Mr. Arnold may be safely placed at the head of a very prevailing class of poets. He writes with the fewest ideas possible; his meaning is more nicely balanced between sense and nonsense, than that of any of his competitors; he succeeds from the perfect insignificance of his pretensions, and fails to offend through downright imbecility. The story of the present piece, (built on the well-known tradition of the Saxon King who was deceived by one of his courtiers in the choice of his wife), afforded ample scope for striking situation and effect; but Mr. Arnold has perfectly neutralised all interest in it. In this he was successfully seconded by those able associates, Mr. and Mrs. T. Cooke, Mr. Pyne, Mr. Wallack, by the sturdy pathos of Fawcett, and Miss Poole’s elegant dishabille. One proof of talent the author has shewn, we allow—and that is, he has contrived to make Miss Kelly disagreeable in the part of Editha. The only good thing in the play was a dance by Miss Luppino and Miss C. Bristow. THE MAID AND THE MAGPIE _The Examiner._ _Sept. 3, 1815._ A piece has been brought out at the Lyceum, called the Maid and the Magpie, translated from the French, and said to be founded on a true story of a girl having been condemned for a theft, which was discovered after her death to have been committed by a magpie. The catastrophe is here altered. The play itself is a very delightful little piece. It unites a great deal of lightness and gaiety with an equal degree of interest. The dialogue is kept up with spirit, and the story never flags. The incidents, though numerous and complicated with a number of minute circumstances, are very clearly and artfully connected together. The spirit of the French stage is manifest through the whole performance, as well as its superiority to the general run of our present dramatic productions. The superiority of our old comedy to the French (if we make the single exception of Moliere) is to be traced to the greater variety and originality of our national characters. The French, however, have the advantage of us in playing with the common-place surface of comedy, in the harlequinade of surprises and escapes, in the easy gaiety of the dialogue, and in the delineation of character, neither insipid nor overcharged. The whole piece was excellently cast. Miss Kelly was the life of it. Oxberry made a very good Jew. Mrs. Harlowe was an excellent representative of the busy, bustling, scolding housewife; and Mr. Gattie played the Justice of the Peace with good emphasis and discretion. The humour of this last actor, if not exceedingly powerful, is always natural and easy. Knight did not make so much of his part as he usually does. THE HYPOCRITE _The Examiner._ (_Drury-Lane_) _Sept. 17, 1815._