FINE round faces are now to be seen in the boxes, pits, and amphitheatres of our playhouses. Heavy men, with ruddy cheeks and feet of terrible proportions inquire their "road" in the lobbies, and look upon the boxkeepers as incarnate Bradshaw's Guides. It is the cattle-show week, and the influence of the cattle-showers is strong upon the theatres. The other night we watched a gentleman with pepper and salt hair and whiskers, a fiery complexion, and tremenduous boots, endeavouring to make out the plot of Henry Dunbar, or the Outcasts the new Olympic drama. We wonder what sort of an account he would give of it to MRS. BEEVES when he returns to Oatlands-cumSlopperton or Grumcote-le-Clay.

The account we give of Henry Dunbar is that it is very good in some parts and very bad in others:-that we are of opinion that if the audience were let a little into the secret of the relationship of the person known as Henry Dunbar and Margaret Wentworth, the interest would be heightened rather than diminished, and the situations at the end of the third act "moult no feather;" that a more dramatic and excellently-contrived scene than the "Bank parlour" scene, which concludes the second act, has not been listened to for a long time, and that a greater mistake than to put the heroine into a blowsy wig, the dress of a servant-wench, and to stick a dust-pan and hearthbroom in her hand is not likely to be committed for some years to come. The whole interest of the piece-our sympathy with the trials of the heroine-our pity for the crimes and the remorse of her guilty father, are all annihilated by this piece of tawdry, used-up, transpontine, old-fashioned, melodramatic, stage-trick. It is an unworthy artifice to extort applause, to excite surprise, and create a "sensation," and a bad blot upon an otherwise excellent drama, a drama which enjoys the advantage of being well acted. MR. NEVILLE has never been seen to such advantage as at present, and as for MISS KATE TERRYshe is a weakness in which it is honourable for any dramatic critic to indulge in polysyllables. The high approval of FUN must also be awarded to MESSES. MONTAGU and SOUTAR, and to MISS FARREN, and

VOL. II.

Sing the theme of your devotion,
Sue-and vow-and worship still-
Overflow with deep emotion,
Bow to CUPID's sweet decrees,
Lightly wear the happy fetter,
Bend the knee and plead! But, please,
Do not write your love a letter!

Ah! most tempting it may be :

Ink flows free-and pens will write,
And your passion fain you'd see
Plainly mapped in black and white.
Yet refrain from shedding ink,
If you can:-'tis wiser-better.
Ere you pen a sentence, think!

Do not write your love a letter.

Hearts may cool, and views may change-
Other scenes may seem inviting,
But a heart can't safely range

If committed 'tis to writing.
What you've written is a writ,
Holds you closely as a debtor.
Will she spare you? Not a bit!
Do not write your love a letter!
Think of Breach of Promise cause,
Think of barristers provoking
Leading you to slips and flaws,
Turning all your love to joking.
If you've written aught, they'll be
Safe to find it as a setter-

Then you'll wish you'd hearkened meDo not write your love a letter!

Oh, those letters read in Court!

How the tender things seem stupid!
How deep feeling seems but sport!
How young MoмUS trips up CUPID!
Take my warning then-or soon,
O'er your folly you'll be fretter,
Saying, "Why, poor, foolish spoon,
Did I write my love a letter ?"

MISS ELLEN LEIGH, who, on Saturday, the 9th, made her debut at the little Wych Street Theatre. H. F. M. (His Facetious Majesty) would like to decorate the brows or breast of MR. VINCENT, but in justice to the public-and to MR. VINCENT himself-he cannot. H. F. M. hopes that this mild reprimand may awake that gentleman to a sense of character and humour.

The Editor of FUN feels that it is time to put an end to a controversy which is being craftily twisted into an advertisement of a bad piece. But he feels it due to the public to state that the original report of MR. VINING's conduct, or misconduct, on the first night of Never Too Late to Mend was written by a gentleman who was present, and whose unbiassed account the Editor of FUN believes in preference to that of the manager, who lost his head on the occasion so completely that he does not appear to have since recovered it. writing have been pointed out in a manner intelligible to any one who The blanders into which MR. VINING fell in an attempt at smart has had the education of a charity boy. If a further proof of his unfitness to be trusted with the English language be needed, it is to be found in the following sentence from his last advertisement :

"In the first instance you published in your columns what was not true, which was bad composition on your part, and is plain English on mine." What MR. VINING modestly describes as "the meanest capacity" might have seen that this admits that what is untrue, although bad composition for FUN, is what MR. VINING considers plain English. Too much importance has been given, perhaps, to MR. VINING by noticing him and his effusions, but this journal in spite of MR. VINING's surprise at the fact, cannot consent to consider false and impertinent statements in the light of a joke.

FUN has now done its duty. It has vindicated its position to its readers. It is not its duty-thank goodness-to attempt to teach MR. VINING a regard for fact, for English, and for propriety.

