embroidery of a part which it is fair to suppose was written to suit her, is done in her own quaint and quiet fashion.

Rutland Pooh-Bah-rington, after signing his re-engagement, takes his Bond, and sings, "Again we come to the Savoy."

A fantastically and humorous peculiarly Gilbertian idea is the comparison between a visit to the dentist's, and an interview with the questioners by the rack, suggested by the Grand Inquisitor Don Alhambra who says that the nurse is waiting in the torture-chamber, but that there is no hurry for him to go and examine her, as she is all right and "has all the illustrated papers."

George Grossmith on his own Hook.

There are ever so many good things in the Opera, but the best of all, for genuinely humorous inspiration of words, music and acting, is the quartette in the Second Act, "In a contemplative fashion." It is excellent. Thank goodness, encores are disencouraged, except where there can be "No possible sort of doubt, No possible doubt whatever" (also a capital song in this piece) as to the unanimity of the enthusiasm. There is nothing in the music that catches the ear on a first hearing as did "The Three Little Maids," or "I've got a Song to Sing O!" but it is all charming, and the masterly orchestration in its fulness and variety is something that the least technically educated can appreciate and enjoy. The piece is so brilliant to eye and ear, that there is never a dull moment on the stage or off it. It is just one of those simple Bab-Ballady stories which, depending for its success not on any startling surprise in the plot, but on general excellence, may, especially on account of the music, be safely put down on the play-goer's list for "a second hearing."

Christmas Box.

RUSSIAN ART.

From The Morning Post, last week, we learn that the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts, has passed a law prohibiting Jews to become members of its artistic body. By the Nose of Mr. Punch, but this is too bad, and too bigoted for any century, let alone the "so-called Nineteenth." If such a rule, or rather such an exception, could have been possible in England within the last twenty years, what a discouragement it would have been for all the Royal Academicians, who would thereby have lost Hart! Dear good old Solomon! He was a poor Hart that often rejoiced, and if he was not the best painter in the world, he was just about the worst punster. We hope to hear that our Royal Academicians, with their large-hearted and golden-tongued President at their head, will send a friendly expostulation to their Russian Brothers in oil, and obtain the abrogation of this unreasonable legislation, which is one effect of an anti-semitic cyclone, fit only for the Jew-ventus Mundi, but not for the world at its maturity.

"Dot and go One"—no, see Dot, and go several times again to see our Johnnie Toole at his own Theatre, before he leaves for the Antipodes. The good old farce of Toole in the Pigskin is well-mounted, and is, of course, one of the pieces on which he will rely, as especially appropriate to Horse-tralia.