Thus far the Times critic: from all which it appears that Miss Hannah More is not like Shakespear. The writer afterwards tries his hand at a comparison between Miss More and Virgil; and the result, after due deliberation, is, that Virgil was the wiser man. The part, however, to which the learned commentator has the most decided objection, is that ‘where Elwina steps out of her way to preach rather a lengthy sermon to her father, against war in general, as offensive to the Prince of Peace.’—Now if this writer had thought proper, he might have discovered that the whole play is ‘a lengthy sermon,’ without poetry or interest, and equally deficient in ‘sculptured grace, and Promethean fire.’—We should not have made these remarks, but that the writers in the above paper have a greater knack than any others, of putting a parcel of tall opaque words before them, to blind the eyes of their readers, and hoodwink their own understandings. There is one short word which might be aptly inscribed on its swelling columns—it is the word which Burchell applies to the conversation of some high-flown female critics in the Vicar of Wakefield. But to have done with this subject. We shall not readily forgive Miss Hannah More’s heroine Elwina, for having made us perceive what we had not felt before, that there is a considerable degree of manner and monotony in Miss O’Neill’s acting. The peculiar excellence which has been ascribed to Miss O’Neill (indeed over every other actress) is that of _faultless nature_. Mrs. Siddons’s acting is said to have greater grandeur, to have possessed loftier flights of passion and imagination; but then it is objected, that it was not a pure imitation of nature. Miss O’Neill’s recitation is indeed nearer the common standard of level speaking, as her person is nearer the common size, but we will venture to say that there is as much a tone, a certain stage sing-song in her delivery as in Mrs. Siddons’s. Through all the tedious speeches of this play, she preserved the same balanced artificial cadence, the same melancholy tone, as if her words were the continued echo of a long-drawn sigh. There is the same pitch-key, the same alternation of sad sounds in almost every line. We do not insist upon perfection in any one, nor do we mean to decide how far this intonation may be proper in tragedy; but we contend, that Miss O’Neill does not in general speak in a natural tone of voice, nor as people speak in conversation. Her great excellence is extreme natural sensibility; that is, she perfectly conceives and expresses what would be generally felt by the female mind in the extraordinary and overpowering situations in which she is placed. In truth, in beauty, and in that irresistible pathos, which goes directly to the heart, she has at present no equal, and can have no superior. There were only one or two opportunities for the display of her delightful powers in the character of Elwina, but of these she made the fullest use.