... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. PEPITA. IF opéra bouffe is coming to an end, as we are so often told, it is at all events dying hard. We have seen the success of The Old Guard at the Comedy Theatre, and here again at Toole's Theatre we find Pepita doing well, with every likelihood that if the house could be secured a long run would follow. It may be safely said, I think, that opéra bouffe like most ...

... . The Spy is the name of a rather sad but very interesting little piece by Mr. Cecil Raleigh, now played at the Comedy Theatre before Uncles and Aunts. It has for its motive the self- sacrifice of a peasant girl who gives herself up to the death of a spy for the sake of the man whom she loves. The beauty and nobility of the act are enhanced by the fact that the heroine's love is not returned, ...

... THE BURNING OE THE GRAND THEATRE. FAIRCLOUGH FUND. AVe have already acknowledged subscriptions to the amount of £47 17s. 6d. for the fund for the benefit of the young stable man, Henry Fairclough, whose gallant conduct in endeavouring to rescue the horses under his charge, at the imminent risk of his life, has led to his permanent disablement, one of his legs having been amputated, Since our ...

... PEINCE OF WALES'S THEATEE. IT is not a new idea in fiction that an innocent woman should from some cause or other dishonour herself by claiming to be the mother of another woman's child. The resource in this or that form has been utilised over and over again. Generally, however, there is some motive sufficiently strong to afford at least the appearance of an excuse for, perhaps, the most un ...

... SAYOY THEATRE. MISS JULIA NEILSON, the débutante who recently made so promising an appearance as Cynisca at the Lyceum-- where Miss Anderson was, of course, the Galatea of the occasion-- was at once seen to be much better fitted for the part of the statue than for that of the human heroine of Mr. Gilbert's delightful comedy. For the latter assumption she was fortunate enough to have an ...

... MUSIC. ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. ITALIAN opera is not yet dead, despite the croakings of its numerous enemies. It has withstood the rivalry of German opera; it has proved at least as profitable in London as English opera, and the current season at Covent Garden appears likely to bring about a recrudesence of its traditional glories. We have already given a list of the chief artists en gaged by Mr. ...

... . THE fire-resisting curtain at the Shaftesbury, which resisted too strenuously the efforts made to raise it for the revival of The Lady of Lyons on Saturday night, was got into a more amiable frame of mind on Monday, and thus the hackneyed but ever effective play was duly placed before the public. Some of the scenery used is apparently that which has already done duty in As You Like It, but ...

... PRINCE OF Y/ALES'S THEATRE. No manager in his senses would ever have produced the play called The Power of Love, which on Tuesday last Miss Henrietta Lindley-- having taken the theatre for a matinée-- caused to be represented before an audience of her friends, who could not help laughing at it. The story, based upon a novel by Mrs. Panton, A Tangled Chain, afforded another instance of that ...

... HE VIEWS. Familiar Wild Birds. By AV. Swayslaxd. Third Series With coloured plates. Cassell and Co. (Limited), London, l'aris, New York, and Melbourne. MR. SWAYSLAND observes with regret in his preface to this interesting little book that many varieties of birds once familiar are fast becoming scarce. To a certain extent this is so, but at the same time in many districts of England bird life ...

... . Mr. AUGUSTUS HARRIS may be congratulated on the great success of the first week of is first season at Covent Garden, crowded houses having been the rule, and the operatic per formances worthy the locale. Following Lucrezia Borgia and Carmen came La Traviata, in which Mlle. Ella Russell, as Violetta Valery, made a signally successful reappearance. Little fatigued by her long journey from ...

... OPERA CO All QUE. DELIGHTFUL story as is Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord, Fauntleroy, and admirably as it was interpreted last season at Terry's Theatre under the guidance of Mrs. Kendal, it was in some ways a risky undertaking to attempt to renew the favour able impression originally produced. Infant prodigies are even more apt than older players to get spoiled by flattery, to exaggerate ...

... . IT would be difficult to imagine a more unwholesome domestic atmosphere than that to which M. Dumas introduces us in Francillon, a three-act play produced by him in January, 1887, at the Comédie Française, but not until now presented before an English audience. The dramatis personal are for the most part detestable, failing to make up in good manners what they lack in good morals. The ...