into it more bustle
and incident than can readily be found in a piece of the same length.
Reuben Gleuroy, the hero, is a noble character, possessed of the most
exalted virtues, which are continually brought into active exercise for
the good of his fellow beings. He preaches little and does a great deal,
and displays a generosity and greatness of mind touching, as the world
now goes, upon the chivalrous. But that which makes him more
conspicuously amiable and interesting is that while he takes the most
ardent and active concern in the happiness of mankind, he is himself
reduced by the wickedness of others to a state of misery almost of
distraction, which awakens the most poignant sympathy for his situation.
Deserted, as he imagines, by the object of his dearest affections,
Rosalie Summers, who is supposed to have eloped with a villain of high
rank of the name of Plastic, he goes to London and finds his brother in
the last stage of ruin and despair by gambling, and stops his hand just
at the moment he is attempting suicide. In the end he reforms the
brother, discovers his Rosalie, and finds that she is innocent and
faithful; and by a series of those events, which whether likely or not,
modern dramatists without scruple press into their service, is made
perfectly happy. The colouring of this admirable portrait is not a
little heightened in its effect by a tinge of eccentricity caught from a
life of rural retirement in the romantic mountainous country of Wales.
On this character and that of old Mr. Cosey, a philanthropic, wealthy,
and munificent stock-broker, whose cash, always at the disposal of his
friends, enables Reuben to accomplish his purposes, the author seems to
have dwelt _con amore_. The comic dialogue of the piece arises chiefly
from the contrasted feelings of Mr. Cosey and Mr. Trot. Cosey admires
the city, and is miserable in Wales, while Trot, a wealthy
cotton-spinner, rejoices at the loss of a large share of his property
because it furnishes him with a pretext for returning to the country and
leaving the _abominable_ city to which he was hurried away by the vanity
of his wife.

Mr. Wood displayed in Reuben, much ability, sound sense, and fine
feeling. No person that we know on the stage discloses in his
performances so little of the mere actor. That indefinable something,
which though obvious to perception cannot be described, but is
understood by the term "plain gentleman," tinctures all he says and does
u