We had Mr. Punch in the course of the heavening, and both hold and young larfed away as ushal at his rayther rum morality. Then we had two most clever gents who dressed theirselves up before a large looking-glass to look like lots of diffrent peeple. The best couple I was told was two Gents named Bizmarck and Bullanger, one was said to be a reel Ero, and the other, a mere Sham, but I don't know werry much about such Gents myself, xcept that Brown tried werry hard to make me beleeve that Bizmarck, who was the reel Ero, used to think nothink of pouring a hole Bottle of Shampain into a hole Pot of Stout and drinking it all off at one draft, like a ancient Cole Heaver! We finished up with a lot of German Chinese, who jumped about and danced about and climbed up a top of one another, and then acshally bilt theirselves up like a house, and then all tumbled to pieces, reelly quite wunderfool, and not only the lovely little children, but ewen Common Councilmen, aye and ewen ancient Deputys, all stood round and larfed away and enjoyed theirselves, recalling to my sumwhat faltering memory the words of the emortel Poet, "One touch, of Nature makes the hole World grin."
Robert.
AN ECHO FROM THE LANE.
Last week the Carl Rosa Opera Company (whose Managing Directors are Augustus Druriolanus, future Sheriff of London, with Sheriff's officers in attendance, to whom he might, on some future emergency, entrust the charge of Her Majesty's) continued its season of success with a solitary addition to the programme, L'Etoile du Nord. À propos of this novelty, it may be hinted that although the Catherine of Madame Georgina Burns does not make us entirely forget Adelina Patti in the same character, the performance is, from every other point of view, completely gratifying. As "little Peter," Mr. F. H. Celli is (as the comic songs have it) "very fine and large." Mr. John Child, whose Wilhelm, in Mignon, lacked distinction, is more in his element as Danilowitz the pastry-cook. The stage management (as might have been expected with Augustus to the fore) is admirable, the battle-scene at the end of the Second Act filling the house with a mixture one-tenth smoke to nine-tenths enthusiasm. By the time these lines are before the entire world, if all goes well, Thorgrim, by Mr. Frederick Cowen, will have been produced. As the work of a native composer, it should receive a hearty welcome, particularly on the boards of the National Theatre; but, sink or swim, the Carl Rosa Opera Company cannot possibly come to harm with its present popular repertoire. And, as good music is a boon to the London public, such a state of things is distinctly satisfactory.
"In the Name of the Law!"—It is a pity that Mr. Law, the author of Dick Venables, did not take a little more trouble in the construction of his new piece at the Shaftesbury Theatre. It just misses being an excellent drama, and deserving the valuable assistance it receives from all concerned on the stage side of the Curtain. That the wife of a convict should take a house next door to her deeply dreaded husband's prison, that a jewel-collector should keep his precious stones in a side-board, that an Archdeacon should apparently have nothing better to do than play the kleptomaniac at Dartmoor, are facts that seem largely improbable; and yet these are the salient points of the latest addition to the playgoer's repertoire. For the rest, Dick Venables is interesting, and admirably played. But whether, after the first-night criticisms, the piece will do, is a question that must be left to the future for solution.