o the Light
Wellingtons.

Policemen K 482,611, to be restored to the staff by having his staff
restored to him, which had been taken from him for misconduct.

Corporal Smuggins, 16th Foot, to be Sergeant by purchase, _vice_ Buggins,
arrested for debt.

All the _post_ captains, who were formerly Twopennies, will take the rank
of Generals.

In the Thames Navy, 2d mate Simpkins, of the _Bachelor_, to be 1st mate,
_vice_ Phunker, fallen overboard and resigned.

All the men who are above the age of 100, and are in the actual discharge
of duty as policemen, are to be immediately superannuated on half-pay--a
liberal arrangement, prompted, it is believed, by the birth of the Prince
of Wales.

* * * * *

PUNCH'S THEATRE.

NORMA, OSSIAN, AND PAUL BEDFORD.

A vestal virgin with a husband and two children, a Roman Lothario, with an
Irish friend, a Druidical temple, a gong, and an _auto-da-fe_, mix up
charmingly with Bellini's quadrille-like music to form a pathetic opera;
and sympathetic _dilettanti_ weep over the woes of "Norma," because they
are so exquisitely portrayed by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and
the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this lady's genius--which is shed
like a halo over the whole opera--that nobody laughs at the broad Irish in
which _Flavius_ delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly
affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of
_Pollio_:--than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph
of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to
Covent-Garden to grin, return delighted.

But Apollo himself could not charm away the rich fun that pervades the
English adaptation; nor the modest humour of its preface. It has been,
hitherto, one characteristic of the lyric drama to consist of verse; rhyme
has been thought not wholly dispensable. Those, however, who are "familiar
with the writings of Ossian," (and the works of the Covent-Garden adapter),
will, according to the preface, at once see the fallacy of this. Rhyme is
mere "jingle,"--rhythm, rhodomontade,--metre, monstrous,--versification,
villanous,--in short, Ossian did not write poetry, neither does this
learned prefacier--so it's all nonsense!

To burlesque such a work as "Norma," then, is to paint the lily, to gild
refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH.
Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked,