The Baron has great pleasure in drawing attention—(he is gifted is the Baron, "drawing" as well as writing, you'll observe)—to a rare specimen of the Papilio Whistleriensis which adorns this paragraph, and hopes, on another occasion, to have a few remarks to offer on the many genuine Jacobean epistles contained in this dainty volume which is issued, as the short preface informs us, under the Ex-P.R.B.A.'s "immediate care and supervision," and as a counterblast from Le Siffleur against "a spurious and garbled version" of his writings already put into circulation. It was about time for Jacques Le Siffleur to come out for a blow; which blow it is more blessed to give than to receive, dicit the Baron de Book-Worms.
THE OPERA-GOER'S DIARY.
Monday.—Les Huguenots. Madame Nordica as our Valentine. She is toujours riante. Otherwise, vocally, charming. Ravelli the Reliable as Raoul, much applauded and quite two inches higher in popular estimation. Valentina Nordica cannot take anything seriously. She smiles as she is wont to smile at the supreme moment of his great athletic window-jump, when he is shot out of window and killed so thoroughly that he cannot be produced for the last Act of all, which, therefore, is now never given. Simple-minded folk, not up to this, wait in their stalls, and wonder why everybody else is going. Members of orchestra disappear, lights extinguished, brown-holland coverings descend, the fireman enters, the box-keepers retire, and suddenly it bursts upon the inexperienced Opera-goer that it's all over, except shouting for carriages, and that's over too by now, and that there is to be no more Opera to-night.
L'entr'acte est long,
Un peu d'espoir,
There's no more song,
Et puis bon soir.
M. Lassalle as the French nobleman, whom some one described as "Sam Bris," excellent. Good house for the Huguenots.