FROM OUR STALL.

THE Serf is a good heart-rending slave drama. Folks who want sensation will find it at the Olympic in large lumps and pailfuls. We get the uncommon side of unfamiliar things. There are Russian counts tossed from opera-boxes into orchestras, to the injury of the violoncello and the terror of the violoncellist; duels, inheritances, heroes tied up to whipping-posts, and drinking vodki until they are half mad; gunpowder plots, family secrets, and a death, to say nothing of a very considerable quantity of love, for which Miss KATE TERRY is accountable, all in the short space of three acts. The play is well and evenly acted. MR. NEVILLE has a very trying partconstant temptations and pitfalls beset him, both in situation and in language to overact, to be heroic, and we mean heroick with a k, but he avoids them with admirable judgment and no loss of dramatic effect. Now, MR. VINCENT We thought too effective. He would not lose a point-would not spare us a look or intonation. He is a clever actor, with excellent executive powers, but he makes too lavish a use of them. MR. COGHLAN flies to the opposite extreme. He has been praised, and deservedly, for looking and bearing himself like a modern gentleman when acting a modern gentleman, and avoiding that type of fashionable life seen only on the stage, uniting the manners of the haughty tyrant of RICHARDSON's show with the costume of a thriving young Oxford-street tobacconist. Still, there is a difference between quietude and stagnation. The face of a prince reddens when he is in a passion, and a duke's nostrils would quiver and his voice falter if he were suffering from very violent emotion. When GEORGE THE THIRD kicked the DUKE OF ARGYLE, his most gracious majesty looked and talked like any other blackguard; and when Joun, the duke, told the German captain of the indignity, he looked and talked like any other gentleman whose feelings had been outraged. MR. COGHLAN would do well to bear these remarks in mind when he reconsiders his conception of the scene in which he challenges Count Karateff. MR. HORACE WIGAN plays a difficult conventional character with conscientiousness, and Miss KATE TERRY is

But what can we say of Miss KATE TERRY, but that she is charming and graceful and elegant as ever?

The scenery and costumes of The Serf, are as usual in theatres, too good-that is, too pretty, too picturesque, too much the scene-painter's and costumier's notion of what nature and architecture and peasants ought to be. Nothing can be said against the artist's studio in the first, or against the tower or belfry in the last act, except that the moveable statue that hides the secret passage should have been of green marble or bronze, or anything but white. It is the second act with which we find fault. The landscape should have been desolate and bare, gloomy and frowning. The cabins of the serfs should have been cabins, and not ornamental toy Swiss cottages, and the costumes should have matched country and hut. There should have been no ballet prettiness-slavery should have loomed heavily over all.

How does MR. TOM TAYLOR define the word original? Why it is said that the plot and title of The Serf are as old as the ills that flesh is heir to.

It would appear to be an easy thing to write a good burlesque. The author of burlesque has not to invent a plot. That has been already done for him by SOPHOCLES, SHAKESPEARE, the BROTHERS GRIMM, or the COUNTESS D'AULNOIS. The above-mentioned distinguished individuals also "find the burlesque author in character. He can take "situations" from all the pieces playing in all the London theatres, though this last is but a doubtful advantage. For music he can put under contribution MOZART, ROSSINI, BELLINI, MEYERBEER, VERDI, GOUNOD, the C. C. C. CHRISTY MINSTRELS, MR. FRANK HALL, and the Scotch bagpiper. He may go where he likes for scenery. He may take his audience to the top of Hecla, or down to the coral grots where mermaids dwell. Time and space are no objects to him. He cannot be pulled up by critics for disregard of the unities or even of probability. For him all is possible, even the impossible, and the more anachronisms he rushes into the better. Even Terpsichore is his obedient servant, and he is not a little indebted to bright eyes above and silk stockings below. Pantomime woos and very often wins for him. All he has to provide is brilliant dialogue, and considering that all the rest is found him, that his whole attention can be concentrated on his words, it should consist of brilliant, smart saying, pointed epigram, scathing satire, elegant wit, and occasionally wild, mad, reckless, unprincipled, overpowering, incongruous pun.

