In her flight Nina has been taken unwell—­with the poison—­just in that part of the forest where her spouse is left, by his enemy, in a swoon.  They meet, and she dies in his arms.  Two being now defunct, only one remains; but there is some difficulty in getting rid of Doria, for he is (as is always the case when a stage felo-de-se impends) unprovided with a weapon.  Going up to his trusty friend D’Estala, he engages him in talk, and, with the dexterity of a footpad, steals his dagger, and stabs himself.  All the principal characters being now dead, the piece cannot go on, and the curtain drops.

A word or two on the merits of Nina Sforza.  There are two classes of dramatists who are just now contending for fame—­those who cannot get their plays acted because they are not dramatic, and those who can, because their pieces are merely dramatic.  Mr.—­we beg pardon, R. Zouch S. Troughton, Esquire,—­belongs to the latter class.  He is evidently well acquainted with the mechanics of the stage; he knows all about “situation”—­that is, sacrificing nature to startling effect.  His language is essentially dramatic, and only fails where it aims at being poetical.  His characters, too, are not drawn from life, from nature, but are copied—­and cleverly copied—­from other characters that strut about in the “stock” tragedies of Rowe et hoc genus.  The fable, or plot, is deficient, from the absence of one sustaining, pervading incident to excite, and keep up a progressive interest.  With every new act a new circumstance arises, which, though it is in some instances (especially in the fourth act) conducted with great skill, yet the interest it produces is not sustained, being made to give place to the author’s succeeding effort to get up a new “situation” by a new incident.  Though the tragedy possesses little originality, it will, from its melo-dramatic and exciting character, be most likely a very successful one.  Besides, it is very well acted, by Miss Faucit, Wallack, and Macready, as Spinola; which, being a most unnatural character, is well calculated for so conventional an actor as Macready.

The author will doubtless become a successful dramatist, because he has taken the trouble to learn what is proper for, and effective on, the stage.  Having gained that acquirement, if he will now study nature, and put men and women upon the stage that act and speak like real mortals, we may safely predict an honourable dramatic career for Mr. ——­; but our space is limited, and we can’t afford enough of it to print his names a third time.

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THE QUADROON SLAVE.

A new discussion of the Slave question seems to have been much wanted on the stage.  It is, alas, the black truth that “The Slave” par excellence, in spite of the brothers Sharpset and Bishop’s music, ceases to interest.  The woes of “Gambia” have been turned into ridicule by the capers of “Jim Crow,” and the twin pleasantries of “Jim along Josey.”  Since the moral British public gave away twenty millions to emancipate the black population, and to raise the price of brown sugars, they are not nearly so sweet upon the niggers as formerly; for they discover that, now Caesar being “massa-pated, him no work—­dam if he do!”