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MISS P. HORTON'S “GATHERINGS.” Ap. 3/55

Last night an entertainment was givin by Mr. and Mrs. T. G. Reed, in the lower room of St. Martin's-hall. It is scarcely necessary to explain that Mrs. T. G. Reed is the “Miss Priscilla Horton” who immortalized herself as Ariel when Mr. Macready revived The Tempest at Covent-garden Theatre, and since that time has bean the main support to countless burlesques in which vocal talent was required as a necessary adjunct of vivacious and intelligent acting.

The new entertainment, which is entitled “Illustrative Gatherings,” is divided into two parts. In the first, which is called the “Animated Bouquet,” Mr. and Mrs. Reed are supposed to be on a visit at the house of a lady in a country village, and while Mr. Reed performs the office of explanatory “chorus” (in the Shaksperian sense), Mrs. Reed successivley assumes the different characters whom they are supposed to meet. Mrs. Myrtle, the hostess, who is overflowing with energy and hospitality; Miss Snowberry, a faded beauty of somewhat sour temperament, who sings a capital song with a “moral;” Sir Johnquill, an empty-headed handsome gentleman, with a huge pair of whiskers and an interminable giggle, which most comically contrasts with the expression of a sentimental ballad of his own composition; and Miss Fuchsia Willow, a languishing beauty, with a profusion of curls and a taste for nothing,—are all excellent impersonations, complete in dress, voice, action, and appearance. More eccentric, but equally clever is a dialogue, in a broad dialect between two old dames, each of whom is represented by one-half of Mrs. Reed, the fair artist having one costume on her right side, the other on her left.

The second part of the entertainment is entitled the “Enraged Musician,” and is evidently based on the idea of Hogarth's picture. Mr. T. Reed is the musician, engaged in the composition of an opera, and Mrs. Reed becomes in turn a talkative landlady, an itinerant Italian boy, a rustic housemaid, with an abnormal development of the organ of order, and a French cantatrice. In this new set of characters Mrs. Reed's impersonating talent is again displayed to the utmost advantage, and her brilliant execution of “Robert, toi que j'aime,” brings the whole entertainment to an effective conclusion.

This novel experiment of Miss P. Horton has proved thoroughly successful, though the enthusiastic audience of Mr. A. Mellon's concert, which was held in the room above, were sometimes so plainly heard below as almost to occasion an interruption. On the repetition of the entertainment, however we would counsel abbreviation, especially in the first part, where two or three characters that we have not emu ated may be omitted with advantage.