... usi? II II TuiE BIRMINGHAM FESTIVAL (From ?? Special Corresondent) -The Birmingham Festival is being held under somewhat un- lucky conditions. The net profits of the Festival (including, of course, donations at the doors) have been gradually dropping off during the past few years, and, at this Festival, they bid fair to be even still further reduced. In 1873, no less than 6,5771. was netted, ...

... -ci ALPHONSE CARY.-From hence come four very pleasing Original Part-Songs for Ladies' Voices, music by Cliffe Forrester, words by H. E. F. :-They are Sunrise (No. I), Evening (No. 2), Spring Song (No. 3) for two voices, Woodland Joys (No. 4) is for three voices; they are all well calculated for school and college execution -A charming poem by Shakespeare, Better Than All, ...

... MR. P. G. HAMERTONS NEW BOOK * No one who knows anything about Mr. Hamerton (and there are few readers who have not read at least one of his works) need be told that his new work on the Sa6ne is a very pleasant one. Mr. Hamerton always writes like a scholar, and a man of obser- vation and taste. He has, too, an agreeable and unobtrusive humour, which, like a delicate sauce, gives zest to the ...

... TI-IEATkES' THE dramatic version of. Mrs. Campbell Praed's novel, The Bond of Wedlock, produced at the OPERA COMIQUE on Wednesday evening, with the title of Ariane, furnishes Mrs. Bernard Beere with another artistic triumph, and is likely to prove one of the most attractive of the pieces in which she has appeared. The story of the play is, unfortunately, somewhat painful ; for it deals with ...

... .. ?? . - ?? -- It. THE fourth paper on The British Army, by Sir Charles Dilke, appears in this month's Fortnightly. It is mainly devoted to our weakness in field artillery, to the militia, and to the volunteers. As regards guns we have not, all told, enough to supply the two much. vaunted army corps, and, if these army corps went out of the kingdom, there would be practically no artillery ...

... 4 THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.-Pending the completion of the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera-which, report says, will be of a less fantastic character than some of its ?? Pirates of Penzance has been revived at the Savoy. There is no need to again describe at length the well-known plot and the always charming, though equally familiar, music. Audiences can now once more laugh at the humour of the ...

... 11. MR. W. M. AcNVORTH begins in the New Year's number of lffurray a series of papers on The London and North-Western Railway. In Part I. much interesting information is given about this particular line of passenger and goods traffic. Mr. Acworth remarks on the habit railway men have of taking an ordinary English word and giving it some special technical sense. The word bank, for example, ...

... XUSI DR. BRADFORD'S JUDITH.-Dr. Jacob Bradford's oratorio Yudith was essayed for the first time in London, at St. James's Hall, on Tuesday evening. It was intended as an 1 exercise for the com- poser's degree of Mus. Doc. at Oxford, and must accordingly not be judged from the ordinary point of view of oratorio. According to the regulations of the University the candidate is required to ...

... WHAT IS KNOWNV A BO UT SHAKESPEARE (Continuedfrom page 492) absolutely hostile to such a supposition, and his name does not appear on that slab at all. De Quincey came to the conclusion that they were the work of the sexton or parish clerk, who either placed the stone there as a warning while the tomb and bust were being finished, or for the purpose of solemnly adjuring future possible ...

... 1 8 MUsIc IN CHURCH.-Two elaborate services at which oratorios were performed have been held within the week. At Westminster Abbey, last Thursday, Handel's Messiah was heard for the first time in that building since the year 1834, when it was performed in the course of an elaborate Festival, part of the proceeds of which was handed to the Royal Society of Musicians. On Thursday it was given to ...

... ??6x 40 A FOOT-NOTE occurs in J. Freeman Bell's The Premier and the Painter (i vol.: Spencer Blackett), wherein Mudie's Library is explained to be a philanthropic institution founded for the purpose of compelling authors to expand a word into a sentence, a sentence into a page, and a page into a volume. Such sarcasm at the expense of current fiction is certainly peculiar as coming from a ...

... TIHEATMI M. SARCEY, the distinguished French critic, is of opinion that improbabilities in the exposition, or laying out of the foundations of a story on the stage are of comparatively little importance, pro- vided they are not followed by other improbabilities after the first act. In other words, audiences are generally found willing to con- cede a good deal in the way of premisses to ...