bel Handy was uncommonly humorous and
appropriate.

Mr. Cone's Henry was pleasing. This young actor promises well. Though,
to adopt the cant of the turf, he will never be first, there is no fear
of his being distanced, unless he carries too great weight.

Dame Ashfield in the performance of Mrs. Francis would be admired by
Mrs. Grundy herself; and to express our opinion of Mrs. Wood's Susan
would be only to repeat what we have already said of her on more
occasions than one.

It gives us infinite regret to be compelled, just as we put our foot
upon the threshold of the critic's office, to animadvert upon some
errors and defects in pronunciation, of which we could not have imagined
the persons concerned to be capable. Our purpose is to persuade the
people to encourage the stage upon principles honourable to it; not as a
place of mere barren pastime; but as a school of improvement. But how
shall we be able to bring the public mind to that habitual respect for
the stage without which it must lose all useful effect, if the actors
show themselves unfit for conveying instruction. Were this to be the
case, and were mere pastime the object of theatres, Astley's
horse-riders, the tumblers and rope-dancers of Sadlers-Wells, nay, the
PUNCH of a puppet-show, would be as useful and respectable as Garrick,
Barry, Cooke, or Kemble, and the circus might successfully batter its
head against the walls of that building in Chesnut-street which the
sculptor has enriched with the wooden proxies of Melpomene and Thalia.
But criticism will not allow this. For the sake of the stage it will
exert all its might to support the actors--and for the sake of the stage
it will hold them in admonition. If the established principles of
literature be violated by the actors, the very ground upon which the
critic would support them, is blown up by a mine of their own
construction, and not only they must sink, but the critic must, for the
maintenance of a just cause, put his hand to their heads and give them a
lanch. The theatre is a school for elocution or it is nothing. In Great
Britain it has time immemorial been attended to, not as authority for
innovations, but as an organ of conveyance of the authorised
pronunciation, to which the growing youth of the country were to look
for accurate information of what was correct, as settled and considered
by their superiors, that is, by high learned men and statesmen. If the
actors, therefore, run counter to au