has, we are informed, taken to disguising herself; and some time since, while rambling about in the character of a yeoman’s daughter, she entered Blount’s shop, and fell in love with Thomas:  at this exact part of the narrative Colonel Blount is announced, attended by his sworn friend, Sir Philip Brilliant.  A sort of partial recognition takes place; which leaves the audience in a dreadful state of suspense till the commencement of another act.

Sir Philip, who has formerly loved Lady Blanche without success, now tries his fortune with Lady Anne; and at this point, dramatic invention ends; for, excepting the mock-marriage of John Blount with a lady’s-maid, the rest of the play is occupied by the vicissitudes the two pair of lovers go through—­all of their own contrivance, on purpose to make themselves as wretched as possible—­till the grand clearing up, which always takes place in every last scene, from the “Adelphi” of Terence (or Yates), down to the “Old Maids” of Mr. Sheridan Knowles.

* * * * *

COCORICO, OR MY AUNT’S BANTAM.

Since playwrights have left off plotting and under-plotting on their own account, and depend almost entirely upon the “French,” managers have added a new member to their establishments, and, like the morning papers, employ a Paris correspondent, that French plays, as well as French eggs, may be brought over quite fresh; though from the slovenly manner in which they (the pieces, not the eggs) are too often prepared for the English market, they are seldom neat as imported.

The gentleman who “does” the Parisian correspondence for the Adelphi Theatre, has supplied it with a vaudeville bearing the above title; the fable, of which, like some of AEsop’s, principally concerns a hen, that, however, does not speak, and a smart cockscomb who does—­an innocent little fair who has charge of the fowl—­a sort of Justice Woodcock, and a bombardier who, because he is in the uniform of a drum or bugle-major, calls himself a serjeant.  To these may be added, Mr. Yates in his own private character, and a few sibilants in the pit, who completed the poultry-nature of the piece by playing the part of geese.

The plot would have been without interest, but for the accidental introduction of the last two characters,—­or the geese and the cock-of-the-walk.  The pittites, affronted at the extreme puerility of some of the incidents, and the inanity of all the dialogue, hissed.  This raffled the feathers of the cock-of-the-walk, who was already on, or rather at, the wing; and he flew upon the stage in a tantrum, to silence the geese.  Mr. Yates spoke—­we need not say how or what.  Everybody knows how he of the Adelphi shrugs his shoulders, and squeezes his hat, and smiles, and frowns, and “appeals” and “declares upon his honour” while agitating the buttons on the left side of his coat, and “entreats” and “throws himself upon the candour of a British public,” and puts the stamp upon all he has said by an impressive thump of the foot, a final flourish of the arms, and a triumphal exit to poean-sounding “bravoes!” and to the utter confusion of all dis—­or to be more correct, hiss—­sentients.