448 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. 



personage will not license a song under two guineas ! George knows 

 the value of licence too well to throw it away for a song, and the 

 mulcted geniuses cry out against his throne accordingly. 



Yet who can doubt that Thalia and Melpomene have a strong hold 

 upon the English taste, even though the licenser may exist, when we see 

 the statement that (exclusively of the English Opera-house) London 

 now boasts of fourteen theatres ; and in calculating the gross weekly 

 sum received at all of them, averaging 7,000, why it proves that, not- 

 withstanding the hardness of the times, we may say, with Fred. Rey- 

 nolds, in one of his eccentric comedies, " John Bull will go without 

 bread, but, bless him, never without plays." 



But the fourteen are going to be reinforced with others in every 

 direction. An actor, named Waithman, is building a theatre at Pad- 

 dington ; and it is stated that the Pantheon, in Oxford-street, will be 

 re-opened in the course of the summer. 



This is not all. The city is to have its share in the March of Theatres. 

 The new theatre in the neighbourhood of Bishopsgate-street, is likely to 

 realize abundant interest to the speculators. The population is suffi- 

 ciently dense, unquestionably, to give success to a playhouse, if the 

 attraction of the new Pavilion, now being finished with great splendour, 

 should not interfere. 



Having thus provided for .London, Hyde-park-corner would feel 

 itself unhappy in being neglected, and of course it comes within the pur- 

 view of those whose business it is, to ' ' increase the harmless gaiety of 

 nations." A new theatre will shortly be erected at Knightsbridge, upon a 

 large vacant plot of ground nearly opposite the Cannon Brewhouse. The 

 Duke of Sussex has promised to lay the first stone. The theatre will be 

 built in shares, and it is patronized by the principal residents in that very 

 extensive and improving neighbourhood. Egerton, Ward, and Abbot, 

 are to be the managers. 



After this let us hear no more of the exclusive rights of patentees, and 

 so forth. London has already more theatres than Paris, and the system 

 will go on with perpetual bankruptcies, of course, but still with per- 

 petual speculators, willing to risk their own credit, and their friends' 

 money on those fragile concerns. We promise a harvest to George 

 Colman. 



A very striking work on that agonizing disease, the Calculus in the 

 bladder, has just been published. It is entitled " Cases in Lithotrity," 

 or the new operation invented by Barori Heurteloup, for crushing the 

 calculus by means of instruments, and thus escaping the painful and 

 hazardous operations in common use. The pamphlet contains a consi- 

 derable number of statements of the use of the Lithotrity on patients, 

 from the different hospitals, as well as on gentlemen confided to the 

 inventor's care by surgeons of eminence. The operations were con- 

 ducted in the presence of Sir Astley Cooper, and the other principal 

 surgeons of London, and in every case stated the success seems to have 

 been complete. If any alleviation of this dreadful affliction can be 

 discovered, the inventor deserves every honour and advantage that can 

 be implied in national and personal gratitude. 



