ornamented all the way to the wrists with broidered with silks of different colours, puffings. Mantles of kerseymere are among the newest inventions, and promise to be general; they are made like the ancient French capuchin, with arm-holes, and have a double collar, one standing up, and made of velvet, either poppy-colour, amaranth, grey, or black; the other, which falls down, is of the same material as the mantle, which is lined with silk; some ladies, instead of a falling collar, wear a small hood, the same as the mantle; the kerseymere of which is lilac and white, blue and white, dead leaf and white, or plumb-colour and white. Do you recollect the dinner we took to gether at the house of the rich President's lady? How much we admired her desert service of cut crystal! now every thing is changed, and at a dinner of ceremony, every article is served up in the finest china; and only sweetmeats or jellies can be presented in cut crystal. I am sure you have not forgot meeting the same lady's awkward daughters the next morning, in large cambrie bounets, which are still very prevalent: gauze bonnets are yet seen, in mild weather, in the public walks; and crape, with Gros de Nuples, for the carriage, adorned with the flowers most in season; but a variety of colours is no longer reckoned tasteful: the lilac silk bonnets worn when you were here, are yet in favour, and are ornamented with daisies of the same colour. Yellow crape hats, with white marabout feathers, are a very favourite head-covering for the carriage; but when these hats are worn in the public walks, or at the theatre, their ornament consists of a bunch of moss roses, or of yellow roses with their leaves. The bonnets that are made of green Gros de Naples, are ornamented with a bunch of daisies of a mazarine blue; the crowns of the bomets are round, and not quite so low as they were last month. others, with a row of satin cockleshell || trimming: but the most costly and elegant gowns are of Cachemire, with a border of large palm leaves. Violet-coloured silk gowns are also much admired; they are made with a pelerine cape, with a very broad border of fluted ribband: some have two or three rows of this bordering; so that the trimming at the bottom of the robe is seldom broader than that on the pelerine, only that on the border are seven or eight rows of this fluted ribband: you are one of the disciples of Taste, and I know you will agree with me that this trimming is as heavy as it is expensive.These violet silk dresses are very much worn at the Thuilleries; I know not whether there is any meaning attached to them. Amongst the other novelties of the day is an apron of richly embroidered muslin, to which is attached a corsage of the same, and the whole is superbly trimmed with fine Mechlin lace: with this apron is generally worn a gown of lilac sarsnet, and a bonnet of fine muslin, embroidered with dark-shaded pinks. Gowns of Gros de Naples, with pelerines and flounces of the same, are likely to be very fashionable this winter; there have already appeared some of reps silk, ornamented with puffings of satin; white gowns are, however, very general, and these are ornamented, at the border, with flounces or rows of muslin bouillonés. A few white Merino crapes have appeared; some em The toques worn at court form a diadem in front, and are there ornamented with a kind of aigrette, made of jewels, gold, or silver, known by the name of esprit: these toques are of crape and silver lama: when ladies go without a cap, the hair is dressed very low; and when crowned with a garland of flowers, the wreath is placed in a horizontal direction: young ladies wear wreaths of roses placed very low on the forehead, while others place them on the summit of the head, like a crown; but this is according to the beauty of the head, or the defect of the forehead. At evening parties, toques of Gros de Naples, or of gauze, are worn, placed very much on one side, and ornamented with plumes of down feathers, with a full-blown rose at the bottom of the plume. Cornettes à la Marie Stuart are very prevalent in déshabille. Shag silk promises to be a favourite trimming this winter; it is very much improved in the manufacturing, and has now the appearance of Swansdown. The favourite colours are rose-colour and celestial blue; but violet has the pre-emi nence. Though the little presents you took to England were extremely elegant, yet, as you said you might commission me for something more new, I must inform you that no gift is reckoned now so acceptable as a little basket of polished steel, just invented among the most famous Bijoutiers; it is meant as a repository for a lady's work, thimble, scissors, and needle case: at the bottom of the basket is a small lookingglass, with a sliding cover, beautifully enamelled; or, if you like it better, a new kind of card-rack of red morocco, with gold-headed nails to fasten it to the stucco : the names of each day of the week are elegantly studded in small points of polished steel. Underneath the racks is a small box of bergamot, with a lock and key; one marked south, the other north; and in which, letters are deposited that come from either quarter. made of silk, which is trimmed with several rows of quillings, and is tied about the middle of the back part of the head, and depends from thence. Women belonging to the higher classes, though in every other respect they dress like Spaniards, yet dress their heads in the French and English style, with ornamental combs, flowers, caps, &c.; but women of every condition wear the mezzaro, and a little mantilla, or veil, which, fixed backward, near the crown of the head, falls behind down to the girdle : this is either of muslin, leno, or crape, and almost invariably trimmed with lace: it is a very graceful appendage to dress. The Spanish ladies are never without a fan in their hand, which they use with peculiar grace, either in saluting any one, or in making signs of friendship and intimacy; and they often, with the most finished co The price of these articles is in my pri- quetry, raise up with it the mezzaro, at that vate letter. PRESENT COSTUME OF THE SPANISH LADIES. A PETTICOAT, which scarce descends so low as the ancle; a mezzaro over the head, with which a Spanish lady conceals or shews as much of her face as she pleases : she generally carries her rosary in one hand, and a fan in the other. To the ancient cotella, or stays, a collection of whalebone, and bars of steel, has succeeded a corset of dimity, with long sleeves, close to the arm, and buttoned at the wrist. Their silk petticoats, and even those of stuff, are adorned with fringes, puffings, tucks, and other fashionable trimmings; they often ornament them besides, with three flounces of black lace. The cofia is a kind of bag moment when it imports them to display, as if by accident, the beauty of their complexion, and the brilliancy of their eyes. DRESS OF THE FEMALES AT THE HAGUE. THE middle class of females, and indeed some of the better sort, dress in a most singular manner: they wear a long-waisted gown, of broad striped woollen or cotton stuff, over three or four thick petticoats, black stockings, and clumsy shoes, with immense buckles of silver. Their head is ornamented with a mob cap, fastened under the chin, with a small bonnet over it, which is generally black. They usually adorn themselves with large gold earrings, costly necklaces, and a profusion of gold rings almost cover their fingers. MONTHLY MISCELLANY; INCLUDING VARIETIES CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. THE THEATRES, COVENT-GARDEN. he has since supported his previous reputation by his performance of Sir Anthony Absolute, in The Rivals. He never forgets that Sir Anthony is a gentleman ; and while he gives peculiar humour to the character, broad as it is, he contrives to throw into it that tinge and colour, which preserve not MURPHY'S comedy of The Way to Keep Him has been revived; in which Mr. W. Farren plays the part of Sir Bashful Constant; and it is but justice to add, that he makes as much of it as the part will admit: | only its life, but its manners, VARIETIES CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. DRURY-LANE. KEAN has returned to this theatre, and has performed those characters in which he has before shewn himself so eminently successful. A Madame Belgar has appeared in The Duenna, in the character of Don Carlos. She much disappointed our expectations: her merit is in that distinct enunciation of her words, so unusual with singers; and in a mellowness and fullness of voice, so far as her power extends. Her defect is, that her voice has a small compass, not ascending, as we should think, beyond four notes of the second octave-that is to say, an oc tave and a half. Hence she is manifestly deficient in the higher notes of the two songs in The Duenna, "Had I a heart for falsekood fram'd," and "Ah! sure a pair was never seen." In the lower tones of these songs, nothing could be more pleasing than her voice and expression; and the more so, because it was not only good, but was an original manner. FRENCH THEATRICALS. THEATRE DE L'OPERA COMIQUE.Sketch of The First Comer (Du Premier Venu), comic opera of three acts: Dorval and Berville, officers in the same corps, are desirous of marrying Emilia, the daughter of Dorimon, a very rich man, of an original character, who dwells in a chateau at about six leagues from Lyons. Dorimon, persuaded that chance will befriend him more than