MASTER ARTHUR B-LF-R. "I SAY, JOHNNY GORST, WE SHALL NEVER GET HER UP WITH ALL THIS! I MUST CUT OFF ABOUT HALF OF HER TAIL!"

ENCORE, SARA!

"L'ABSENCE est le plus grand des maux," quoth Adrienne, reciting "la fable des deux pigeons"; and, remembering this, Madame SARA returns to us, and gives a short series-far too short-of her best. Her Adrienne comes to us

COMEDY THE

MADAME SARA, "JUST PASSING THROUGH."

"How do you do and good bye! Can't stop! Can't stop! Can't stop!" with all its ever-fresh charm, and her reception was as enthusiastic as ever, perhaps a "trifle more so"; for "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Friday.-La Tosca. Same charm as ever, the torture and assassination scenes being wonderfully given. But the climax, when Tosca prefers to leap before she looks, is not startling. The leap does not give anyone "the jumps": it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and would have been fatal to any other actress save the Favourite SARA.

When this brief notice appears there will remain but four nights more of SARA B. in London. Of this chance we strongly advise all lovers of true dramatic art to avail themselves; for to see and hear SARA, and to get a French play well played in town, "is a liberal education in itself." "Tis a wonder to many of us theatre-goers that in London there should not always be a French theatre, with a first-rate working company, giving the newest Parisian successes, with the occasional visit of a "Star" as an additional attraction.

46

If ever man could manage it, his name is MAYER, and if he has failed, then there is small probability of any one else being successful.

SUITABLE BREAKFAST FOR A LEADING LITERARY CRITIC. -Log-roll with a pat of butter.

APPROPRIATE AIR FOR HARD-WORKERS AT ETON."Voi che sap-ete."

the action is more rapid. Once started with the story, my Baronite
found it difficult to lay the book down till he had seen comfortably
shot, or hanged, every one of the Ten. This desire is, through a series
of breathless incidents, falfilled. Like the Ten Little Niggers of
earlier fame, the rogues drop off one by one,
only just enough to send to Norfolk Island. The story, skilfully
constructed, graphically told, is adorned with some of those mar-
vellous descriptions of the many moods of the sea in which CLARK
RUSSELL is unapproachable.

"and then there were

THE BARON.

a real

PASTRY OF THE PAST. SIR,-The "Elderly Correspondent" of the Lancet who asks where is the pastry of our youth, the crisp and saccharous tartlet, the delicate puff, the imponderable dumpling," has hit on grievance. As for tartlets, I feel inclined to sing with Mrs. HEMANS (I think), "O call those tartlets back to me!' Paffs-well-I believe that these are sometimes heard of still, in literary circles, but they are never "delicate," and the kind sold at the confectioners' ought to be used for ship ballast-they're fit for nothing else. What's the good of a new Education Bill, technical classes, and all that, if oooks aren't taught to use the rolling pin? Why, it's PUFFICKLY MONSTROUS.

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON was fortunate in two respects when writing the volume published under the title My Confidences. The first is the conception of its scheme. In a second title he describes the work as An Autobiographical Sketch addressed to my Descendants. Incidentally it is published by SMITH, ELDER & Co., and all the world who have fifteen shillings to spend, or can borrow the book may read it. So careful was the diarist that bis children and his children's children should have the confidences presented in most perfect, polished form, that he had the MS. set up in type, and bestowed upon it final affectionate revision before he died. Still it holds the privileged position of a communication privily addressed to a family circle. If the public don't like it, they can leave it. In spite of the printing and proof-reading, it was not meant for them, only for "my dear children," to whom any trivial incident in the daily life of a revered parent is interesting, any little exhibition of vanity a sacred weakness. Thus the gifted author may indulge in impulse of his most trivial moods, none daring to make him afraid. Happily in Mr. LOCKER's case this condition is controlled by a kindly heart, a bright intellect, and a highly cultured mind. We are privileged to look on at the playtime of a courtly, scholarly gentleman, and frankly share his innocent satisfaction in the really wide circle of acquaintance among members of the aristocracy and less SIR, This crusade against modern pastry is most excellent. But eminent personages, such as DEAN STANLEY, ALFRED TENNYSON, it should also include modern sweets. I ate some almond toffee the MATTHEW ARNOLD, Mr. LECKY, and MILLAIS, "who etched my other day, and, would you believe it, it nearly made me sick! It portrait." This last does not appear to have given supreme satisfac- never did that when I was a boy, sixty years ago. How well I tion. "There are points," Mr. LOCKER writes, in one of those remember munching it on our playground while looking on at our delightful asides that reveal his nature, where MILLAIS almost first eleven heroes licking (at cricket) the contemptible fellows sent surpasses the great Dutchman, FRANZ HALS. But he wants charm, by some other school to play us! The Bath pipe that I and and I do not see in his faces that passing look, that exquisitely SNIGGLINGS junior swore eternal friendship over-where is that sort evanescent expression which appears about to change even as we of Bath pipe now? Vanished-in smoke! Gone out-with a puff! gaze." When we read Sir JOHN'S "Confidences," perhaps we shall Yours, PUFF COLLUSIVE.

hear what he thought of Mr. LOCKER as a subject. Meanwhile the

book is one to be read right through. My Baronite thinks the gem of SIR,-It is quite true about the pastry and the rolling-pin. But the collection will be found in the exquisitely humorous account of Mr. the real reason why pastry doesn't agree with us nowadays is because LOCKER'S defeat in his attempt to complete his SHAKSPEARE folio of of all the nasty foreign ingredients put in it. Russian flour, French 1623 by purchase of the missing leaf with BEN JONSON's verses. The butter, German eggs-how can you expect a thing made in Germany other good fortune, in addition to the happy design of the book, is in to be digested in England? And that leads me to the chief point of the choice of editor. Mr. BIRRELL, who fills that position, has doubt- this letter, which is to say that we must have PROTECTION! I geneless supplemented Mr. LOCKER's affectionate revision of the typed rally manage to bring all arguments round to that, and I'm glad to sheets. But, save by a preface strictly limited to the measure of a have been able to do so in this instance. sonnet, he does not obtrude his personality by a single note. This Yours hopefully, modesty is rarely precious in the editor of a biographical work.

There seems no limit to the capacity of CLARK RUSSELL to produce stirring stories of the sea. He has so long and so closely communed with the illimitable ocean that he has acquired something of its power and its infinite variety. His latest story, The Tale of the Ten (CHATTO AND WINDUS) is as good as anything he has yet written, which is high praise. It is better than some, inasmuch as

JIMMYLOWTHERITE.

SIR,-My boy tells me it's all rot about the puffs at confectioners not being as good as ever. He asked for sixpence to go and try, in order-as he said-to "make quite sure about it," and as he felt a little doubtful at the end of the experiment, I gave him another sixpence to complete it. He finished them all! Yet there are people who declare that modern pastry can't be digested!

Yours, PATER SUPERBUS.