The number of entertainments that are crowded into this week must account for the small audience that assembled in the Lyceum, on Monday evening, to witness the dramatic efforts of our friends of the Cadmus. Those who attended, however, were more than rewarded by the excellence and finish of the performance. The pieces were well chosen, well rehearsed, and well acted. The Olympic farce of Retained for the Defence is always a favourite, and contains so much fun and absurdity that, even indifferently played, it can hardly fail of success, On the present occasion it was acted with immense spirit by the amateurs, and was heartily enjoyed by the audience. We need not give any outline of the star it is only necessary to particularise the special features of the representation. Mr, Julius Brown deserves great praise for his rendering of the Robsonian part of Pawkins. He was "made up" ina style of extravagant caricature, and in gesture, speech, and facial expression exhibited remarkable powers as a low comedy East-end barber who has narrowly e: imprisonment on the charge of steal watch, and who finds himself unexpectedly invited to a gentleman's house and converted into a hero, was exhibited in all the rious phases that the grotesque situation involves, and was equal to every requirement. Afr. Whitewush pleased us in everything except the final appeal to an imaginary jury, which wanted force. Bfr. Sprouts and Dir. Rivulet did all they could with their parts, and Miss Bessie Graham ye us an earnest of the powers she splayed in the Burlesque. We were amused with the picture of the Fancy Soap merchant given by Mr. Mitchell, who exhibited the alternations of faith and distrust in the immaculate char. acter of his protege with that breadth of contrast which befits the aged father of farce.
'A double hornpipe and some capital ventriloquism filled up the ten minutes space between the pieces; and then, after a spirited overture, the curtain rose on Acis and Galatea, It'is high praise to say that this little extravaganza, unaided by a single local hit or allusion to' the subjects of the time, gratified the house and elicited loud applause. The Pawkins of the farce became the languid shepherd lover, and the representative of Mr. De Windsor did wonders as the boisterous and terrible Polyphemus. The heroine looked and spoke her words well, while the police guardian of the Sicilian peace won hearty plaudits by the unction of his love passage with the buxom Nydia, This lady's falsetto excited much merrie ment, and the scene in which she supplied the amorous bobby with rabbit pie and helped him to wash it down with some-good from a suspicious black bottle, made the sides of the spectators ache with laughter. The chorus of Cyclops, grouped around the glowing forge and engaged in the manufacture of Jove's thunderbolts, introduced the piece appropriately, and the Glee Club gave valuable aid in the third scene by singing "Come where my Love lies Dreaming." The only thing we have to complain of was the allusion which formed the tag of the Burlesque, and which reminded us of the unwelcome fact that our good friends are soon to leave us. They will carry with them the good wishes of a large circle of friends; for, on the stage and off it, they have won golden opinions from the Shanghai Community.—It is believed that the performance will yield about $300 for the object to which it was devoted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.