prudence, is resolved to give his daughter to him who shall arrive the first at the chateau. The two officers, who are rivals, without ceasing to be friends, informed of the whimsical intention of Dorimon, agree between them, on their word of honour, to set off together at six in the evening, and in a post-chaise. At the same time, while they promise to proceed honourably, according to the laws of war, they do not deem it unlawful to have recourse to stratagem. Berville is frank, but heedless; he only resorts to marriage, as the means whereby he may get rid of his creditors. Dorval is really in love; it is, therefore, easily discovered that Dorval will be successful: but, to obtain the preference, he must arrive first at the chateau; interest travels as quick as love; how must each of these rivals proceed, to gain the priority? A footboy is the proper instrument, according to the opinions of Berville and Dorval, to ensure the victory. The footboy, finding a two-fold opportunity of enriching himself, and who, to double conscience, will not slip obtaining a No. 115.-Vol. XVIII. ۱ リ 185 double profit, receives a purse from each master: he promises Dorval to set both his creditors and his mistress free; he promises Berville to make Dorval take a wrong road, and to overturn bis chaise. Madame Rosemont, an old maid, pretending to be lovely, irritated against Berville by the footboy, claims the performance of his promises contained in a love letter that James has intercepted, and which he persuaded her was addressed to her. Dorval interrupts the conversation. Berville slips out, and leaves his friend to the old lady. But just as he is about to depart, he falls into the snare that he had spread for Dorval; he is arrested by order of the commandant of the place, who is the dupe of a false report: he passes for Dorval, and is himself under arrest. This mistake, is, however, soon cleared up. Berville obtains his freedom, and Dorval having got rid of Madame Rosemont, the two lovers take the road to the chateau of Do rimon When they are about half way, their carriage breaks down; the travellers request the rites of hospitality at a solitary mansion belonging to M. Rapinier, the steward of Dorimon, and who has been so much in love with what belongs to his master since the twenty years that he has managed his affairs, that he has contracted the constant habit of saying, my castle, and my far mers. He receives the two young friends, whom he takes to be two adventurers, surlily enough, and goes to bed, leaving them to depart as soon as they please. Dorval, in order to prevent the triumph of his rival, takes it in his head to write a note to Dorimon, to forewarn him that the first which will present himself to marry his daughter, is an impostor that seeks to deceive him. For two louis, a servant, belonging to M. Rapinier, takes upon himself to deliver this note immediately; and that he may arrive the quicker, he leaps out of the window. The two officers, each seated in an elbow chair, try to obtain a little sleep. The footboy places himself between them; he communes with himself, he tries the weight of the two purses he has received, and knows not which of the two friends he had best betray: he is very much inclined to favour Dorval; but Berville, who overhears him talking to himself, gains the balance on his side by putting another purse into his pocket. The footboy seems to yield to so weighty a consideration; but through a piece of treachery, which is not sufficiently explained as to the motive, he whispers confidentially to Berville that the house he is now in is M. Dorimon's chateau, who is playing the farce of taking his steward's name: that M. Rapinier's daughter is the true Emily that he is to marry; and, in consequence, it is his interest to let Dorval go, who, in thus abandoning the chateau, would inevitably lose the lady. Berville suffers himself to be persuaded, and throws himself back in his elbow A a chair, pretending to fall asleep. The perfidious James wakes Dorval, who was actually in a sound sleep, and tells him the trick he has played his master, begging him to go directly to M. Dorimon's. Dorval does not wait to be twice bidden; he goes out, after having shut up his friend and his faithful valet together. Berville soon discovers that he is imposed upon, and he sets off for the chateau, where Dorval has been beforehand with him. The fatal, note has operated in his disfavour: Dorimon takes him for a cheat, who has assumed the name of Dorval, and he consigns him to an apartment in the chateau. Berville, on the contrary, who had every apparent reason to believe himself vanquished, is very much astonished at the favourable reception that is given him. The marriage contract is drawn