... 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 arti ...

... MRS. H. MUSGRAVE'S Illusions (3 vols.: Bentley and Son) is an illustration of how, by force of genius, work of the finest order can be developed from the most unpromisingly-slender materials. We nev ...

... . The popularity of Mendelssohn appears to increase every year, and his oratorio, Elijah has taken the place of Haydn's Creation as a pendant to Handel's Messiah. On Saturday last, when Elijah was performed by the Royal Albert -Hall Choral and Orchestral Society, under the skilful direction of Mr. Bamby, nearly 10,000 persons were present, and we are assured that, owing to the numbered seats ...

... . THE TICKET-OF-LEAVE MAN AT THE OLYMPIC. MOST of the failures of late years, at this theatre and else where must be ascribed to the production of plays written expressly to enable one person to make a great deal of himself, or herself, as the case may be. Sometimes the piece has proved too weak for the aspirant to exclusive honours, sometimes the aspirant has proved too weak for the piece; ...

... THE OPERA.-- The various operatic questions are now practi cally settled. Instead of three or four companies competing against one another, as during last summer, we shall this year probably have only ...

... : A PIECE more sickly in tone or more feeble as a literary effort than Ariane, produced here on Wednesday, it would not be easy to find. There is not a personage-- at all events not a personage with any influence in what stands for the story-- whose conduct is less than contemptible; there is no purpose in the plot, no moral in the dénouement, nothing, indeed, in the entire production from ...

... LETTERS OP WAGNER AND LISZT. THE letters exchanged by Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt during the twenty years ending 1861 will ere long be laid before English readers in a literal translation written by Dr. Francis Hueffer, and published by MM. Grevel and Co. Meanwhile it may be interesting, not only to musical amateurs but to all classes of readers, to learn what is thought of these letters by ...

... MESSRS. WICKENS AND CO.-- Two pleasing songs, music by W. H. Jude, are Plymouth Sound, words by G. Clifton Bingham, and The Castle Gate, words by Cristabel; the latter is the more original of t ...

... . Partners is not a good play, and nothing can make it into a good play, but that it is better than it was may be freely admitted, if only because it is shorter. Liking Mr. Buchanan's drama little as we may, however, we must do justice to the act ing, which alone saves the piece, and not only saves it but actually draws good audiences to sec it. Mr. Beerbohm Tree has modified certain features ...

... NITOTTCHE AT THE ROYALTY. MR. MAYER scored a decided success on Monday last, when he produced, for the first time in England, the three-act comedy operetta Mam'zelle Nitouche, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Albert Millaud, music by Hervé. The garbled and unsatisfactory English adaptation presented by Miss Lotta and her company at the Opera Comique Theatre three years back, gave so inadequate ...

... THE new play, in four acts, produced by Mr. Edwin Cleary at a matinée at the PRINCESS'S last week, with the title of Mirage, proved to be an unauthorised and feeble version of the novel, As in a Look ...

... MR. J. H. WALSH (Stonehenge), died on Sunday last at the advanced age of seventy-seven. In him sport of all kinds has lost a sincere friend, who loved it for its own sake alone. His British Rural S ...