... THE IRISH DRAMzfA AT THE PRINCESS'S. IF you want a pleasant entertainment, go and see Arraht na Pogue at the Princess's Theatre, a drama which does not challenge criticism, but which stirs the heart, moistens the eyes, and keeps up a constant pleasurable excitement of the sensibilities with its mirth, its pathos, and its picturesque, ness. The first act, indeed, is very near being perfect; and ...

... L AAR TINE 0N BALZAC * THERa is something pitiable in the spectacle of a man who has held the highest place in the literature of his nation, and a very distinguished place in the political history of his times, reduced in his declining years to the level of a bookseller's hack, and seemingly without the severe probity of literary conscience which preserves the dignity of the respectable hack. ...

... WE presume that the readers of the Pall Hall Gazelle are not such stubborn conservatives as to resist the audacious innovation of painless surgery merely because it is an innovation, flying in the face of Providence, and effeminately shrinking from a good old-fashioned suffering which it is so much better to bear-in the opinion of those who have not to bear it. The only grave doubt, we ...

... ESSA YS ON REFORIJ. * AnLTHOUGH the two volumes before us are issued separately, and under different titles, they in reality form one work. 'The collection -which demands and deserves the attention of every one who pretends to an interest in the political temper of the time -may be described as a political series of Essays and Reviews. As in the case of the famous theological series, the ...

... AVATEUR PERFORMANCE AT THE STRAND. THEA TRE. It would seem to be lawful to do strange things on benefit nights. Time out of mind they have been regarded as the carnivals of the players, daring which very eccentric proceedings are permissible. On benefit nights Melpomene and Thalia oftentimes change places. The tragedian assumes the sock ; the comedian wears the buskin. On benefit nights the ...

... NEWV BOOKS' AND NVEWV EDITIONS. From Messrs. Houlston and Wright we have received, in one handsome, carefully printed volume, Kentish Lyrics, Sacred, Rural, and Miscellaneous, by Benjamin Gough, author of Lyra Sabbatica. The writer tells us that the success of Lyra Sabbatica induced him to publish these lyrics. He had been wiser had he printed no more than half of them. Up to page ito ...

... MISS SMEDLEYS POEMS. v MISS SAIEDLaY is, webelieve, one of the authors of the charming ?? addressed to a child which have recently given so much pleasure not only to children. She is also, as we are ashamed to say we learned for the first time from the title-page of the present collection, a poet of some standing, and her volume containing The Story of Queen Isabel and other verses (Bell ...

... MR. MAD OX BRO WN'S EXHIBITION. IF England was a country wherein intellectual painting stood the highest, or wherein those qualities of executive art which a first-class artist knows to be the most difficult and valuable stood higher than those which he finds and rates comparatively cheap, the name of Mr. FORD MADOX BROWN would be very widely known, and held in the greatest honour. He would be ...

... MR. LINVTO\T AS POET AND ARTIST.* AIR. LINTON has produced another proof that a man may have a poetical mind and yet be quite incapable of writing poetry. Pretty things he may always be able to accomplish-pretty stuttering things, but a poem never. His is a genius of the sort which gives grace to the mind of many a woman, and so adds to the happiness of the world, if not to its literature ...

... MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD, in his article on the Influence of Academies, remarks that the French are distinguished by their openness of mind and flexibility of intelligence, whereas the English, with all their genius, remain eccentric and irregular. This contrast strikes us forcibly on entering the Gallery of French and Flemish pictures, and comparing it with some of our exhibitions. We find the ...

... OIR. BUCH-A NAN'S ADMIZNISTRA TION.* Tivs is a curious book upon an interesting subject. For it is always interesting to recall the state of things which immediately preceded any of the great catastrophes of history. AVe are glad to know how French- men felt in Paris just before r789, as we are glad to know how people felt just before an earthquake or a fire. It is still more interesting to ...

... WE lately observed how the omen, under certain circumstances, stood people in good stead. Much better still, however, is a downright oracle, and such a one, now the only comfort of the adversaries of Prussia in general and the Hohenzollern in particular, has long existed in theshapeof the Vaticinium Lehninense. This prophecy, which in I723 made its first appearance in Berlin, has ever since ...