CHRISTMAS "CRACKERS."
Plum-pudding never disagrees with me, however much I take of it. No more do mince-pies, no matter how many I eat. Steaming hot-and-strong gin-punch is the most wholesome beverage; so, also, is brandy-punch. It can't harm anybody who, on the Pickwickian principle, "takes enough of it." Both beverages go admirably with cigars and pipes. If you have anything like a headache on Boxing-day morning, depend upon it, it comes from abstemiousness in drinking, eating, and smoking.
SUGGESTION FOR PICTORIAL DIRECTORY.
| "Hide Pa Corner." | Eatin' Plaice. |
LITERARY AND DRAMATIC.—It is now generally known, and, if not, it is high time it should be, that A Million of Money, advertised as original, is only an instance of genuine "translation" from Old Drury Lane to Covent Garden, where it ought to continue its previous success.
SHAKSPEARE AT YULETIDE.—Excellent arrangements at the Lyceum for Christmas. Genial Ravenswood is to be performed only on a Friday. For the rest,—no not "the rest" where so much work is involved,—for "the remainder" of the week, the Master of the Shakespearian Revels gives us Much Ado About Nothing, with our ELLEN and HENRY as Beatrice and Benedick, and with all its memorable glory of costume and scenery,—a Shakspearian revival well worthy to be reckoned as among the foremost of all the attractions offered by the theatres this Christmas.
