people were turned away the first night. They say there never was any
thing so universally liked. They have very good success at Bristol, and
have played The Rivals several times:--Miss Barsanti, Lydia, and Mrs.
Canning, Julia."

To enter into a regular analysis of this lively play, the best comment
on which is to be found in the many smiling faces that are lighted up
around wherever it appears, is a task of criticism that will hardly be
thought necessary. With much less wit, it exhibits perhaps more humor
than The School for Scandal, and the dialogue, though by no means so
pointed or sparkling, is, in this respect, more natural, as coming
nearer the current coin of ordinary conversation; whereas, the
circulating medium of The School for Scandal is diamonds. The characters
of The Rivals, on the contrary, are _not_ such as occur very
commonly in the world; and, instead of producing striking effects with
natural and obvious materials, which is the great art and difficulty of
a painter of human life, he has here overcharged most of his persons
with whims and absurdities, for which the circumstances they are engaged
in afford but a very disproportionate vent. Accordingly, for our insight
into their characters, we are indebted rather to their confessions than
their actions. Lydia Languish, in proclaiming the extravagance of her
own romantic notions, prepares us for events much more ludicrous and
eccentric, than those in which the plot allows her to be concerned; and
the young lady herself is scarcely more disappointed than we are, at the
tameness with which her amour concludes. Among the various ingredients
supposed to be mixed up in the composition of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, his
love of fighting is the only one whose flavor is very strongly brought
out; and the wayward, captious jealousy of Falkland, though so highly
colored in his own representation of it, is productive of no incident
answerable to such an announcement:--the imposture which he practises