by Satanical Svengali, she does sing; and, with this, and with one or two other ancient ditties in her rather limited répertoire, she makes Svengali's fortune. The Diva is beaten and kicked by the savage Svengali (not in the presence of the audience) as if she were his slave, and he the brutal slave-driver. But, why this treatment, if he has only to hypnotise her in order to render her obedient to his slightest wish? It is, I suppose, considered necessary he should do so, in order to excite our compassion for his victim, the unfortunate Miss Trilby, and so to bring down upon him the just chastisement which is the immediate cause of his death. Otherwise, as Svengali has told her he loves her, and as she (hypnotised of course) becomes his wife, why this horrible ill-treatment? This seems to me to be the only weak point in the plot of Mr. Paul Potter's undeniably clever end most effective play. But surely Svengali's diabolically jealous hatred of "Little Billee," his successful rival in the affections of Trilby (when unhypnotised) would be sufficient, motive for the brutal insult he inflicts on Miss O'Ferrall's faithful, but insignificant, little lover, and for which, at the hands of the strong man, Taffy, the fiend-like Svengali has to pay with his life.

"Paul Potter," a name hitherto historically associated with the celebrated "Bull," not Papal but pictorial, now about two centuries old, has hit the bull's-eye this time, and will realise a good round sum from John "of that ilk." Thoroughly does Paul deserve it for his audacious ingenuity and his daring disregard of dramatic conventionality. His third act, in which there is hardly any action until the second entrance of Svengali, is so contrived that a few persons narrating in dialogue what they are supposed to see happening off the stage, work up the excitement of the audience to such a pitch that they instinctively cry "hush!" in order that they too may join with the characters on the scene in listening to the voice of an invisible Trilby singing the hackney'd ditty "Ben Bolt"! This is a triumph due to the dramatist, to Messrs. Lionel Brough (The Laird), Mr. Edmund Maurice (Taffy), and Mr. Patrick Evans (Little Billee), with Mrs. Filippi as Madame Vinard.

In this scene Mr. Tree's Svengali is no longer the squalid Fagin, but is like the old pictures of Paganini, the famous violinist, decked with the jewellery of the once celebrated "Mons. Jullien." Now comes the exhibition of Svengali's venomous hatred for Little Billee, in whose face he spits; a horrible and revolting thing to see done on the stage, even though we know he is "only purtendin'." For this disgusting exhibition of temper, he is half strangled by the Welsh giant Taffy.

"A Baird in the Haymarket is worth two in the Book."
(Signed) P-l P-tt-r.

Trilby, no longer under the hypnotic influence of Svengali, sings horribly out of tune; the audience are supposed to rise in their wrath and threaten to wreck the house (rather a strong order this, but, as I have hinted, what no other dramatist dares Potter dares); and then the miserable Svengali, after writhing and twisting in his last agony, and "doing a back-fall" across a table with his head downwards towards the foot-lights, his breath shaken out of his body, his hair out of curl, his eyes staring horribly, dies,—a terrible topsy-turvy death never before seen on any stage.

In the last Act poor ill-used Miss O'Ferrall also dies. The dramatist has prevented this scene from being an anti-climax, wherein lay the danger, by preparing the audience with a weird story told by Zouzou (Mr. Herbert Ross) of his having seen the ghost of Svengali, who, soon afterwards, appears as a portrait of himself—not "a speaking likeness," as he does not utter a syllable,—done in "luminous paint," within a picture-frame which has been forwarded as a nice little wedding present to Miss O'Ferrall on the eve of her marriage with Little Billee, accompanied by a letter in Svengali's handwriting, sent probably through the infernal agency of the Dead Letter Office authorities. Thus the Satanical Svengali, taking a hint from the Commendatore's statue in Don Giovanni, dominates the play till the final descent of the curtain.

Miss Dorothea Baird, with naked tootsies exposed to the naked eye—she is henceforth "Miss Dolly Baird-feet"—cannot be improved on as the pretty, gay, sad, much-suffering hypnotised Trilby. Of all possible Trilbys, "Baird's the Best." The play could not be better acted all round. The French Duc, formerly Zouzou the Zouave, is first-rate. Mr. Charles Allan, as a respectable English Archdeacon, finding himself in Bohemian Paris, is excellent. The success of Trilby, with her nude tootsies, may give new life to the ancient slang inquiry, "How's your poor feet?"

"KISMET!"

MODERN EDUCATION.

She (to athletic cousin). "Do you work much at Cambridge?"

He. "Yes; when I've time!"

CABBY; OR, REMINISCENCES OF THE RANK AND THE ROAD.

(By "Hansom Jack.")

No. XI.—CABBY'S NOTES ON NOVEMBER—FOG ON THE FIFTH—A PYROTECHNIC FARE—ASTRAY IN THE SUBURBS—FIREWORKS IN FOGLAND.