Having said that it would appear to be an easy thing to write a good burlesque, let us now say that it would appear to be a still easier task to write a bad one-indeed, the author of the new classical extravaganza of Glaucus appears to have taken a mean advantage of his facilities, and to have carried the art of writing bad burlesque further than it was ever intended to go. We believe Glaucus to be the gentleman's first attempt. We are glad of it. We shall be still better pleased to hear that it is to be his last.

THE BACHELORS' STRIKE.

(TO BE WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1905.)

"A WARNING TO LADIES.-The Publicité of Marseilles announces a new kind of strike-that of bachelors. Not fewer than 6,000 young men, it states, of that

place, between the age of 20 and 30, held a meeting in the open air a little way out of the town, and entered into an agreement not to ask any young woman in marriage until a complete change shall have been operated in the manner of living, and particularly in the dress, of the fairer sex. The young men insist on greater simplicity in every respect, and a return to the more modest habits of a century or two ago."

'Twas early in July,

In eighteen-sixty-five,

When a tribe of males from old Marseilles
Declared they never would wive.

For they thought on the costly style

Of shawls and bonnets and veils,
And they saw with amaze the expensive ways
Of the damsels of old Marseilles.

They vowed they'd marry no maid
Unless she'd dress her more

In the cheap and chaste and simple taste
Of two hundred years before.

But centuries twain before,

As painted pictures show,

All dress was dear, and the bodies, I hear,
Were worn extremely low.

But none of the men of Marseilles

Had histories on their shelves; But, strong in the heat of their blind conceit, They chuckled within themselves. And there rose from old Marseilles

A cry from the maiden crew, "Six thousand head of girls to wed, And nobody comes to woo!

"Oh, come, ye knights of France,

And knights of England true, And teach these loons to dance to the tunes They'd have us dancing to!"

And three thousand British knights,

And as many knights of France,
Came down on rails to old Marseilles
To teach these cravens dance.
They smote them hip and thigh,
And then each warrior true
Embraced his prize before the eyes
Of the mercenary crew.

And having fairly done

The task to them assigned,

Each rode away, as the stories say,
With a maiden packed behind.

And the dreary, dreary tribe

Of cravens are still alive,

Though years have gone by since that July,

In eighteen-sixty-five.

And none will make their beds,

And none will scour and wipe,

And no little trippers will bring out their slippers, And fill their evening pipe.

And an awful story goes,

That there's a stern decree,

That swear as they may, to their dying day,
No button they e'er shall see!

MORAL.

So fools reject a prize,

And, offered wealth, disdain it, Because that they object to pay For the caskets that contain it. So fools-such fools are they, They're scarcely worthy blaming— Decline the care of a picture rare Because it involves a framing.

So many a fool we find

So blindly wed to Mammon, That the foolish flat begrudges the sprat That he knows will hook a salmon.

THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. THE Opera! Temple of suave sound, with melody lurking in every gilded cornice! Garden, parterre, and bower of beauty, where young hearts throb responsively to the echo of the divine language of love! Haunt of fashion! Cradle of emotion! Home of the speaking eye, the crimson lip, the beating heart, the blissful pressure of the gentle glove, the glance of mutual affection blessed by parental consent! Atmosphere of patchouli, jockey club, eau de Cologne, and opoponax! Sea of diamonds, mineral and incarnate! Ocean of melody undulating, soothing, tender, passionate, and tumultuous!

To be the bridegroom of that fair divinity, with the large bouquet courting her lip, or of that lustrous beauty with the dark hair in bands, what bliss!-what joy !-what rapture! To gaze upon the ocean at set of sun, our arm around her waist, the sea-breeze fanning that pinky cheek that looks half flesh, half fruit, to whisper in that shelly ear the accents of the heart's devotion, to contemplate the infinite with a being whom to worship is NOT profanation. But this is

weakness.