SHORTLY WILL BE PRODUCED.-An Essay on Greek Pronunciation: by VASCO DIGAMMA (MEYERBEER and Co.)

TOWN TALK.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

VERYONE is, I hope, thoroughly awake now to the fact that LORD PALMERSTON is not premier of England. Had he been at the head of affairs SIR HENRY STORKS Would not have been blown from Malta to Jamaica by the breath of popular clamour. LORD RUSSELL will suffer for this cowardice, and serve him right! As for the babblers of Exeter Hall, and those worthy but weak gentlemen who have lent themselves to the unmanly yell of the un-English donkeys, I am disgusted with them. But I am not surprised at the line they take. Men who stab a gallant servant of the crown in the back and insult his defenceless sister, cannot of course see any great crime in the murders committed by their pet negro. It is quite a part of their inconsistency that they should hunger to make England commit the very fault of which they accuse GOVERNOR EYRE-hang a man before his trial!

Everybody's Business, long announced and largely postered, is a guide to English composition. I hope its author has sent a copy to the Princess's Theatre.

Barnum on Humbugs has just appeared. I wonder the publisher, MR. HOTTEN, did not alter P. T. B's Latin quotation, Omne ignotum pro magnifico, into a more fitting line, Quorum pars magna fui. It is an amusing book, and gives the history of a good many swindles, among others that of the DAVENPORTS, who I see are back again and have been doing their tricks at considerably reduced prices. It is really distressing to see two clever prestidigitateurs who might be realising good incomes, brought to the verge of a penny booth, because in a weak moment they tried to pass off hanky-panky as something supernatural. Their impudence is astonishing. After the exposé in France one would have supposed that they would be anxious to sneak home to America; perhaps, however, they have not made enough by their speculation, in which case I trust English charity will step in and provide their active fingers with some congenial, if not highly lucrative employment, like the picking of oakum.

WHILE on the subject of the spiritualist swindle, I may quote some passages from a letter addressed by Lord Dundreary to the Glasgow Citizen. It appears that his lordship has been accused by that most unveracious periodical, The Spiritual Magazine, of having been a professional paid medium. In reply his lordship states that twelve gentlemen in New York determined to put the phenomena of "spiritualism" to the test.

"We were quite ready for either result; to believe it, if it were true, to reject it, if found false; and in the latter case I, at least, resolved in due time to expose it. For more than two years we had weekly meetings. At these, by practice, we had succeeded in producing not only all the wonderful manifestations' of the professional media, but other effects still more startling. We simply tried to reproduce the appearances and the results which we had heard of, and read of, and seen-and we succeeded. Pushing our practice and experiments further, we attained the capacity to execute feats much more remarkable than those presented at any of the spiritual seances.' An American gentleman and myself took the part of the 'media;' the rest of the company assisted; and I do not hesitate to say that we outdid anything ever attempted or accomplished by Home or the Davenports, or any of the other more notorious spiritual exhibitors.

"Not the least of our discoveries was that the whole thing was a myth. We did all that the spiritualists did, and more, but we were our own agents,' and had no need of recourse to supernatural influences, had we had the power to command them. We commenced our seances in a spirit of legitimate investigation; we continued them for the sake of the amusement they gave ourselves and our friends. We became famous in a small way. We had to start an engagement book, and to make appointments. People came from all parts of America, and waited for their turn. We got into a larger line of business than any of the professional exhibitors, and we were extensively patronized. The only difference was, we didn't charge any thing. We took no money, directly or indirectly. Our entertainment being free, was liberally supported."

I have not space to quote the various feats performed by the "magic

6

circle"-feats witnessed by professional and paid mediums, who themselves declared them done by the circle's superior power over "the spirits." With one more extract I must reluctantly quit the subject. "The object of the writer in the Spiritual Magazine has been to represent me as here. I have stated, I hope clearly, that I did produce all the manifestations' and having exhibited spiritual manifestations' in America, and having exposed them did exhibit them, but they were not 'spiritual,' and I did not exhibit them in public nor for money. I therefore consider myself free from the imputations of having obtained money under false pretences, encouraged idle superstitions, or perpetrated blasphemous burlesques of sacred things. I look upon every spiritualist as either an impostor or an idiot. I regard every spiritual exhibitor who makes money by his exhibitions as a swindler. The things that these people do are not done by spiritual or supernatural means; I know that; I have proved it. I have done all that they can do, and more. The history of spiritualism' in this country and in America is, on the one hand, a chronicle of imbecility, cowardly terror of the supernatural, wilful self-delusion, and irreligion; and on the other of fraud, impudent chicanery, and blasphemous indecency."

This is outspoken and bold, and all men of sense will be indebted to MR. SOTHERN for coming forward and telling his experience on this subject. He must know the Spiritualists well enough to be aware of the sorts of attacks he will have to expect in return for this exposure of the swindle. But it will be some comfort to him to have earned the gratitude and esteem of those who like himself condemn "blasphemous burlesques of sacred things." I have quoted largely from the letter because it has not found its way to the London papers, and deserves to be read.

