anecdote of De Lamartine, when President of the "Government Provisoire," will not be out of place: One day a workman, a strong Herculeanlooking fellow, came to him. "Citizen," said he," you, who counsel the nation now, just give me a little good advice. I have a wife-a little, pale, fair-haired thing in appearance, but a little devil in reality-and she beats me on every occasion. If I take a glass more than usual, slap! slap! go the hands-it becomes intolerablewhat do you advise me to do? I could crush her between my finger and thumb if I liked ! Should I return her thumps, or get separated from her or what should I do?" De Lamartine reflected a moment: "Citizen," said he, at length, "let her beat you!" remember that they are fine ladies, and put on A certain Madame Lhercule has just died; she was, in her youth, a "model,' "well known amongst the sculptors and painters. Chevau-away with me!" dier de Valdrôme, who had often modelled the lady's well-made person, thought, one day, that he should like to have a bit of fun with her "Madame Lhercule," said he, "I am not proud, as you know, and I have known you so long, I should like you to come and dine with my sistets, duchesses and countesses, who would be enchanted to see you-only of course you will 1 A snare was laid to entrap the famous murderer, Tropmann; he was shown the possibility of escape in declaring where he had buried John Kinck, as he would be taken to the place to be confronted with the body. He indicated a place, but the body has not been found. He asks to be taken there, but the police are not disposed to hazard that.-Au revoir, S. A. THE THEATRES, &c. HAYMARKET - - NEW COMEDY. "THE LIFE CHASE." GAIETY-vourite comedian's style. The chief merit of "New Men and Old Acres" we think consists in its original plot, and its several good situations; these will be better understood by our giving a succinct account of the piece. The story relates that a conspiracy has been formed by certain speculators on 'Change, who have grown rich by unscrupulous financing to obtain possession of a noble country estate. On the rise of the curtain we find Mr. Bunter, a financier (Mr. J. B. Buckstone); Blazenbalg, his man of business (Mr. Rogers), and Bertie Fitzurse (Mr. Buckstone, jun.), so journing at Beaumont Park House. Rich negociators, as the city men are supposed to be, they are allowed the run of the house and grounds, which, in fact, have been advertised to be let or sold. The financiers commence at once their negotiations for the purchase of the broad acres of the Vavasours, and they are received by the family on the most friendly conditions of intercourse. The action of the comedy at this, its earlier phase, is carried on at Cleve Abbey, in Lancasbire, and lasts throughout the first act. The imbroglio or entanglement created by a double love-affair, and the vicissitudes in the fortunes of the“ men The HAYMARKET has opened its pleasant portals for another campaign, and Mr. Buckstone has taken care to be ready with novelty. A new comedy has been produced, written by Mr. Tom Taylor and Mr. Dubourg, entitled "New Men and Old Acres." This work of a popular dramatist is a comedy of the quietest description, without any particular vigour of writing, and on the whole a somewhat insipid production. The dialogue is not brilliant, and not even dignified where it could have been easy to become so. The façon de parler is too level, and therefore descends to the monotonous. The Haymarket company have persisted, of late years, in a nerveless style of polite drawingroom conversation, which, pursued to extreme, is tiresome. What would the present piece be without such an actor as Mr. Buckstone, to act as a humorous foil to the somewhat dull lightcomedy acting that pervades the new play? There is always energy and earnestness, as well as unctuousness, in Mr. Buckstone's impersonations of low comedy; but Bunter, his last new part, is not altogether one that suits our fa re-animating forces of Mr. Sullivan's and Mrs. Hermann Vezin's talented acting. The "Gamester" was originally written with an honest desire to reprove the leading and absorb of business" who besiege the Vavasours, are sufficient to keep the action of the play fully alive through its three acts; and the comedy is brought at last to the usual happy terminaton by the detection of the impostors who had pre-ing vice of eighteenth-century society. The tended to be purchasers of the estate, and the extraction of the title-deeds from their nefarious hands. The discomfitures of Bunter, a man who is a mixture between a mawworm and a city speculator in stocks, and his German friend Blazenbalg, who is an unscrupulous swindler and outsider of Capel Court, form the denouement of the piece, which ends all the more pleasantly through the arrangements