The writer will no longer endeavour to describe the Royal Italian Opera, or what has been seen upon its classic boards, but will confine himself to what will be seen there ere long-THE AFRICAINE, music by GIACOMO MEYERBEER, the libretto by EUGENE SCRIBE, which we, he, I-which is it ?-the writer-heard in Paris.

Ines, the daughter of a grandee, as proud as plush, is summoned to meet her pa in the council hall of the King of Portugal, a magnificent chamber to which our House of Lords is but as a gooseberry to an orange. There she sings a delicious song about the man to whom she has given her heart, one Vasco de Gama, a young gentleman of the seafaring persuasion. The following is a rather rough translation:

"Oh river of Tagus,

In my native ci-tee, Where in his aqua-bus,

Ho came a-courting me." &c.

Then her pa, Don Diego, enters, and presents her to Don Pedro, a howling swell, and says, "This is the gent which I say you are to marry. Then they sing a terzettino-such a terzettino! no lady's music-book is complete without it-and Ines goes off. Then enters

The

the council, grand inquisitors, bishops, and all, and considering that it is the bishops' first appearance on any stage, very well they look. Vasco di Gama presents his compliments to the august assembly, and he has discovered the island of Madagascar, will they give him a ship that he may go and annex it? In proof that such a place as Madagascar exists, he produces two Madagascese, a man and a woman. man hates him, and the woman-this Africaine-doats upon the ground, &c. The grand inquisitor throws cold water on the scheme, abuses Vasco, who abuses him, and the end of Vasco's rash act, and the first act of the opera is Vasco's committal to prison, which gives us a chorus that makes it worth while going to prison to hear.

Vasco is in a dungeon, attended by the Africaine. It is very thoughtful of the prison authorities to shut her up with him-but such is prison life in Portugal. Then the Africaine sings a lovely melodythe air, "Du Sommeil"-a voluptuous, Indian palm-tree, firefly sort of thing; and then shows Vasco the way to Madagascar not on the high seas in a two-decker-but on the map, in a duet. The African-the he negro-has a wonderful song beginning, "Fille des rois," and Ines comes in to say that she has betrothed herself to Diego, and that Vasco is free. As she looks jealously at the Africaine, whose name Selika, Vasco-like a brute-makes her a present of the negress-(Oh, these men !)-which does not prevent all parties concerned from joining in a wonderful Ensemble. In the third act they are-or at least they were in Paris-on board a huge ship at sea; and the African, whose name is Nelusko, wrecks them on a reef, and hostile Indians board them. The rest of the action takes place in Madagascar -of which tropical island Selika is queen, And Vasco, who would do anything for popularity-and Madagascar-marries Queen Selika the First; but Ines has escaped from the wreck, and Selika, who is the best of women and negresses, sends them away together in a ship, and commits suicide by an overdose of Upas Tree.

But the music! The strain for the stringed instruments in the fourth act. Ah! That cannot be described. Can any Royal Academician paint the flavour of an ortolan? Did any famous player on the cornet ever reproduce the sound of a sweetheart's "Yes?" Music cannot describe the beauty of a statue. When it can, perhaps some literary gent, well up in crotchet-and-quaver technicalities, may give us some faint idea of the melody, harmony, and poetry of the Africaine.

A BAD DRAWING.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

NICHOLAS ANSWERS A FEW CORRESPONDENTS.

BELGRAVIA.

YOUR prophet, Mr. Editor, has received the communications which you have been so good enough to send him, and it is not without a little satisfaction that the old man discerns how general is the appreciation of his trifling efforts to promote your New Serious, though when using the word "trifling" will back my prophecies as second to none, bar none, whilst grateful alike to the general body of your readers and the other contributorial cognoscenti, than whom I am sure a more affable body of young gentlemen, although perhaps a little gay.

