we hold it to be a perversion of good taste, to present life as being one unbroken link of heartless frivolity and polished insincerity, as Borçicault delights in picturing it. Nor can we admit the fidelity of his portraits of character, amusing as we confess they are in the representation. They seem rather to owe their existence to the ex aggerated delineations with which modern fiction abounds; the characters are, in fact, copies from fashionable novels, and not transcripts from nature. The stage has lost its original influence over the intellectual and the fashionable classes, so that its power for good or evil has become nearly extinct. The mass of play-goers view the enter tainment derivable from the theatre as a mere amusement, a relaxation from daily toil, and prescribed duty; and the author that can most effectually interest, amuse, or excite an audience for the passing hour, becomes the popular idol of the day. We have no desire to impeach the taste of the public, but we do object to men of genius fostering the frivolous spirit of the age, and, what is more reprehensible, disseminating through the powerful instrumentality of the Drama, a false code of morals, calculated to undermine all the social virtues of life.

We look upon "Old Heads and Young Hearts" to be the most open lo censure, of any of Borçicault's productions. The leading characters are nearly all of them high drawn satires on humanity. Littleton Coke is a mere blasé man of fashion, a spendthrift, a sneerer, and a scoffer; even his love for Lady Alice Hawthorne is but a compound of selfishness and cupidity; and her witty ladyship is but a slight remove from a heartless and frivolous coquette.

The British Peerage, we trust, could never have furnished the prototypes of Lord and Lady Pompion; and Col. Rocket is too ignorant and too coarse to be considered as even slightly to resemble any officer of rank, that was ever gazetted in the army list. Lord Roebuck is an inanity, save in his disregard of filial duty; on this point he bears the infallible brand of the author. Miss Rocket is a fitting counterpart of her lover, and Bob is the stereotyped lying, impudent valet of the stage, with all the heartlessness and selfishness of his master, which he wears as he does the second-hand clothes that become his perquisites. Apart from this group stand out Tom Coke and Jesse Rural; they are intrusted with the sentiment of the comedy, or, rather, they are 'the author's exponents of the morality of the piece. Tom is made a sort of untutored country boor, is crossed in his affections, and jeered at by his fashionable spendthrift of a brother; and Rural is a simple-hearted aged clergyman, on whom all the plots

and counterplots of the comedy is made to revolve; he is baited and ridiculed through five acts for the amusement of the audience, and is at last driven almost to madness, to heightea the effect of the final climax.

Such a clergyman as Jesse Rural is depicted, should never have been selected for exhibition on the stage, under the degrading cir cumstances Borçicault has thought fit to introduce him.

But with all these exceptionable points in this comedy, it is popular as an acting play. The language is sprightly, witty, and pointed, the inci dents are highly dramatic, and the constant succession of equivoquie, keep interest alive from the rising to the falling of the curtain.

"Old Heads and Young Hearts" has been peculiarly successful in this country, chiefly from the admirable personation of Jesse Rural by Mr. W. R. BLAKE, the present manager of the Broadway Theatre. This gentleman had acquired a wide-spread celebrity in Philadelphia and Baltimore, for his inimitable performance of the part; and on his assuming the stage management of the Broadway, the comedy was revived with every attention to its details, and had a continuous run of sixteen nights, to crowded and delighted audiences.

Mr. Blake's embodiment of Jesse Rural, may be classed among the finest histrionic efforts now extant upon the stage. It is, indeed, one of those truthful pieces of acting, in which the artist is almost identified with the character he represents. We cannot cor ceive anything more true to nature, both in appearance and acting, than is the per sonation of this character in the hands of Mr. Blake.

Н

R. means Right; L. Left; R. D. Right Door; L. D. Left Door; S. E. Second Entrance; U. E. Upper Entrance; M. D. Middle Door.

RELATIVE POSITIONS.

R., means Right; L., Left; C., Centre; R. C., Right of Centre; L. C., Left of Centre.

Passages marked with Inverted Commas are usually omitted in the Representation.

OLD HEADS AND YOUNG HEARTS.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Temple. The Interior of Littleton Coke's Chambers, meagrely furnished. COKE is discovered at breakfast, reading the paper. Boв, cleaning a Meerschaum, R.

Lit. [Reads.] Express from China-um-um-police -um-fashionable arrivals. Ha!—at Mivart's, Lord Charles Roebuck, from Paris-my schoolfellow and college chum-perhaps he has written to me-Bob! Bob. Sir.

Lit. Any papers for me this morning?
Bob. Yes, sir; one for the income tax.

Lit. Do we pay that, Bob?

Bob. No, sir, I wish we did.

Lit. (L.) [Rising, and coming forward.] How comes it, that during five years' hard labour at the bar, I never have had any thing to do?

Bob. Yes, sir; law is quite as unprofitable to us now, as it would be to our clients, if we had any.

Lit. Have I not angled daily in Westminster Hall? Bob. While I carried after you a red bag, fat with your unpaid bills, like a landing net.

Lit. Without a nibble.-[Half apart.] I could almost repent that nature had not left me in the insignificance of my birth. What right had the son of a hard-working Yorkshire coal-owner to flaunt it at Eton and Oxford, and all because my mother, before my birth, dreamed of a woolsack, and so would call me Littleton-and yet. while my suppers and stables were declared uniquewhen tufted lordlings exchanged Christian names with me-I thought-ha!-I see my error-mistook my mo.

ney for myself why was I given so keen a sense for enjoyment, and so limited a power of gratifying it? Bob. But your father, at his death, sir, left

a-year.

you 700% Lit. To support 7000 appetites he bequeathed me at my birth; so, unfortunately, through life my wants have ever exceeded my means.

Bob. Ah, sir, but wants are the servants of genius.
Lit. Say its masters, rather.

Bob. Your brother in Yorkshire is rich.

Lit. Thanks to my extravagance that made him so; I have mortgaged every acre of my land to him.

Bob. If you were to write to him, sir.

Lit. I have done so;

Postman's knock, L.] there's the

answer. [Exit, Bob, L.] It was my last resource.

Re-enter BOB, L.

Bob. [Weighing the letter.] It feels promising, sir. Lit. [Opens and reads.] " Dear brother Littleton-Your favour of the 21st ultimo has duly come to hand—am most happy to find you have not forgot Sykes Hall, and those in it. Tabby sends her love, and the Rev. Mr. Rural his blessing the collieries win fairly-corn is at 50s. and mutton is looking up; and I am your affectionate brother, "THOMAS COKE."

Bob. Lord, sir!

Lit. "Postscript.—As to your debts, I can neither afford to give champagne suppers to your friends, nor pay for the spavined horses they have to sell you; had you moderated your vanity in the entertainment of a pack of spunging spendthrifts, you had not now to stoop your pride to a set of honest tradesmen." [Tears up the letter.] I deserved it: let him keep his gold.

Bob. They say he is generous enough on occasion.

Lit. Oh, yes! [Bitterly.] Builds charity schools and endows lying-in hospitals, while his own flesh and blood may rot in a jail! Curse his generosity! his is all newspaper charity and mouth virtue. Yes, I will apply to my friend: Bob, did you take that note to Lord St. James? Bob. Yes, sir; I found him at Mr. Deuceace's.

Lit. [Half apart.] It was but for 201. Well, where is his answer?