compliment this," as Sir WILL SOMERS, the Court Jester, might have said,—"to JOHNNY HARE from the Hare Apparent."

THEIR "IBSEN-DIXIT."

A new set of Faddists has been gradually growing up, not in our midst, but in the parts about Literature and the Drama. The object of their cult is, one HENRIK IBSEN, a Norwegian Dramatist, (perhaps it would be more correct to say, the Norwegian Dramatist,) of whose plays a pretty sprinkling of scribes, amateur and professional, but all of the very highest culture, profess themselves the uncompromisingly enthusiastic admirers. You may not know the Ibsenites or any of their works, but in their company at least,—that is, supposing yourself so highly privileged as to be admitted within the innermost circle of the Inner Ibsen Brotherhood,—not to know IBSEN would be proof positive of your being in the outer darkness of ignorance, and in need, however unworthy, of the grace of Ibsenitish enlightenment. Recruits are wanted in the Ibsenite ranks, so as to strengthen numerically the one party against the other; for the Ibsenitish sect has so for progressed as to be at loggerheads amongst themselves; not indeed on any really essential question, such as would be, for example, any doubt as to the position of IBSEN as a Dramatist, or as to the order of merit and precedence to be assigned to his works. No, on such matters they are apparently at one; but in other matters they are at one another. Thus the unity appears to be only superficial, a decent plaster hiding the rift occasioned by one of their number having literally translated into English IBSEN's latest Norwegian drama, of which translation the verbal correctness is impugned by another learned Ibsenite.

Not being "a hardy Norseman," and having neither a reading nor speaking acquaintance with the Norse language, I am unable to decide abstruse points on which such learned doctors disagree; but not being altogether without some practical experience of English and French drama, I venture to call in question not only the dramatic ability of the dramatist himself, but also, after perhaps allowing him some merit as a type-writer or character-sketcher, to assert that the style and matter of most of his work is always tiresome, frequently childish, and the subject often morbid and unhealthy; and, further, that his method is tedious to the last degree of boredom; for, as a writer, if I may judge him fairly by his translators, he is didactic and prosy, and never more tedious than when his dialogue is intended to be at its very crispest. As a playwright his construction is faulty. Here and there he gives expression to pretty ideas, reminding me (still judging by the translation) of TOM ROBERTSON, not when the latter was in his happiest vein, but when laboriously striving to make his puppets talk in a sweetly ingenuous manner.

I have never seen any play of IBSEN's on the stage, but I have read several of them—indeed, as I believe, all that have hitherto been translated and published in this country. I was prepared to be charmed, expecting much. I was soon disillusioned, and great was my disappointment. Then I re-read them, to judge of them not merely as dramas for the closet, but as dramas for the stage, written to be acted, not to be read; or, at all events, as far as the general public were concerned, to be acted first, and to be read afterwards. As acting dramas, it is difficult to conceive anything less practically dramatic. I do not know what the pecuniary result of his theatrical productions may be in his own country—where, I believe, he doesn't reside—but, out of his own country (say, here in London), I should say that a one-night's performance, with a house half full, would exhaust IBSEN's English public, and quite exhaust the patience of those who know not IBSEN.

Years ago we had the Chatterton-Boucicault dictum that "SHAKSPEARE spelt failure." Now, for SHAKSPEARE read "IBSEN," and insert the words "swift and utter" before "failure," and you have my opinion as to how the formula would stand with regard to IBSEN. I should be sorry to see any professional Manager making himself pecuniarily responsible for the success of such an undertaking, a word which, in its funereal sense, is of ill omen to the attempt. Let the Ibsenites club together, lease a theatre, and see how the public likes their show. There's nothing doing at the Royalty just now; let them pay rent in advance, and become Miss KATE SANTLEY's tenants; then, if the IBSEN-worshippers, with their Arch-priest, or ARCHER-priest, at their head, come to a temporary understanding with the Gosse-Ibsenites, they could craftily contrive to be invited as guests to a dinner at the Playwreckers' Club. The dilettanti members of this association the United Ibsenites could flatter by deferring to the opinions of their hosts, while inculcating their own, thus securing the goodwill and patronage of the Playwreckers, a plan nowadays adopted with considerable success by some of our wiliest dramatists, eager to secure a free course and be glorified; and so, by making each one of these mighty amateurs feel that the success of IBSEN in this country depended on him personally, that is, on his verdict or "Ibsen dixit," a run of, say, perhaps three nights might possibly be secured, when they could play to fairly-filled houses. One "nicht wi' IBSEN," one night only, would, I venture to say, be quite enough for most of us. "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!" "Oh, that my enemy would bring out an Ibsenite play," and try to run it! Perhaps he will. In which case I will either alter my opinion or give him a dose of ANTI-FAD.

MR. GLADSTONE'S NEW HOUSE.

"The house which Mr. GLADSTONE has just taken in Park Lane is, it is reported, the selection of Mrs. GLADSTONE, who recommends it with a view to her husband's opportunities for exercise."—Daily Paper.

SULLIVANHOE!

All Dicky with Ivanhoe; or, The Long and Short of it.

BRAVISSIMO, Sir ARTHUR SULLIVAN of Ivanhoe, or to compress it telegraphically by wire, "Bravissimo Sullivanhoe!" Loud cries of "ARTHUR! ARTHUR!" and as ARTHUR and Composer he bows a solo gracefully in front of the Curtain. Then Mr. JULIAN STURGIS is handed out to him, when "SULLIVAN" and "JULIAN"—latter name phonetically suggestive of ancient musical associations, though who nowadays remembers "Mons. JULLIEN"?—the composer and librettist, bow a duet together. "Music" and "Words" disappear behind gorgeous new draperies. "All's swell that ends swell," and nothing could be sweller than the audience on the first night. But to our tale. As to the dramatic construction of this Opera, had I not been informed by the kindly playbill that I was seeing Ivanhoe, I should never have found it out from the first scene, nor should I have been quite clear about it until the situation where that slyboots Rebecca artfully threatens to chuck herself off from the topmost turret rather than throw herself away on the bad Templar Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan. The Opera might be fairly described as "Scenes from Ivanhoe," musically illustrated. There is, however, a continuity in the music which is lacking in the plot.

The scenic effects are throughout admirable, and the method, adopted at the end of each tableau, of leaving the audience still more in the dark than they were before as to what