aster of effect is seen in every
group, in every detail.

[Illustration: An Oxford Mixture.]

_Pleasure_ is described as a Comedy-Drama, and the plot is not, perhaps,
as strong as some of its predecessors. As "strength" at a theatre
invariably spells "murder" or "sudden death," I am not at all sure that
this absence of the ultra-melodramatic is not to be welcomed, in spite
of the taste for the horrible which is supposed to be the characteristic
of those who patronise the pit and gallery. But what the People (with a
capital initial letter) lose in the ghastly, they certainly gain in the
beautiful. If the scenery at Drury Lane of the Riviera does not cause
"Personally conducted tours" to be more numerously attended next year
than ever, I shall be more than surprised--I shall be disappointed. Even
the Earthquake should not be a deterrent, for as far as I could learn
from "the incident" at Drury Lane, no one was a penny the worse for the
shaking. Even the unworthy _Lovell_ escaped--I fancy up the chimney. If
this were so, it would only be in keeping with his character.

In the first Drury Lane success, _The World_ (by the same authors as
_Pleasure_), there was a wonderful clergyman, played by the late Mr.
RYDER, whose cynicism was equal to his audacity. This strange
ecclesiastic I remember, having sown an unusually large crop of wild
oats in his youth, on his return from Evening Service in his middle age,
imperiously refused to allow a lady to remain in his parish because she
had once been deeply attached to him, and had loved him "not wisely, but
too well." I shall never forget the dignified earnestness of the late
Mr. RYDER as he explained to this lady his position as a married man,
and sternly ordered her to move on. Had _Mr. Jack Lovell_ been ordained,
I fancy he would have made an excellent curate to this reverend
gentleman, and that between them they would have formed what is
satirically termed a "pretty pair."

It is possible that the original intention of the authors of _Pleasure_
may have been to have conferred on the hero of their piece a Deanery, or
even an Archbishopric, and that the recollection of this prior clerical
creation may have influenced them to alter their contemplated Church
patronage into a temporal peerage linked with twenty thousand a-year. Be
this as it may, _Jack_ and his prototype will rest in my memory as
companion pictures, of what a clergyman might, could, would (but should
not) be. The