THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

Of a certainty Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS made a mistake when he fancied himself a dramatist. Possibly he may have inherited some small share of the poetical talent of his well-known maternal grandfather,—the author of "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," but he has shown no sign of the eminent histrionic genus which has made his elder brother, Mr. WENDELL PHILLIPS, so popular a Reformer. Still, if he was bent upon writing plays he should have confined himself to dramatizing the more quiet and domestic of Dr. WATTS'S poems. "How doth the little busy bee"—for example—could have been turned into quite a nice little five-act drama, had Mr. PHILLIPS condescended to grapple with so simple a subject. But no, he must indulge in battles, and Sepoys, and Butchers of St. BARTHOLOMEW, and dancing girls and things. He will write sensational plays, let the consequences be what they may. Hence we are made to suffer from Not Guilty, The Huguenot, and similar harrowing spectacles. The Huguenot, which has just died a lingering death at BOOTH'S Theatre, is an aggravated case of dramatic misdemeanor on the part of the author, since it is wantonly stretched out into five acts, when it could properly be compressed into three. A strict compliance with the old maxim, "De mortuis nil desperandum nisi prius," (I haven't quite forgotten my Latin yet,) would oblige me to refrain from abusing it, now that it is happily dead; but, as another proverb puts it, "The law knows no necessity," and I therefore can do as I choose. Here, then, is its corpse, exhumed as a warning to those who may be about to witness any other of Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private Huguenot, the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering fellow-citizens not of Protestant descent.

ACT I.—Scene, a tavern in the outskirts of Paris. RENE, the Huguenot, is pretending to sleep on an uncomfortable wooden bench. A drunken villain insults a lovely gipsy. RENE gets up and kills him, and escapes his pursuers by falling over a convenient precipice. Curtain.

Mr. WALLER. (Soliloquizing behind the scene.) "To-morrow I'll have a comfortable bench to sleep on, if I have to take MACGONIGLE'S sofa. I won't play RENE again if I have to lie for twenty minutes on that infamous board bench!"

COMIC MAN. (Who is believed to read HARPER'S "Drawer.'") "You know WATTS PHILLIPS is a grandson of old Dr. WATTS. Now here's a genealogical joke. If TOM'S father is DICK'S son, what relation is DICK to TOM?"

ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. "Nephew? niece? mother-in-law?—I give it up!"

COMIC MAN. "I thought you would. Well, he is—Upon my word I forget the answer, but it's a first rate one. I've got it down at the office, anyhow!"

ACT II.—Scene, the interior of a Duchess's drawing-room. Enter RENE through the window.

RENE. "I have killed a man and am pursued. Save me!"

DUCHESS. (Aside.) "Perhaps he is an influential politician, and may get my son an office in the Street Department." To RENE.—"Sir, I will save you. Get behind the curtain." (Enter mob of drunken soldiers.)