For the re-arrangement, much may be said "for," and more "against." There is only one point that strikes me as absolutely inartistic, and that is, making Sir Peter give his explanatory speech about his wife after we have seen her, instead of leaving it in its proper place, as Sheridan wrote it, where it serves as a prologue to the subsequent scene between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, when she appears for the first time in the comedy.
There are some curious oversights in the scenic arrangements at Daly's. The first is in Charles Surface's picture gallery, which has no windows and no skylight. The second is that though Charles has sold all his books, yet through the door of the picture-room are seen the first shelves of an evidently well-stocked library. The third oversight is in Joseph's chambers, described in the original play as "a library in Joseph Surface's house," where, when he tells Sir Peter that "books are the only things I am a coxcomb in," there are only a very few volumes to be seen, and these are lying at haphazard on a table.
To revert for a moment to Charles Surface's windowless and skylightless picture gallery, the scene takes place in the evening, after dinner, or supper, and how is the huge apartment lighted? Why, by a couple of ordinary candles placed on a side-table, while on the mantelpiece at the back remain a couple of silver candelabra, filled with candles which remain all the time unlighted. Why, naturally, the company would have been in darkness, but not a bit of it, for these two candles do give so preternaturally wonderful an illumination, that the stage is as bright as a sunlighted garden at noonday in July. The company that could produce such candles would make a fortune by their patent. The dance at the end of the first Act brings down the curtain to enthusiastic applause, and, to the end, the old comedy, in spite of various chops and changes, holds its own, as it ever will do, triumphantly.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Father Christmas is already sending out his Cards for the Coming Festivity, now six weeks ahead. His representatives all "decorated," and still ready to receive any amount of "orders," are Marcus Ward, the Raphael Tuck family, C. W. Faulkner, C. Delgado, and many others, whose excellent works are known to all, and by none more appreciated than by the youthful Baronites and Baronitesses.
"Blackie and Son!" says a Junior Baronite; "why, that must he the publishers of Christy Minstrel works!" but they are soon undeceived. Such delightful books! their very bindings are suggestive of cheerfulness, and seem to invite inspection. We will take a peep inside, like Jack Horner, and pull out the best plummed story. Three by G. A. Henty, who knows how and what to write for youths of adventurous spirit. His three are:—
Through the Sikh War. Indian affairs are always of interest to the young Britisher, "who will," quoth the little Baronite, "seek and find all he wants in this book."
St. Bartholomew's Eve might be a tale of curiosity, but it is history, and deals with the valour of an English boy during the Huguenot Wars. Being a hero, he does not get killed in the massacre, but lives to fight another day.
A Jacobite Exile is a tale of the Swedes. Hardly necessary, perhaps, or as Shakspeare puts it, "Swedes to the Swede,—superfluous." To the English reader, therefore, it is not a superfluity.