Fame, sir, however, is not without its drawback in this way of thorns, not to speak of inuendoes and the sarcastic sneer, and need only lay the following before you, out of many, and show how prone is poor humanity to the detractor's art.

"Victoria Club.

"to the editor of fun, sir, i am convinced as your man, NICHOLAS, so-termed, is but pretension, for when has he really foretold a race, i mean before-hand, sir, i think i know the person, and he once had a betting office but as for his ostentatentationness in regard of sherry wine a more wretched old creature never fuddled hisself over cold gin and water, a word in time saving nine, if so taken. "K. G."

You, sir, although gifted, may not have moved in the spears of life where you would be likely to meet with K. G., who means obviously enough to convey the idea of his being a "knight of the garter." Is he? He? Do you know what K. G. stands for? Do you know, that being grossly illiterate, which such his note proves him, still K. G. in his mind only stands for Cockney Jones, an alias of the little whippersnapper previously alluded to in connection with the lowest dregs of society, and a slaughter-house in the New Cut. POLITICS.

G. GROGGERLEY.-Yes, G. G., you are right. Nothing has happened for many a revolving year so calculated to fill the soul of a man like NICHOLAS-a true-hearted old Conservative-with joy as the expulsion of that GLADSTONE from Oxford. NICHOLAS and GLADSTONE represent what I will take the liberty to call two distinctly opposite poles of

ENGLISH UNDEFILED.

I BEND and say with earnest glance

(Her falling hair my whisker tickles),

Ah, were my life but one long dance

With you!" She answers loudly, "Pickles!" Upon the balcony we lean,

I sigh, "Carina! how I suffer;

Be thou my JULIET! Be my queen!"

She only says, "Shut up, you duffer!"

In Rotten-row she takes delight,
I lift the darling to her saddle,

And whisper, "Sweet! you're fairy light!"

Says she, "O bother, let's skedaddle!"

We go to see the new burlesque,

She's a decided taste for punning; And laughing at a dance grotesque,

Her lips of coral murmur, "Stunning!"

We've been to where the Fricci sang,
But she considers Norma folly,
And very much prefers "Slap-bang!"
Which she declares is "awful jolly."

I seek the garden's shadiest place,

She lightly o'er the lawn comes trippin', And offering a dainty case,

Says, "Will you have a weed, my pippin'?"

It seems the strangest thing to me,

She's had a famous education;

Her father is a sage M.P.,

And helps to rule the British Nation.

She talks of "bloke," and "cad," and "sell,"

And these are not mendacious stories;

So with a well-known classic swell,

I say, "O tempora, O mores!"

Missing.

A GREAT many candidates sent down into the country by the Carlton Club have not been returned. No reward will be issued for their recovery.

thought, and NICHOLAS is delighted to find that a man after his own heart, and very much after his own style of language, as shown at Penenden Heath, meaning MR. GATHORNE HARDY, is selected in place of a Jesuitical pretender with nothing to recommend him but booklearning and the gift of gab, and a knowledge of figures. NICHOLAS congratulates his brother-Conservatives upon the result of this election, the more especially as he has very little else, more's the pity, upon which he could congratulate them, without its assuming the character of ironical.

MAIN-CLEATS.-The Prophet accepts your invitation for a week out off the coast of fair Devonia. If it could be arranged for the weather to be mild, you would not hear any complaints on that score from NICHOLAS. CRICKET.

COVER-POINT.-Your letter is that of a man of genius; but its sneering tone with regard to older men than yourself is scarcely worthy of a gentleman and a scholar, and would play you even now at single wicket if allowed a man to run for me, being a little wheezy in my pulmonics.

TURF.

TO ONE AND ALL.-Stick to Gladiateur like grim death.
KNURR AND SPELL.

Full particulars of my forthcoming volume will be made known at a future time. NICHOLAS.

I have a good thing for the St. Leger.