Some thirty years before, in the old Adelphi days, when “Ben” Webster was ruling, a drama was produced, the work of a hard-working, drudging dramatist, Watts Phillips. It was a pure melodrama, and people had not yet lost their faith in the old devices. There was an honest belief that villainy would be punished ere the end came. By the laws of such pieces, the most painful situations were always contrasted with scenes of broadest farce, which were supposed to relieve the excited feelings. I well recall these humours. On the revival, however, all this was softened away or abolished, and, I fancy, with some injury to the constitution of the old piece. The production of ‘The Dead Heart’ furnished one more instance of the tact and abilities which have secured the manager of the Lyceum his high position. Here was a piece of an old-fashioned kind, which, had it been “revived” at an ordinary theatre, would have been found not only flat and stale, but unprofitable for all concerned. Our manager, seeing that it had dramatic life and situations, brought the whole into harmony with the times, and, by the skilful _remaniement_ of Mr. Walter Pollock, imparted to it a romantic grace. It is admitted that he himself has rarely been fitted with a part so suited to his genius and capacities, or in which he has roused the sympathies of his audience more thoroughly. It is only the romantic actor that understands what might be called the _key_ of a play. In this picturesque part of Robert Landry were exhibited no fewer than four contrasted phases of character: the gay, hopeful young artist; the terribly metamorphosed prisoner of nearly twenty years; the recently delivered man, newly restored to the enjoyment of life; and, lastly, the grim revolutionary chief, full of his stem purpose of vengeance. This offered an opening for the display of versatile gifts, which were certainly brought out in the most striking contrast. But it was in the later scenes of the play, when he appears as the revolutionary chief, that our “manager-actor” exhibited all his resources. Nothing was more artistic than the sense of restraint and reserve here shown, which is founded on human nature. A person who has thus suffered, and with so stem a purpose in view, will be disdainful of speech, and oppressed, as it were, with his terrible design. Quiet, condensed purpose, without any “fiendish” emphasis, was never better suggested. Even when the drop-scene is raised, and he is revealed standing by his table, there is the same morose unrelenting air, with an impression that here was one who had just passed through the fire, and had been executing an act of vengeance which had left its mark.