[Illustration: "Pity a Poo' Bar-itone!"]

Had Sir ARTHUR written the music for _The Mountebanks_, and Sir BRIAN
DE BOIS GILBERT the book of _Haddon Hall_, both might have been big
successes So, however, it was not to be, and Sir ARTHUR chose this
book by Mr. GRUNDY, which labours under the disadvantages of being
original, and of not owing almost everything to a French source. It
isn't every day of the week that Mr. GRUNDY tumbles upon _A Pair of
Spectacles_ in a volume of French plays. The period to which the very
slight and uninteresting story of _Haddon Hall_ belongs is just before
the Restoration, but the dialogue of "the book" is spiced with modern
slang, both "up to date" (the date being this present year of Grace,
not sixteen hundred and sixty) and out of date. The "out-of-date"
slang, which is, "_I've got 'em on"_--alluding to the Scotchman's
trousers--has by far the best of it, as it comes at the end of the
piece, and enjoys the honour of having been set to music by the
variously-gifted Composer: so that "_I've got 'em on_," with its
enthusiastically treble-encored whiskey fling, capitally danced by
Miss NITA COLE as _Nance_, with Mr. DENNY as _The McCrankie_, may be
considered as the real hit of the evening, having in itself about
as much to do with whatever there is of the plot as would have the
entrance of Mr. JOEY GRIMALDI, in full Clown's costume, with "Here
we are again!" Of the music, as there was very little to catch and
take away, one had to leave it. Of course this seriously comic or
comically serious Opera is drawing--["_Music_," observes Mr. WAGG,
parenthetically, "cannot be _drawing_"]--and will continue to do
so for some little time, long enough at all events to reimburse
Mr. D'OYLY CARTE for his more than usually lavish outlay on the
_mise-en-scène._