The repast now provided by Mr. Yates for those who are fond of “supping full of horrors” is a devilled drama, interspersed with hydraulics—­ consisting, in fact, of spirits and water, sweetened with songs and spiced with witches.  It is, we are informed by the official announcements, “a romantic burletta of witchcraft, in two acts, and a prologue, with entirely new scenery, dresses, and peculiar appointments, imagined by, and introduced under the direction of, Mr. Yates.”  Now, any person, entirely unprejudiced with a taste for devilry and free from hydrophobia, who sees this production, must have an unbounded opinion of the manager’s imagination,—­what a head he must have for aquatic effects!  In vain we look around for its parallel—­nothing but the New River head suggests itself.

But our preface is detaining us from the “prologue;” the first words in which stamp the entire production with originality.  Assassins, who let themselves out by the job, have long been pleasantly employed in melodramas, being mostly enacted by performers in the heavy line; but the author of “Die Hexen am Rhein” introduces a character hitherto unknown to the stage; namely, the comic cut-throat.  Messieurs Gabor and Wolfstein, (played by Mr. Wright, and the immortal Geoffery Muffincap, Mr. Wilkinson), treat us with a dialogue concerning the blowing out of brains, and the incision of weasands, which is conceived and delivered with the broadest humour, enlivened by the choicest of jokes.  They have, we learn, been lately commissioned by Ottocar to murder Rudolph, the exiled Duke of Hapsburgh, who is to pass that way; but he does not come, because his kind kinsman, Ottocar, must have time to consult the god-fathers and god-mothers of the piece, or “Witches of the Rhine;” which he does in the “storm-reft hut of Zabaren.”  This Zabaren is a hospitable gentleman, who sings a good song, sees much company, and is played by that convivial genius Paul Bedford. Ottocar is introduced amongst other friends to a “speaking spirit,” who, being personated by Miss Terrey, utters a terrible prediction.  We could not quite make out the purport of this augury; nor were we much grieved at the loss; feeling assured that the next two acts would be occupied in fulfilling it.  The funny bravoes present themselves in the next scene, and exit to stab one of two brothers, who goes off evidently for that purpose, judiciously coming back to die in the arms of Count Rudolph, for whom he has been mistaken.  Under such circumstances it is but fair that the prince should repay the obligation he owes his friend for being killed in his stead, by promising protection to the widow and child.  The oath he takes would be doubly binding (for he promises to become a brother to the wife, and not content with thus making himself the child’s uncle, swears to be his father too), if the husband did not die before he has had time to utter his wife’s name.  All these affairs having been settled, the prologue—­which used to be called the first act—­ends.