Lord Bolingbroke. We were mistaken. This Halifax turned out to be a low, fighting, brawling ruffian, who kills or wounds a man per diem. It was at the Théâtre des Variétés, where vaudevilles alone are performed, that during the month of December last this comedy of Dumas' was presented, ' mêlée de chant,' to bring it within the proper designation. The appearance of Alexander Dumas, one of the leaders of the romantic school, in the humble walk of vaudeville, excited some curiosity among the literary public of Paris. Was it to be regarded as a specimen of the relaxation and bonhommie of a great man, attired in nightgown and pantoufles? or the vanity of a versatile genius, determined to conquer in every walk of literature, without leaving a nook untrodden? And the question took divers crowds to see it solved. Now heartily do we wish that Dumas had not intruded his foot within this smiling garden of the vaudeville. He who opened a melodrama with heaven, and the angels, and the virgin, and an ascending soul (let the doubters of so monstrous a tale refer to Don Juan de Marana), had no business with that genuine, sparkling, essentially French thing, the Vaudeville. As no capital in Europe contains any class resembling the grisette, so is the vaudeville exclusively Parisian. How the dialogue, studded with song, runs on like a merry stream, broken every moment by apparent obstacles, which only serve to make it musical! The classic drama may pale before the romantic, and the romantic, after assuming a thousand extravagant shapes, may go down in brimstone and red and blue lights; but the vaudeville will mount up, light as a champagne bubble, coloured with the gay rays of wit and animal spirits, and immortal as France, its own sunny land. Oh! Scribe, why didst thou abandon so happy realm, where thou wert supreme, to take to history and politics, and the legitimate five-act comedy forsooth, where thou art last among the great? Better dost thou think it, to serve at the feet of Molière's statue, than to reign in a paradise of repartee and chansonette? See how Dumas steals in and occupies the vacant ground! And how does he signalize his seizure of your charming little Marquesas? Why, by a fatal duel. Blood upon the boards of the Variétés!! Oh! come back, Scribe, and wash out the foul stains with a flood of repartee! Dumas transferred his vaudeville to England, laying the scene at the period of Charles II. It opens with a tavern. The host is preparing to receive his guests. Make haste! in a quarter of an hour our guests will be here. Prepare the tables, so that every thing be found in its proper place. Here Thomas Dickson, a pot of ale and the Holland Gazette.' Here John Burleigh and Charles Smith, a bottle of porter and a pack of cards. There for Seigneur Halifax, a bottle of claret and dice." The host is interrupted by news of the arrival of a young lady, who waits in expectation of the coming of a Rev. Mr. Simpson. She is unaccompanied, and is to leave in two hours. Lord Dudley next enters, in pursuit of the fair, and bribes the innkeeper to be allowed an already occupied chamber, adjoining that now held by the young lady. Dudley, in the mean time, seats himself at a table, when Halifax arrives, and, casting a contemptuous glance at the habitués of the tavern, walks up, in the custom which will at once be recognised as thoroughly English, straight to Lord Dudley, whom he has never seen before, and proposes to play at dice with him, as the only gentleman in company. Dudley accepts the offer. They play, and Halifax cheats. Lord Dudley accuses him of foul play, and Halifax replies by throwing the dice in his lordship's face, which outrage he follows up by a challenge to fight with pistols, in the very room where they are, and before the company assembled. They accordingly take their stand at the corners of the stage most remote, and advance in the present continental fashion. Lord Dudley's pistol misses fire, and then Halifax, who might have advanced and shot the nobleman, coolly invites his Lordship to a parley. "Monsieur," he begins, "my opinion is that the ball in this pistol is worth £200, and even at that price is not dear." Lord Dudley takes the hint, and at the proffered sum purchases his life, no doubt believing he had struck a good bargain. And here all difference might have ended, but for the young lady still waiting the Rev. Mr. Simpson, and into whose room Lord Dudley now intrudes himself. Her screams bring Halifax to her aid; Halifax, without more scruple, draws upon his lordship; and the curtain falls to conceal the shedding of blood. So ends the first act, or, as it is called, the prologue; a convenient name, by which the unities seem to be preserved, when any interval of time is supposed to elapse between the first act and the rest of the performance. In the next act we are