yed
by Mr. KNIGHT and Mr. BYRON, I can only say, "I know those shoemakers."

As for the Ladies, Miss KATE RORKE looks very pretty, and acts
charmingly as young _Mrs. Goldfinch_; Miss HORLOCK is very nice as _Lucy
Lorimer_, delivering herself of a little bit of picturesque sentiment
about feeding the birds (_Les Petits Oiseaux_ is the title of the old
French piece, if I remember rightly) in a rather too forcedly ingenuous
manner, but behaving most naturally in the interrupted courtship scene,
and being generally very sympathetic. I mustn't omit Miss HUNTER, pink
of parlour-maids, not the conventional flirty soubrette nor the
low-comedy waiting-woman, but a self-respecting, responsible young
person, conscious of her own and her young man's moral rectitude, and
satisfied with quarter-day and the Post-Office Savings Bank.

Only one single fault have I to find with the piece, and as it cannot be
entirely remedied, though it might be modified, I will mention it. The
title is a mistake; that can't be altered now: but the attempt at
illustrating the double-meaning conveyed in the title by the practical
"business" of changing the material glasses and thus hampering the actor
by the necessity of altering his expression and his manner in accordance
with his deposition or his resumption of these spectacles, seems to me
to be childish to a degree, and tends towards turning this simple tale
into a kind of fairy story, in which the spectacles play the part of a
magic potion or charm, such as Mr. W. S. GILBERT would use in his
_Creatures of Impulse_, his _Fogarty's Fairy_, and his _Sorcerer_,
whenever he wishes to bring about a sudden and otherwise inexplicable
transition from one mental attitude to another, and entirely opposite.
But for the earnestness of the actors, this _reductio ad Fairydum_ would
have imparted an air of unreality to the characters and incidents which
does not belong to them. The plot is a model of neat construction; and,
to everyone at all in doubt as to where to pass an agreeable evening, I
say, "Go to the Garrick Theatre." By the way, a Correspondent suggests
that _A Pair of Spectacles_ is an illustration of "The Hares
Preservation Bill,"

JACK IN A BOX.

* * * * *

A DISCLAIMER.--The Right Hon. Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN, M.P., Anti-muzzle-man
and Minister of Agriculture, wishes to deny explicitly that, when, by a
_lapsus calami_, he was made to describe Mr. TAY PAY O'CONNOR as
"p