and the general, down to those of the constable, the huckster, and the drummer, can make a noise upon some instrument or other, and charm their friends, or split the ears of their neighbours, with something which courtesy calls music. Europeans, as they walk our streets, are often surprised with the flute rudely warbling "Hail Columbia," from an oyster cellar, or the piano forte thumped to a female voice screaming "O Lady Fair!" from behind a heap of cheese, a basket of eggs, a flour barrel, or a puncheon of apple whiskey; and on these grounds we take it for granted that we are a very musical people.