up, and he already holds the pen to sign it, when, by the address of the footboy, Dorval appears; Berville calling him by his name, convinces M. Dorimon of his error: and the undeceived parent gives his daughter to Dorval, as The First Comer. The music is by a young composer; but it is highly pleasing: the English servant, which the French call jockey (very unlike a jockey, in fact, only a smart postboy and footboy conjoined), is well played; but the actor is very deficient in his English smatterings. THEATRE DE LA PORTE ST. MARTIN.Sketch of La Cabane de Montainard; a melo-drama, in three acts: The scene of this piece is laid in Auvergne, at the foot of those mountains, whose tremendous height, and the continual snows wherewith they are covered, have gained them the appellation of the French Alps. The Baron de Lerac, a monster of cruelty and dissimulation, has just taken possession of a newly-acquired castle; and, at the opening of the drama, is dwelling there with his daughter Amelia, who has arrived there before him. Some little time before the arrival of the Baron, a young man named Charles, and Christopher, an honest brazier, whose son Charles is supposed to be, have been saved from the fatal consequences of an avalanche through an old invalid, whose cottage, or hut (cabane), gives the title to the piece; this hut stands near the castle of Monsieur de Lerac. Charles falls in love with the young lady, and Amelia feels the same tender sentiments with which she has inspired this interesting youth: now it must be known, that, Charles is the son of a Captain Dolzan and a sister of the Baron's. This shocking Baron, in order to appropriate to himself an immense fortune bequeathed to his sister, has found means to cause her death as she gave birth to Charles; he had, besides, power sufficient to get his brother-in-law, Dolzan, sentenced to death; who, compelled to conceal himself, has lived eighteen years, in disguise, a wandering life, solely occupied with watching over Charles, whose life is threatened by Lerac, because it stands in his way against his taking possession of his mother's property. The uncle finds out that his nephew, under the name of Charles, has found an asylum in his castle; the chief end of his journey is to get rid of him by assassination, and he employs in the execution of this atrocious design, an agent named Robert, who, though he is made out as odious as possible, is not the least comic character in the piece. This unfortunate Robert never speaks, except by signs and monosyllables; in the first act he utters only one word, and this word is foolish enough, for it reveals the secret transaction he is employed in, and throws a light on the mysterious intrigue, and discovers the dénoûement. Robert, to gain the thousand louis that he has so awkwardly announced that he is to receive from Lerac, places himself in ambuscade, with a gamekeeper, in a narrow path, through which Charles is expected to pass. Five or six ronuds of firing are heard, and it is supposed that Charles is no more; but the gamekeeper and Robert, equally awkward, have not hit their vic. tim, and their firing has no other effect than to dissolve a few snowballs-that is to say, a few balls of reeds, covered with white cloth, which were thrown from the top of the centre arch, over a slope, like those of the Montagnes Beaujon. After this piece of stage effect, Robert and the Baron confer on some new plan of assassination, and the project is simple enough; it is to stab Charles in the night, in his bed. Alarmed by the event of the evening, Amelia, who dreads some fresh attempt, locks up her lover, and takes away the key of his apartment. Lerac and Robert arrive in the dark, and are about to enter the pavilion in which Charles reposes; but, stationed at the door, they find Christopher and Dolzan, who, each with a pistol in his hand, oblige them to retreat. The author has not explained how Dolzan becomes acquainted, with the designs of his brother-in-law, Charles, however, escapes this second peril: he escapes from the castle with his father and Christopher, and in the third act they meet together in the hut of the old invalid. Labrèche has served under the command, and in the same company with Dolzan, who had saved his life in battle: he has heard of the sentence of death being pronounced against his Captain, and, feeling assured of his innocence, he concludes that he could only have been condemned through the deposition of false witnesses.Struck with this idea, and animated by a just gratitude, he finds out these false witnesses, and, by several blows of his sabre, he makes them retract their depositions, and sign their recantation, He possesses these important documents, VARIETIES CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. and awaits the arrival of Dolzan with impatience, in order that he may deliver them into his hands. This moment is arrived; but, when an explanation is about to take place, the Baron and his inseparable Robert come again with a formidable retinue. They are in pursuit of Charles; their carriage is shattered to pieces among the rocks, and the hut of Labrèche is the sole asylum that offers itself against the perils of the night, the dangers of avalanches, and precipices. There, then, they are all assembled, friends and foes, in the hut of Labrèche; but in different compartments. Under the part occupied by Charles, Dolzan, and Christopher, is the powder magazine of Labrèche, which powder is an article of commerce, which he sells to the chamois hunters. Robert, in visiting the place, perceives the entrance of the cave, and slips in at the vent-hole-sees what sort of furniture is there, and knowing what hosts are over head, he artfully prepares a match, which communicating with the powder, will blow them all up! Robert was not aware, neither were the audience, that the upper chambers had a passage that went out on the mountains; and Dolzan, with his friends, have gone to take a walk. Robert comes out of his hole, to judge, not of the process, but of the effect of the explosion! He places himself, with Lerac, on the summit of the rock; the explosion takes place with a terrible noise; the detonation shakes the snows, and an avalanche falls on the two villains, burying them and their murderous projects together, in one dreadful abyss. Amelia consoles herself for the tragical death of her father by marrying her cousin. The new decorations at this theatre are on a most magnificent and splendid scale; the great chandelier is extremely brilliant; and its private boxes, and loges grillées, with the banishment of females from the pit, would place it on a footing with the theatres royal of Paris, if it was but furnished with better performers. Its ornaments consist of gilding, mingled with painting, and are executed with taste; but a care of being too expensive, has caused the proprietors not to pay sufficient attention to the thickness of the gilding.The orchestra is prodigiously widened, so that it takes off too much from the pit. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. Women; or, Pour et Contre. By the Author 187 and enters the university of Dublin at the age of seventeen, November, 1818. As he is passing through the town of Lucan, the coach, conveying him to Dublin, breaks down about four o'clock on a November evening (we are sorry to observe the author of Bertram saying, of a November evening). As he approaches Barrackstreet, he is alarmed by the cry of a female from a carriage which had just rattled by him: he pursues it, finds a young lady with a wretched old beldame, rescues her from her power, and restores her to an elderly man of unprepossessing appearance, who calls the young lady his niece. He meets with this charming female again by accident, at Bethesda chapel, to which place of worship he is introduced by his evangelical friend Montgomery; and he then becomes intimate with the Wentworth family. Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth are modern. Calvinists, and have long destined Eva, their niece, to become the wife of Macowen, a domestic teacher, and as much a director in the family as the spiritual confessors of the Catholic church. It is needless to inform our readers that De Courcy falls in love with Eva; Montgomery loves her too, but De Courcy, in a fit of illness, attended by delirium, betrays the secret of his passion: and Montgomery, in the true spirit of friendship, disclaims all pretensions in favour of his friend.Charles, after some difficulties respecting his want of conversion, is an accepted lover; for De Courcy has three thousand pounds a year, and such a proselyte to the true faith is worth all their endeavours to gain! This pleasing prospect, however, is upset by De Courcy's being introduced to Signora Dalmatiani, alias Zaira, au Opera singer, with whom he also, in a short time, falls in love, though she is a perfect con trast to Eva; and to whom he returns with all the ardour of his first affection, by means of a thunder storm, struck by the unaffected terrors of the object of his pristine affections: but then a great fire at the druggists, in Castle-street, where Zaira displays such wonderful presence of mind, confirms him very strongly in his second attachment. At this fire the old woman of the hovel, who had once gained the innocent Eva into her power, and who is quite CHARLES DE COURCY is the orphan heir to a respectable property in Ireland, Il the Meg Merrilies of the tale, is seen |