introduced to a certain Sir John Dunbar, who is seeking to seduce a simple young girl named Jenny. She is repulsing his advances, at the moment when a letter is put into his hands, written by the late Lord Dudley when dying. In this highly characteristic letter, accompanied with Sir John's comments and reflexions, we have Halifax's true position and character, as well as an explanation of what the reader will discover to be a somewhat strange mission. "My dear Dunbar,-In a duel without seconds, I have been mortally wounded by a fellow named Halifax, who ran me through the body with a sword, which he was not entitled to wear: as this man is in your service, I address myself to you, my best of friends, and call upon you to obtain vengeance from his Majesty. And now I die more tranquilly, in the hope that this fellow will receive the punishment he merits. I beg you, then, to have him hanged as soon as you lay your hands upon him. Such is the last request of your friend, DUDLEY.' Dudley killed in a duel! and by Halifax! The rogue, then, pretends to play the gentleman, and is spending in taverns the money which I gave him to employ in the discovery of my lost daughter!" It will appear rather strange, to any one expecting illustrations of human nature in the drama, that a father should employ an atrocious blackguard for the performance of so delicate a mission as that of seeking for a lost child; but as Sir John detests his nephew, for no better reason than that the nephew is virtuous, perhaps it is not so strange that he should repose his confidence in Halifax. Well-this old reprobate, Sir John, finding that he has Halifax in his power, confides to him the nature of his passion for the poor girl Jenny; and proposes, under fear of the gallows, that he shall marry her, in trust for his master. Halifax, villain as he is, recoils from the proposition. Sir John allows ten minutes' time for consideration. The time is employed by Halifax in inquiry concerning Jenny, whose affections, he rejoices to learn, are already devoted to some unknown. Halifax consents, therefore, to ask Jenny in marriage, calculating upon her refusal; but Jenny, to his horror, and the intended amusement of the spectator, accepts his proposal with unbounded delight; and their immediate marriage is commanded by the impatient Sir John. A scene soon afterwards takes place, which bids defiance even to the French probabilities. Halifax reproaches Jenny for her abandonment of the unknown, whom she had loved, for him. Jenny replies, that the unknown was Halifax himself; and she proceeds to call to mind that Halifax, during their childhood, had been her playfellow in the same village where they were both born, and which Halifax left six years ago. Yet after six years had he been utterly unable to recognise that faithful Jenny, who had never forgotten him; and who, at first sight, hailed him for her old friend. However, Halifax makes up for lost time, and, on the instant, talks like a fond and innocent swain. Jenny reminds him, that at his departure she accompanied him two leagues: "we quitted each other; I wept abundantly; and you, too, wept a little also." Halifax.-And then I clambered up the mountain, waving to thee my handkerchief. Thou didst follow me from the valley. Arrived at the summit, at the spot where a sudden turning of the pathway was about to hide thee from my view, I looked back, for the last time; and approaching the extremity of the rock, I saw thee upon thy knees beneath, sending me a last adieu-a last kiss. Then I plucked a marguerite (daisy), and cast it to thee. Very pretty this from a cheating, drinking, killing, abandoned scamp; and after so extraordinary a lapse of memory! But he now finds he loves that Jenny passionately, whom he had completely forgotten: in fact, he had always passionately loved her: and, in proof, he resolves not to marry her, but to prefer being hanged. Heroic as may be his determination however, sorry we are to confess that he does not support it heroically. Instead of boldly announcing it to Sir John, he merely tries to shuffle out of the dilemma in which his master has placed him: creating delays, and trusting to some lucky turn of fortune. Sir John orders the immediate solemnization of "Oh!" says Halifax, "there must first be pub the marriage. Sir John.-I have bought a dispensation. Halifax.-Oh! much obliged-thank you, Monseigneur, but I am a Protestant, and Jenny is a Catholic. Sir John.-Ah thou art a Protestant? Halifax.-Mon Dieu! yes. I am somewhat Protestant. Sir John.-I always suspected as much. I always thought you were a Roundhead. Halifax. And I cannot abjure. Sir John.