... . WHEN last month Messrs. Haddon Chambers and Stanley Little ventured upon a matinée for the introduction of their new play, Devil Caresfoot, it was pretty generally admitted that their production was above the level of the ordinary afternoon performance. The piece had real stuff in it; its characters had, in several cases, genuine dramatic life, and many passages of its dialogue were ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE BARRISTER. ROB Roy's purse. Readers of Sir Walter Scott may recall his description of the Highland outlaw's sporran, with its trick lock, secret spring, and concealed pistol barrel, arranged to discharge its contents into the body of anyone trying to tamper with it, and all, as he puts it, to secure a furred pouch which could have been ripped open without any ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. DOROTHY. AGAIN this week the pencil has all the best of it, and the pen, to modify Sheridan's well- known example, can do little more than supply a subsidiary rivulet of text to meander around islands of illustration. The subject which my artistic colleague and my self have elected to deal with is one affording him a bet ter chance of dis playing his powers than it ...

... . At the Gaiety, where benefits for the principal members of the company are just now the order of the day, these enter tainments are noc only on the largest of scales, but generally comprise features of exceptional interest. Such, certainly, was the solid afternoon's enjoyment provided here by Mr. Charles Harris, who on Saturday last kept things going from one till nearly six. There were ...

... . MB. W. FREEMAN THOMAS will open his sixth annual con cert season at Covent Garden on Saturday, August 13, instead of August 6, as at first announced. The theatre will be re decorated, and a large number of fairy lamps of various colours and shapes will be employed in lighting up the front of each tier of boxes. The orchestra, including leading members of the Philharmonic orchestra, will be ...

... LOYALTY THEATRE. Mit. Mayeu last week changed his plan of campaign, and discarding French drama opened a short season of French opera with a representation of that tuneful and lively work, la Perichole, written by Mil. Meilhac and Halevy, composed by Jacques Offenbach, and originally produced at the Theatre des Varietes, Paris, October 6th, 1868. The cast provided at the Royalty was as ...

... . THE tenth Saturday Concert of the Crystal Palace series was given last Saturday, when the following programme was pro vided:-- 1. Concerto in G, for Strings J. 3. Bach. V. Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, No. :i Beethoven. Aria Let the dreadful engines Barcell. A. Symphony No. 7, in A Beethoven. ,V Hungarian Ithapsody, No. IS (First Time) laszt. (i. Traiimc (ltcverie), for Strings ...

... . We refrain from any attempt to describe the plot of The Old Guard, further than to say that it is built on the not strikingly original basis of a change of Fraisette for Murielle by a nurse, the loves of Gaston for the originally high-born lady, and of Caramel for the lowly born lady, and of a couple of marriages after the rightful heiress (Fraisette) of the Marquis D'Artemare is restored to ...

... . Tt is not easy to imagine the circumstances under which a revival of Shed's five-act tragedy, F-radne, could nowadays be profitable. Pretentious efforts of its kind soon have their day there is nothing enduring about them in the absence of genuine dramatic inspiration and perfect literary form. But there would he somo excuse for a passing experiment with a typical production of the palmy ...

... ADELPIII THEATRE. THE hundredth night of The Bells of Haslemere was duly celebrated at the Adelphi on Monday last, when it was made clear that the interest in this capital melodrama is as yet by no means on the wane. It is the more pleasant to be able to congratulate authors, actors, managers, and others concerned in this lasting success, because the piece is so eminently healthy in motive, ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITia JACK IX TIIE BOX AT THE STRAND. I KNEW-- and dreaded it. It haunted me on hoardings. It pursued me on posters. It beset my path in the shape of playbills. It peered at me from shop- windows in the guise of chromo litho- g'r a p h y It rose up before me like a spectre from out the adver tising columns of newspapers, and lurked like a snake in the grass amidst paragraphs of ...

... . Like and Unlike. A Novel. By the Author of Lady Audley's Secret, Vixen, Mohawks, &c. London: Spencer Blackett, Shoe-lane, Fleet-street. The latest production of this indefatigable writer shows not the least symptom of failing strength, long as the list of her books now is. On the contrary, she is as fresh and vivacious as ever, andif Like and Unlike is not among the very best of her ...