Catalani, Tramezzani

 "Italian singing already enjoys a large and superior sphere of its own in this country, and if suffered to extend it in encroachments like these, will leave no room for this growth and habitation of our native art."

"[Catalani] occasionally throws out a note which reaches us at a distance like vocal lightning, and makes us wonder what her voice would be if she exerted it through a whole song but this vehemence and swell she can contrast with the utmost delicacy...her shake on the upper tones is pure, chrystal quivering, like water in sunshine, and seems as if it would be as perpetual; and when she suddenly springs aloft fromn a low note to one of inconceivable height and fineness, dropping down from thencec a few still, small utterances, you might shut your eyes, and fancy a fairy being, who ohas shot up to the music of the spheres, and with one finger after another touches them to our distant ears."

Mr. Reynolds

music by Mr. Bishop

 Mr. Young (Rolla), Mr. Sinclair, Miss Feron (Cora), Master Smalley, Mr. Kemble

 "This play is by KORZENUE,-- for it is a mere transcript from the German Theatre, with the addition of such vulgarisms and common-place as Mr. REYNOLDS thought himself bound to supply,-- is a sort of companion to Pizzaro, and contains the early part of the history of Rolla...There is unquestionably something very elevating in the contemplation of Rolla's character; and it has never been denied that the German dramatists posses a feeling for the pathetic and impassioned,-- sometimes even for the sublime; but the feeling is so deluged with affection,-- there is such a morbid preference about them, of high-wrought sensbilities and maddening provocatives to the solid comforts within our reach,-- such a nonsensical and dangerous reliance on impressions instead of principles,-- such grave attempts to exalt the babbling of everyday feelings into something new and surprisng,-- such badness of taste, such lachrymose imposture, such beggarly egotism;-- in a word, such cant of every description, that they have no more pretence, or rather just about as much pretence, to stand in the same rank with true and triumphant genius, as the ravings of a diseased idleness have to be accounted oracles of wisdom, or the Lectures of Mr. COLERIDGE to render him wrothy of the Poets he pretends to analyze."

"The soundest part of the whole entertainment is afforded by Mr. YOUNG's performance of Rolla, which is the very best of it's kind on stage. His emphasis on pronouncing the word "brother," when he resolves to forego his own feelings and embraces his Cora's husband is extremely touching and full of meaning; and so is every situation in which he finds himself in her presence...Mr. YOUNG feels warmly, and when he takes pains to do it, can think as justly. If he would cease to be content with being merely good in general, and set himself ambitiously to study every new and important character, Mr. KEMBLE's present superiority, I think, would vanish before him."

 "Julius Caesar, with the exception of Coriolanus, has perhaps less of the poetical in it, than any other tragedy of SHAKESPEARE; but fancy and imagination did not suit the business of the scene; and what is wanting in colour and ornament, is recompensed by the finest contrasts of character. It is of itself a whole school of human nature."

 The New Comedy of the Sons of Erin,

or Modern Sentiment

 "Mrs. Siddons, after a theatrical life of forty years, took her leave of the Public on Monday last. We were not among the spectators, though we have in general taken some pains to be present on such occasions; but as we had seen the Play times out of mind, and as little sensibility was expected to be manifested at parting, we thought it allowable for once to escape the felicities of a crowd. According to all accounts, we lost nothing by our absence."

"Mrs. Siddons began her career, we believe, with comedy, or even with opera; but having no comic or vocal powers, she soon found her footing upon what was destined to become her exclusive ground as a female performer- that of lofty tragedy."

 "It is easy to see, that the Beggar's Opera would long ago have lost its attractions, had it not been for the never-dying charm of simplicity in its song and music, and for one or two gross scenes, which the audiences are glad enough to enjoy in an old piece, though they would never tolerate them in a new one...The upper orders, who were not as refined as they are at present, were pleased with so plain a picture of the lowers, and the lower were delighted to find themselves so much at their ease with a satirist of the upper."

"[Incledon's]  Macheath altogether is very far from being the true one. He is too doleful in some parts of it, and has too little of the metropolis about his general appearance: --he looks in short like a jolly young farmer sporting a new pair of boots and buckskin on market day; whereas Macheath, who affects a knowledge of the town and of the cant of fashion, should at least have a certain slang of good breeding about him, -- something between the pertness of a footman and the bravado of the town buck."

 Dec. 20

 Mr. Reynolds,

 music by Mr. Bishop