Notes of the Month. 



the refuse of Joe Miller? We sincerely pitied him in his up-hill part ; 

 it should have been entrusted to some less gifted individual without 

 entailing such a degradation on a man like Farren, unrivalled at pre- 

 sent on the stage. Miss Helen Faucit did what she could for the 

 " Duchess," but we would recommend her to rehearse before a look- 

 ing-glass, and then she will run less risk of spoiling her pretty face by 

 the grimaces which at -present disfigure her acting. Poor Vanden- 

 hoff could make nothing of such a dull subject as Louis is according- 

 to Mr. Bulwer. The dances were as bad as they well could be; the 

 scenery and dresses excellent and appropriate. We are happy to see 

 so much attention paid to the costumes of the characters, who do not 

 now wear incongruous dresses as heretofore, but such as they would 

 in reality have appeared in. The play was, we believe, given out 

 for repetition, but not a word was audible in the midst of the hissing 

 and hooting that followed the fall of the curtain. Mr. Bulwer seemed 

 to have many friends in the house, and one gentleman, the well- 

 known editor of a weekly paper, who sat near us, attracted much at- 

 tention by endeavouring in the first instance to transfix with the light- 

 ning of his eyes some pittites beneath him, who expressed their dis- 

 approbation more loudly than this gentleman thought it decorous, 

 which fierce look, however, produced no other effect than a continu- 

 ance of their noise mingled with sundry jokes at his expense ; and 

 finding that he could not frighten these refractory subjects into 

 silence, he stretched himself out of the box as though he were about 

 to take flight, and clapped his hands with an energy and violence 

 the effects of which we think they cannot recover in less than a 

 month. 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



Nescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in illis. HORACE. 



THE RATIONALE OF NONSENSE. There's a puzzle for the juvenile cognos- 

 centi of Glasgow. The new Lord Rector is an admitted dab at the mystics,, 

 but we fancy he would find this what his friend Wilson Croker calls a botherer. 

 What a pity that none of the beardless Solons who helped out the enactment 

 of the caw-me caw-thee farce did not submit it to the bestrider of the " humble 

 but faithful steed"* the jenny that helped the future premier over Ben Nevis. 

 The Rationale of Nonsense rationale of fiddlestick, says some Tory reader 

 of the "Monthly ;" why those liberals wish to revolutionize our very land's lan- 

 guage. Oh no, sapient sticklers for the things that were we have no ten- 

 dencies that way : but there are those who are eternally parading their 



.** * Perhaps there is not a piece of more unalloyed bathos on record than the opening 

 of Sir Robert's speech where he introduces the words quoted. Considering the cha- 

 racter of the orator and the audience, the Ossianic rhapsodising of the illustrious 

 speaker was about as appropriate as if an Old Bailey advocate should commence a 

 prosecution harangue in hexameters. They say that with all Peel's pretended exulta- 

 lioA at having sprung from the people, he winces at the recollection of being but a 

 spinner's son. If it be so, his repugnance to cotton is amply counterbalanced by Jiis 

 adherence to fustian. 