-Oh! thou art too honest for that; so I found a way of settling the difficulty. While at breakfast with the Archbishop of Canterbury, I hinted to him his majesty's desire to see mixed marriages encouraged amongst his subjects, hoping thereby to bring about a blending of parties. His lordship understood me, and I hold his authority signed with his hand and sealed with his seal (!!) More tricks and doublings follow upon the part of Halifax, but Sir John literally and metaphorically holds the noose about his neck. The marriage is inevitable, as well as the dishonour; when, lo! Sir John discovers Jenny to be his own daughter. It was Jenny, too, whom Lord Dudley assailed; and it was in Jenny's cause that Halifax's sword was dyed with the unfortunate nobleman's blood. Thus every thing happily ends; the archbishop very likely, provided with his English majesty's dispensation for all the worthy gentleman's crimes, officiating at Mr. Halifax's nuptials. And this is a vaudeville, or, by the book, a comedy, mixed with couplets; and this is the lugubrious mirth, not to speak of the morality, of the romantic school. Oh! Alexander Dumas. The play entitled, 'La Main Droite et la Main Gauche,' although presented for the first time within this present year, is, in fact, an alteration of a comedy whose appearance was interdicted by the French authorities about two years ago. The comedy so condemned by the dramatic censor, bore the quaint title, 'Il était une fois un Roi et une Reine' (There was once upon a time a King and a Queen), and was supposed to convey a more marked allusion to the Queen of England, and her illustrious consort, than was consistent with propriety. An attempt was made to beget an interest in the author and his play, on this account, by an abundant use of the puff oblique. It was circulated in whispers, that Lord Granville having been consulted thereon, his excellency declined to interfere: that, in a proper English spirit, he threw back upon the authorities the care of their own public character, and that of their countrymen: upon their own heads should rest the responsibility of an unworthy attack upon a young married lady, exposed to observation and the shafts of dull malice, by her position as head Leon Gozlan's suppressed Comedy. 157 of the greatest country in the world. In justice to Monsieur Gozlan, we must acknowledge that he denied, in the public papers, the imputation of having sought to prop up his literary repute, by any speculation upon the prejudices excited at the time through political differences. But whatever may have been his intentions, certain it is, that repeated alterations and amendments failed, in the eyes of the censor, to remove a vice too thoroughly planted in the whole of the production. M. Gozlan was not only obliged to remodel his play, but to change the scene of action from England to Sweden. And notwithstanding a corresponding alteration of names in the dramatis personæ, we find retained such English designations as Major Palmer (and he is the chief character), as well as Drake and Donald; while in one part a gallant homage is paid to the charms of the daughters of the Emerald Isle. Were it not, however, that the Queen of Sweden's prime minister, like the Lord Bolingbroke of Scribe, owes his position to his dancing, as well as to other accomplishments deemed pleasing in the eyes of ladies, there could hardly be found a trace of personal allusion recognisable in this play, whose effect was supposed to have depended altogether upon portraitures, if not caricatures, of English political personages. The Queen of Sweden, before her union with Prince Hermann, had been married by the main gauche, that is to say clandestinely, to Major Palmer, who was sometime afterwards conveyed away to the East Indies. Prince Hermann, too, had contracted left-handed matrimony with a German lady, Rodolphine. The one has a son, and the other a daughter, and as the Major returns, and Rodolphine takes up her abode in the neighbourhood of the palace, and as the son and daughter are unaware of their relationship to each other, the terms of which we do not undertake to settle according to the canons, there is an embroglio enough to occupy the utmost curiosity of the most eager unraveller of dramatic puzzles. Perhaps, however, as the story occurred since the very late period of Charles X., the truth thereof is easily ascertainable. The young gentleman, Master Prince Hermann, had saved Miss Princess Palmer's life, a foundation for love and gratitude familiar to most readers of romance; and she in return, when her lover gets into a scrape for which he is condemned to be hanged, commits perjury to save him, deliberately lisping one of those dainty sentimentalisms which any where but on the French stage would be deemed indecent, immoral, and blasphemous. You risked your life, Monsieur Wilfrid, to save mine, and I for you have lost my soul.' If this was in the English version, the author may have meant it as a satire on a certain Jennie Deans, who, in the Scotch sense of religion, is |