... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. MYNHEER JAN. THE pen, it has been remarked, is mightier than the sword. In some instances though, the pencil is far superior to the pen. For example, a single glance at the illustra tions adorning this page will enable the glancer to seize in stantaneously and without difficulty on the idea which I am slowly and painfully striving to put for ward in the accom panying ...

... . A NEW and original comic opera m three acts, entitled Mynheer Jan, written by Harry Paulton and Mostyn Tedde, music by Edward Jakobowski, was produced at the Comedy Theatre on Monday last, with those signs of success which are almost always visible on first nights of new pieces, unless they prove to be downright failures. The new opera was produced last week at Birmingham, where it met ...

... . THE second half of the Saturday Concert Season at the Crystal Palace opened on Saturday last with an interesting programme, comprising Mr. Mackenzie's dramatic cantata, The Story of Sayid, and Mr. C. Villiers Stanford's choral setting of the Poet Laureate's stirring poem, The Revenge, a Ballad of the Fleet. Both compositions were successfully produced at the Leeds Musical Festival in October ...

... _ j I Ell I VERDI'S OTELLO.-- Accidents apart, Verdi's latest opera will be produced at La Scala, Milan, on Saturday of this week. A large number of professional musicians and critics (including rep ...

... VERDI'S OTELLO.-- We understand that there is little or no chance of a performance in London of Verdi's latest opera for some time to come. No presentation of the work in the English language will p ...

... MESSRS. J. CURWEN AND SONS.-- There is much sterling merit in The Victorian Age, a cantata for the Jubilee of Her Majesty's reign, the libretto by F. C. Weatherly, M.A., the music by J. L. Roeckel. ...

... Two volumes of stories, and those translated from the German of an author whose name, to say the least, will be new to most English readers, suggest unlikely material for the most prominent position i ...

... Mr. Irving closed the Lyceum doors on Wednesday, and took advantage of the opportunity to fulfil his promise to give a reading of Hamlet at the Birkbeck Institution in aid of its building fund. The Il ...

... MESSRS. NOVELLO, EWER, AND CO.-- A welcome addition to the répertoire of soprano and contralto singers is Twenty-Four Duets for those voices, composed by Franz Abt, and published in two books. Altho ...

... DR. JOACHIM.-- Dr. Joachim has returned to England, and on Monday he made his reappearance at the Popular Concerts, lie led Antonin Dvorák's Sextet for strings, which in 1880 first introduced the co ...

... ALL persons who take interest in what is going on in our theatres have learned by this time that the animal who gives the name to the new piece entitled Dandy Dick at the COURT THEATRE is not a foppis ...

... MESSRS. J. B. CRAMER AND CO.-- Two very pathetic songs, written and composed by Lord Henry Somerset, are, Ah, Never More, and O Loved and Lost; both are refined, and will take a good place in a co ...