WESTMINSTER AND THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
Meanwhile, the theatres in London (and in the provinces which reproduce London successes, and also bring, with the aid of their Repertory Theatres, a valuable addition to the current of dramatic life) can be always trusted to offer something amusing to all tastes, from the serious to the gay and the raffish. A very well-defined type of London theatrical entertainment is the "musical comedy," a taste for which has spread to America, and is now invading France. It grew out of French opera-bouffe by way of burlesque, and of the "comic opera" type which Gilbert and Sullivan made famous. "Musical comedy" has to be bright, tuneful, inconsequential, and illustrated by charming women in charming costumes. Its aid to the happy digestion of dinner is one of its chief claims to popularity, and it strives to amuse without making undue demands on the intelligence.
The explorer in the theatrical life of England must not miss the music halls—the smaller ones usually owing part of their attraction to the fact that they are the resort of people whose chief business in life it is to be gay, the larger ones much more regardful of British Puritanism.
Yes, perhaps in reviewing the whole situation in painting, music, drama, Art is not so kind to England as Nature; or rather the Englishman does not give so much loving care to the arts as he does to his gardens and parks. Nevertheless, England is not a land altogether of Philistines.