... London, March 21st, igoo. ^s I write Ireland is very much before the English public, and Irish literature shows no hesitation in asserting itself. Here are three indications of the fact A Book of Irish Verse, selected from Modern Writers Bv W. B. Yeats. Second edition. Methuen Journal of the National Literary Society of Irfi akh Vol.I. Parti. (O'Donoghue.) Beltaine. An Occasional Publication. ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. SOCIETY'S VERDICT. ROYALTY has its drawbacks after all. The Prince of Wales attended the first performance of Society's Verdict, and-- more unfortunate than some of the dramatic critics-- was obliged to sit the representation out. The evening wa a dismal one in every way --there was absolutely no relief. In the depressing auditorium-- darkened as soon as the cur tain rose ...

... London, March 28th, 1000. Those who are 'interested in the literary associations of London will hear with regret of the approaching disappearance of another George Eliot house. The resi dence which is mainly associated with her greatest prosperity, that in St. John's Wood, has been destroyed through the advent of the Great Central Railway in that district. The house at Richmond, which is ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. BONNIE DUNDEE. Is it essential that a piece which is not avowedly produced with the hope of making people laugh should be deplorably dismal? Is there not gloom enough already in our lives without going to the theatre to seek more of it under the pretence of amusement? Amusement, forsooth! From Rupert of Hentzau to Don Juan's Last Wager, from Don Juan's Last Wager to ...

... London, April 4th, 1900. There has naturally been very great excitement over the sale in New York of the library of Mr. Augustin Daly. Mr. Daly was an enthusiastic collector in many directions. He was, what is even more interesting, an expert Grangeriser. He Grangerised Boswell's Johnson, Forster's Life of Dickens, Canon Ainger's Lamb Letters, among other books, and he was able to Grangerise ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE MAN OF FORTY. I SUPPOSE that I shall be accused of affinities more popular than aristocratic when I express the thought that eleven o'clock is quite late enough for a theatrical performance to finish. It is all against the thorough enjoyment of the last half-hour of an entertainment that one's attention should be complicated with anxieties about catching the last ...

... r For the first time since American enterprise seized upon the widely-circulating newspapers of London as a medium for selling books a newspaper book project has my entire approval. In other cases, as with the sale of the Bonn Library, of this or that dictionary, of the Hundred Best Books, of the Hundred Best Novels, and of the Encyclopedia Britannica, one could only find consolation in the ...

... . SOME amongst those who are supposed to be good judges, or rather, should we say, who sit in judgment on plays and play productions, have been saying concerning Mr. F. R. Benson's latest Shakespearian revival at the Lyceum Theatre that The Tempest, which was put in the programme on the 5th inst., was merely a poet's indulgence in a very beautiful dream and was novel intended for the stage. Wo ...

... . PANTOMIME plays-- plays without words-- must be well done to command favour on this side of the Channel. A Clown's Christmas, brought out at a matinée at the Lyric Theatre on the 11th inst., was exceedingly well done, and secured the enthusiastic approval of a large and deeply- interested audience. Even the playgoer, blasé with much playgoing, was moved; and the many handkerchiefs that were ...

... There will be few exhibitions in London more popular than the collection of Romneys, which is to be opened at the Grafton Galleries in a few weeks. There will be one portrait by Romney, however, which we can hardly expect to see there. It is one which has a peculiar interest to-day, when a certain number of literary people are recalling the fact that Cowper has been dead exactly one hundred ...

... ^he By W. MOY THOMAS ZAZA THE clever Madame Réjane was the great attraction in MM. Berton and Simon's play Zaza, which a couple of seasons ago was drawing all Paris to the VAUDEVILLE Theatre. Her succ ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. FACING THE MUSIC. MR. J. H. DARNLEY, the author of The Barrister, and, I believe of The , is responsible for Facing the Music, a farce much in the same vein as these. Mr. Darnley perhaps too easily made the public laugh by his earlier efforts, or possibly by this time his work would have become more ambitious than it seems to be. Success with mere frivolity has, I ...