ANOTHER County magistrate has been distinguishing himself. A Ripon paper tell a story of despotic brutality which, if true, ought to deprive the Thirsk sessions of its chairman. Every act of this sort hastens on the time when the Great Unpaid shall be for ever removed from the bench which they have too long and too often disgraced.

MY BALCONY.
ALONE in my balcony sitting,

I look on the street,
With faces unceasingly flitting,
And noises of feet:

Strange faces that tell stranger stories,
Of pain and despair,

Some tearworn for manhood's lost glories:
And some blithe and fair.

A matron stout, comely, and stately,
Sweeps onward in silk,

Her grandeur bewildering greatly

Yon boy with the milk:

Her husband, their children before him,
Smiles proud on the band,
'He'll count e'er an hour has passed o'er him
The trumps in his hand.

An organ-man bowing and smiling,
Begs pence with a glance,

The street-urchins there he's beguiling,
To some frantic dance:
He'll murmur an "Italiano,"

While hard at his work,
In accents ne'er heard by Albano-
Say rather from Cork.

A maiden trips by me demurely,
With neatest of feet,
Some lover awaiting her surely

With tender heart-beat:

Fond youth, when his playful caresses
On those locks fall light,

Ah! me, does he know that those tresses,
Are ta'en off at night.

And then comes a peeler slow stalking
With terrible tread,

That small boy's amusement much baulking
Who stands on his head:
Or some applewoman loud hailing,
Who'll whimper and cry;
Anon sneaking up to the railing,
For chance of cold pie!

And so like the visions in slumber,
The faces went on,

I wove as they passed without number,
Strange tales for each one:

Queer thoughts, it were bootless to state 'em, "My fancy ran far,

I sighed "vanitas vanitatum "

"There goes my cigar!"

A LAST RESOURCE.

ALONE, on India's burning plain, beneath a banyan tree,
A youth for many hours had lain in restless agony.
Mosquitoes with a constant buzz came flocking round their prize-
(It varies, the mosquito does, in appetite and size.)

But though it varies as to form, and maybe as to thirst,

In Afric, when the nights are warm, those young ones are the worst.
Anon, the victim waves his arm to fright them from their feed;
But, ah! he found that their alarm was very brief indeed.
Then other remedies he sought, but still he sought in vain,
Until a wild and witching thought came flashing through his brain.
At once he started bolt upright against the banyan tree,
And in the silence of the night, "Now, listen, all!" said he.
"I've had enough of these attacks-enough, and rather more!"
(His voice had now begun to wax much louder than before.

The hearers trembled one and all; dead stillness reigned around; One might have heard a needle fall, so hush'd was every sound.) "When I was living far away-across the briny deep

I laid me down one summer day to try and go to sleep;
But, lo! as I began to see some prospect of repose,

There straightway came a bumble-bee who buzzed about my nose. "I ever was a patient man; I take a certain pride

In suffering as best I can whatever ills betide;

But this was not a thing to bear-I got me up in wrath,
And slew the monster then and there, upon the table-cloth!
"The moral of this tale, methinks, 'tis needless to declare-
I wish to take my forty winks, disturb me, if ye dare!
The first who interferes with me endangers life and limb;
For what I did unto the bee I mean to do to him!"
Again he glanced upon the crew, then laid him down to rest,
But paler and yet paler grew their bravest and their best.
Next morning when the sunlight gleamed upon the land and sea,
That youthful stranger slept, and dreamed about a bumble-bee!

Blocks and Blockheads.

THE Society of Arts, with an incapable COLE in the chair, held last week a ridiculous discussion on wood-engraving, propos of a new process, intended to supersede xylography. It was a meeting remarkable for the fact that no experienced artist or wood-engraver spoke to the subject. MR. GEORGE CRUICKSHANK talked as if he thought he was at a teetotal meeting; and MR. NOEL HUMPHREYS, speaking from experience, we should say, of no work but his own, deprecated the new invention because "artists' drawings were mere smudges that needed the engraver's aid to make them intelligible." It is a disgrace to this country and this century that so important a discussion should have been carried on in so childish a manner, unless it was so arranged out of respect to the chairman. Any wood-engraver's apprentice, or a mere mechanical draughtsman could have shown these noodles in two minutes more about the value of the new process, and the relative merits of drawing and cutting than was eliminated by the whole discussion. But perhaps a very sharp graver might have failed to make an impression on their knowledge-box.

Sporting Intelligence.

WB have received the following confused document from our poor old prophet, written on a large card. We hardly know whether he is really going to give a Christmas party, or whether his once noble intellect has been affected by misfortune.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Although deprived of his prophetic wealth,
He cannot let the Festive Season pass,
Without proposing of the public's health,
And drinking it, unanimous, in a glass
Óf Sherry Wine!

December the Twentieth, Eighteen Sixty-five.

P.P.C. Small and early. I have a good thing for next year's Derby.-R.S.V.P.