te until last Thursday evening. However, the _motif_ of the play is
pretty well known. _Gringoire_, a revolutionary "Poet of the People,"
with the connivance of _Louis the Eleventh_ of France, is induced to
recite an anti-Royalist song in His Majesty's presence, and is then
promised his forfeited life by the same amiable sovereign if he can woo,
and win, a maiden who has never set eyes on him before, within a quarter
of an hour. In the scene at the Haymarket a table is discovered spread
with a meal (I could not quite make out from the text whether it was
intended to represent breakfast, dinner, supper, or tea), including some
wine, a few grapes, and a freshly-cooked goose redolent of savoury
perfumes. Mr. BEERBOHM TREE is the poet, and were his method of
performance only equal to his power of imagination, he would be very
good indeed. Unhappily his excellent ideas are not carried fully into
action, and consequently, after seeing him for forty minutes, or
thereabouts, sniffing at a property goose, staggering about the stage
with a wine-cup, and declaiming poetry of unequal merit to Miss MARION
TERRY, one feels that the piece could only have "a happy ending" were
_Gringoire_ to be carried away for immediate execution. It is a little
unfortunate, too, that the maiden to be wooed and won should be the
charming actress I have just mentioned. Miss MARION TERRY, in a "piece
of absurdity" called _Engaged_, made a great hit some years ago by
appearing as a young lady with a chronic appetite for food, that she was
for ever seeking to satisfy. Since then I have always looked upon her as
one craving for her meals. Consequently when I found her within easy
reach of a goose and in an atmosphere of herbs of a savoury character,
it seemed unnatural to me that she should deliberately turn her back
upon all these good things to listen to Mr. TREE'S poetically (but
lengthily) expressed views upon liberty. I could but wonder why her
choice had not fallen upon the goose on the table. Mr. BROOKFIELD as
_Louis the Eleventh_, incidentally suggests that that wily monarch was
guilty of a crime with which he has not hitherto been credited--a
proneness to give imitations of Mr. IRVING in the character of
_Mephistopheles_. For the rest, the piece itself is most interesting, is
capitally staged, and in the subordinate characters, fairly acted. In
the _Red Lamp_, which followed the _Ballad Monger_, Mrs. TREE appeared
as _Princess Claudia_, the part ori