I went to "Major Pendennis" at the Hollis Theatre with feelings of the warmest expectation. Thackery as a personality and a social philosopher I cannot abide, his point of view being expressive of the mixture of ignorance, snobbery, humbug, and conceit which has made the British Empire in more than one sense the wonder of the world. But as an atmospheric artist Thackery is quite otherwise, and it was this quality of atmosphere one expected to encounter in Mr. Langdon Mitchell's adaptation of "Pendennis." Superficially it is attained, owing to the well known talent in production of Mr. Iden Payne. Settings, costumes, etc., are arranged to the key of 1830, the age of tasseled canes and wonderful waistcoats, when a copy of Don Juan lay on the dressing tables of ladies of fashion; a picture of old England in its autumn, smiling through the mist of factory smoke just beginning to rise. Unfortunately a production set in so delightful a key has to be something more than a mere picture, or even a mere dramatization; it ought to be a play in its own right, and this "Major Pendennis" is not. It is little else but a string of amatory episodes arbitrarily put together without much skill. The adapter needs a link more enduring than Mr. Drew to correlate his rosary of prettily colored beads. In a former play, "Becky Sharp," adapted on much the same method, he had such a link in the radiant personality of Mrs. Fiske. She "made" the play in the sense that through the subtle comedy of her characterization the play literally held together, a coherent, self-justified whole. It is not the fault of the star, but one cannot say this of "Major Pendennis."

One thing can be said of it together: it contains one of the most decorative groups of ladies I have ever seen in one production. One after one, we watch them immolated on the alter of that very uninteresting young man, Arthur Pendennis, played in a restrained fashion by Mr. Walter Kingsford, -- the beautiful young mother, the lovely giantess in the prologue, the exquisite little Cockney laundress in the first act, etc. etc.

Mr. Drew for the first time in our experience is something more than himself. Formerly I have wondered why his appearances have not been heralded something in this way: Mr. John Drew in a new and original play in three acts, "John Drew." Last night, however, he put his now familiar gutteral style of voice and playing into a veritable characterization of the militant old worldling with tight boots and "the most beautiful coats in London." At times it seemed little more than a rich succession of grunts, growls, "By Gads," "demnition sirs," but even out of these husky trifles a man of Mr. Drew's talented staginess can produce a characterization. Next to the star, Miss Alison Skipworth, as a fat and vulgar Lady Clavering, is most worth seeing. Mr. Charles Kennedy was exceedingly funny as one of those preposterous stage Irishmen "made in England." The real Irishman is something so appalingly different from the invention that sometimes he has to be stood up against a wall and shot. CUTHBERT WRIGHT ocC.