The language, as well as the plot and incidents, of this play, describe, with effect, those multiplied miseries which the dishonour of a wife spreads around; but draws more especially upon herself, her husband, and her children. Kemble's emaciated frame, sunken eye, drooping head, and death-like paleness; his heart-piercing lamentation, that--"he trusted a friend who repaid his hospitality, by alluring from him all that his soul held dear,"--are potent warnings to the modern husband. Mrs. Siddons, in Mrs. Haller (the just martyr to her own crimes) speaks in her turn to every married woman; and, in pathetic bursts of grief--in looks of overwhelming shame--in words of deep reproach against herself and her seducer--"conjures each wife to revere the marriage bond." Notwithstanding all these distressful and repentant testimonies, preparatory to the reunion of this husband and wife, a delicate spectator feels a certain shudder when the catastrophe takes place,--but there is another spectator more delicate still, who never conceives, that from an agonizing, though an affectionate embrace, (the only proof of reconciliation given, for the play ends here), any farther endearments will ensue, than those of participated sadness, mutual care of their joint offspring, and to smooth each other's passage to the grave. But should the worst suspicion of the scrupulous critic be true, and this man should actually have taken his wife "for better or for worse," as on the bridal day--can this be holding out temptation, as alleged, for women to be false to their husbands? Sure it would rather act as a preservative. What woman of common understanding and common cowardice, would dare to dishonour and forsake her husband, if she foresaw she was ever likely to live with him again? DRAMATIS PERSONAE. THE STRANGER _Mr. Kemble._ COUNT WINTERSEN _Mr. Barrymore._ BARON STEINFORT _Mr. Palmer._ MR. SOLOMON _Mr. Wewitzer._ PETER _Mr. Suett._ TOBIAS _Mr. Aickin._ FRANCIS _Mr. R. Palmer._ GEORGE _Mr. Webb._ COUNT'S SON (five years old) _Master Wells._ STRANGER'S SON (five years old) _Master Stokeley._ MRS. HALLER _Mrs. Siddons._ COUNTESS WINTERSEN _Mrs. Goodall._ CHARLOTTE _Miss Stuart._ ANNETTE _Mrs. Bland._ CLAUDINE _Miss Leake._ SUSAN _Mrs. Jones._ STRANGER'S DAUGHTER (four years old) _Miss Beton._ TENANTS, SERVANTS, DANCERS, &c. _SCENE_,--_Germany_. THE STRANGER. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. _The Skirts of COUNT WINTERSEN'S Park.--The Park Gates in the centre.--On one side a low Lodge, among the Trees.--On the other, in the back ground, a Peasant's Hut._