In consequence of unfavourable weather the attendance at the Lyceum Theatre on Saturday night was smaller than, with one exception, it has been at previous performances ofthe Bandmann Combination. Ifloud frequent applause may be tal criterion the entertainment in question equally, if not moresnecessful than any ofts predecessors, The play was Shakspente's tragedy of Richard IL' as arranged byColley Cibber, Arrangement is only a mild form, The piece has been so much abridged in some parts and extended in others that if its author could but look up from his grave during a representation of it he would scarcely recognise his own production, The object, of course, is to reduce it to proper proportions for acting, but this excuss fins not served to appease the wrath of Hazlitt and other critics who have denounced such alterations and manglings as a disgrace to the English stage. Be that as it may, in the present instance some important and striking passages have been omitted from the principal character to make room for extracts from other plays; the intention of which seems to have been to make the Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. King Henry VI. appears in the first act of Cibber's patchwork apparently for no other purpose than that Gloucester may stab him. The passages recited by the unfortunate Henry are eautifal and pathetic in themselves, but they are from another play and form no part of Shukspeare's 'Richard III.' Another interpolation is a scene between Richard and Lady Anne (w which was probably inserted for no other reason than to excite loathing and disgust for the hero of the drama. The Richard of Mr. Bandmann, apart from minor drawbacks to which we have already referred in previous notices and which we need not again particularise, was in all respects the ichord of Shakspeare. He represented him as impetuous and commanding; haughty, violent, and subtle; bold and treacherous confident in his strength as well as in hi cunning; as one raised high by birth, and higher by his talents and his crimes; a royal usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant, and a murderer of the house' of Plantagenct. There was at times an aspiring elevation, an enthusiastic rapture his expectations of attaining the Crown, and at others a gloating expression of sul-Ion delight, as if he already clutched the. bauble, and held it its grasp. This in no instance was more finely or clearly pour-trayed than in the scene in the third act, where, whilst pretending to be engaged in his devotions he is waited on by Buckingham, the Lord Mayor, ete., and by them offered the Crown which he with mock humility first refuses and then accepts; he looked a thorough specimen of a royal Uriah Heep—if there ever was or could be such an individual. The courtship scene with Lady Aune was an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.