A theatre having been licensed by the governor, and lately opened by a _select_ company of performers, I visited it one night to ascertain the actual state of the drama in the colony, as also to see the mingled society which would be brought together by such a novel place of amusement. On the night mentioned, I visited it with a party of friends; the evening’s entertainment was the “Heir at Law,” and “Bombastes Furioso.” The interior of the theatre (which was fitted up as a temporary measure, in a large room of the Royal Hotel[24]) is small, and is used only until one more complete can be erected: considering the disadvantages under which theatrical exhibitions must labour in so young a colony, the “_tout ensemble_” far exceeded what I had expected. The pit and boxes (for there was no gallery) might probably contain one hundred and fifty persons. To speak of the _performance_ of Colman’s celebrated comedy, would be to say it was beneath criticism; and the actors seemed determined to “play the comedy” after a manner of their own, substituting passages of their own for those of the author, in defiance of all dramatic rules. The greatest novelty of the evening was a young Australian actress, to whom the drama was as much a novelty as she became to us this evening; and consequently she had no medium of comparison by which her judgment could be directed. Her predominant fault was a want of feeling. In the very affecting scene, where poor Henry, long supposed to be lost, returns to his beloved and disconsolate Caroline—he was in ranting raptures, while she received him in the most hard-hearted manner that can be conceived, uttered the expressions placed by the author into her mouth as a mere matter of course; and, as the unfeeling creature evidently showed that she neither felt nor understood the sentiments uttered, it proved no affecting scene either to actors or auditors. However, “Advance Australia;” the lady and the colony, we thought, are both young. As for the rest of the corps, they too often mistook indecency for wit, and probably by so doing they pleased the majority of their audience; if so, both parties would be satisfied. The pit contained those usually seen in the galleries of the theatre at home; and squabbles, threats, and actual combats, served to amuse some, and discipline others; and the various scenes and expressions in both pit and boxes excited in our minds any thing but an idea of the sublime and beautiful. It may also be worthy of remark, as a proof of the increasing morality of the colony, that no one was stationed at the doors, as in our depraved metropolis, warning you to “take care of your pockets;” and that neither myself, or any gentlemen in company, either in our ingress or egress, had our pockets picked.