[Illustration:  P]Prodigious!  The minor drama has exhausted its stock of major crimes:  parricide is out of date; infanticide has become from constant occurrence decidedly low; homicide grows tame and uninteresting; and fratricide is a mere bagatelle, not worthy of attention.  The dramatist must therefore awaken new sympathies by contriving new crimes—­he must invent.  In this the Sadler’s Wells genius has been fortunate.  He has brought forward a novelty in assassination, which is harrowing in the extreme:  it may be called Farm-house-icide!  Just conceive the pitch of intense sympathy it is possible for one to feel, while beholding “the murder of a lone farm-house!” Arson is nothing to it.

Out of this novel domiciliary catastrophe the author of “Margaret Mayfield” has formed a melodrama, which in every other respect is founded, like a chancellor’s decree, upon precedent; it being a good old-fashioned, cut-throat piece, of the leather-breeches-and-gaiter, plough-and-pitchfork school.  A country-inn parlour of course commences the story, where certain characters assemble, who reveal enough of themselves and of the characters assumed by their fellows (at that time amusing themselves in the green-room), to let any person the least acquainted with the literature of melodrama into the secret of the entire plot.  There is the villain, who is as usual in love with the heroine, and in league with three ill-looking fellows sitting at a separate table.  There too is the old-established farmer, who has about him a considerable sum of money—­a fact he mentions for the information of his pot-companions, on purpose to be robbed of it.  The low comedian as usual disports himself upon a three-legged stool, dressed in the never-to-be-worn-out short non-continuations, skirtless coat, and “eccentric” tile.

A scene or two afterwards, and we are surprised to find that the farmer is safely housed, and that he has not been robbed upon a bleak moor on a dark stage.  But we soon feel a sensation of awe, when we learn that before us is the interior of the very farm-house that is going to be murdered.  The farmer and his wife go through the long-standing dialogue of stage-stereotype, about love and virtue, the price of turnips, and their only child; and the husband goes to some fair with a friend, who had just been rejected by his sister-in-law in favour of the villain.  The coast being left clear, the villain and his accomplices enter, and we know something dreadful is going to happen, for the farmer’s wife is gone out of the way on purpose not to interrupt.  The villain draws a knife and drags his sweetheart into an out-house, and then the wife comes on to describe what is passing; for the audiences of Sadler’s Wells would tear up the benches if they dared to murder out of sight, without being told what is going on.  Accordingly, we hear a scream, and the sister of the screamer exclaims,—­“Ah, horror!  He draws the knife across her throat!