As we mean to be full upon the tragedy of ALFONSO, we postpone our further observations on Mr. Cooper to the next number.
The fame of this young actor reached America before him. Those who are in the habit of perusing the critical productions of London or Edinburgh, had learned from them that he was a performer of considerable merit in a particular department, and of great promise as a general actor. The most favourable reports of the British publications were amply confirmed by American gentlemen who saw him perform in Europe; and the acknowledged taste and judgment of a respectable literary character at New-York, who engaged Mr. Dwyer for the manager of that theatre, would have been of itself a sufficient warranty for the most sanguine presumptions in his favour. Accordingly he was received by the New-York audience for some nights with enthusiastic applause, and on the ground of the reports of that city, the play-loving folks of this wound their minds up to a strained pitch of expectation. In consequence of this, Mr. Warren, who never fails to make use of every opportunity that arises to gratify his audience, proceeded to New-York for the purpose of engaging Mr. Dwyer for a few nights, if his merits should be found to correspond with the general reports respecting him. Mr. Warren's own judgment confirmed those reports, and he engaged Mr. Dwyer upon terms which do honour to the liberality of his heart, and to his spirit as a manager.
Mr. Dwyer's performances here have answered the expectations we had built upon the various criticisms we had read, and the verbal communications we had received upon the subject of his professional talents. We conjectured that his acting might not entirely, or all at once, accord with that kind of taste which the actors we have been accustomed to naturally generated in the multitude. His performance of BELCOUR was as new to our audience as the chaste and natural acting of Garrick was on _his_ first appearance to the admirers of Booth and Quin, and for some time our audience could scarcely admire it. In some few instances, indeed, a positive disrelish for it was openly avowed, and we could not help feeling that those opinions were entitled to particular respect as they could have come only by _inspiration_. Being uttered before it was possible for the propounders to have formed a judgment by mere human means upon that gentleman's merits. This we can aver, that he had spoken only four lines, according to the letter press of the copy now before us, when some person on one side of us remarked that he was nothing to Mr. Chalmers, and in four lines more, another person on the other side laid him down under another actor--but one, indeed of a very superior kind to Mr. Chalmers.