ABSTRACT
We ought not to have passed without mention last week a careful revival of Mr Browning’s poetical and passionate play of the Blot on the ’Scutcheon at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Mr Phelps played the hero with striking effect. Something too subdued, perhaps, in the early scenes, where passion overmasters reason; but when the tide of remorse flows grandly in, full of dignified pathos and true emotion. Mr Dickenson, whom we formerly mentioned, was the hapless lover in the play, and showed a strong sense of the poetry in his part, as well as much eager fervour and delicacy of elocution, which augured well for the future of so young an actor. The scenery and general appointments were rich and tasteful. We could not desire to see better scenes anywhere than the opening hall of the mansion of the Treshams, with their shielded ’scutcheons ‘blushing’ through countless quarterings; than the chamber of Mildred, or the study of Thorold; or than those dark old clusters of gloomy forest trees which witness at the last, and do their best to conceal, the family shame. Mr Phelps comprehends the poetry of a play and can seize and reproduce it in the arrangements of the scene.