for the marriage of the two pairs of lovers; dividing the interest with the proceedings of the speculators and the discovery of their plot. A very interesting portion of the comedy is formed by the scenes in which crucial tests are applied to the constancy of Miss Vavasour, in her love for the supposed Samuel Brown, millionaire. Miss Vavasour has, in the first instance, submitted to the attentions of her rich lover through filial regard, and to preserve the estate in the family, which seems likely to pass into the hands either of the millionaire or his acquaintances Bunter & Co.; but Brown, notwithstanding, has to declare himself a bankrupt, in consequence of his becoming the victim instead of the gainer, through the financial operations of Bunter and Blazenboig. Miss Vavasour, like a true mistress, refuses to obey the injunctions of her parents, and give her new fortuneless lover up; but clings to him who has won her heart to the last. This part was effectively sustained by Miss M. Robertson; her lover, Brown, was performed in a manly style by Mr. Howe. The characters of Lord and Lady Vavasour are both well drawn, the former stately and rigidly polite, the latter lady-like, with a geniality of manners which proves exceedingly engaging. These parts were ably represented by Mr. and Mrs. Chippendale. Mr. Buckstone, jun., was very easy and gentlemanlike in the part of Bertie Fitzurse, which seemingly, a modernized reproduction of Slender, in the "Merry Wives." Mr. Rogers's swindling financier (Blazenbalg), with the accent of the German Jew, was well performed; and the remainder of the Haymarket Company engaged in the piece acquitted themselves most efficiently. The scenery a croquet lawn and a drawing-room interior) was good of the decorative kind, and the general mounting of the piece, together with the modern style of dressing adopted by the performers, much contributed to the generally cheerful effect of "New Men and Old Acres." We have, in the foregoing, been descanting on the pupular features of a modern comedy. It will be our next task to draw a contrast between the old style and the new style of drama. The now antiquated, but still perennial, play of the "Gamester" has been revived, with great success at the NEW HOLBORN Theatre, by Mr. Barry Sullivan. The mummified anatomy of Dr. Moore's old-fashioned prose tragedy has certainly been galvanized into new life by the author, the Rev. Mr. Moore, innocently sought dramatic authorship in the hope of correcting the vices of the corrupt society of his own time. Whatever the result may have been, the purpose, at any rate, gave to the stage one of its most permanent acting dramas. The great tragedians of the last century all played Beverley, renewing their popularity by adopting so stirring a part. Even at the present day, some latent interest and sympathy are felt for the misfortunes of the duped gambler, who sacrifices home, fortune, wife, sister-nay, his own life at last, for the fascinations of the gambling table, and the indulgence of its vicious surroundings. The old-fashioned form of the prose tragedy of the "Gamester" continues to somewhat mar its leading effects, but there is still enough of poetic thought, of noble sentiment, thoughtful satire and moral teaching to compensate for the rigidly formal character of the play and excuse the hum-drum manner of the dramatis persona. The characters in the "Gamester" are brought on like those of a Greek play, and they "run" in couples, as it were, all through the piece. Scene after scene proceeds, and still the inseparable pairs relieve each other on duty, occupying the stage as though they thought that the acting could not, or ought not, to be carried on in any other way than by two persons at a time undertaking to develop the plot. However, with many drawbacks of the kind indicated, it must be owned that there are some interesting dialogues, situations, and characterisations in the worn-out tragedy of the "Gamester." The scenes between Beverley and Mrs. Beverley. the quarrel between Stukeley and Lewson, the domestic scene, in which Mrs. Beverley confides her wrongs to Charlotte, and, finally, the prison-scene, in which the gambler, maddened by his unhappy experiences and present ruin, "swallows poison," and dies, raving, in the arms of his devoted wife, are all of an exceedingly earnest nature. We cannot speak too highly of Mr. Barry Sullivan's Beverley. Here one of the finest parts in the whole acting drama has assuredly found an unrivalled representative. The acting of Mr. Sullivan in the "Gamester" has attracted overflowinghouses. If we have a fault to find with Mr. Sullivan's Beverley we are of opinion that the dying scene is too prolonged for the tastes of present audiences. The "Gamester" continues to be occasionally performed, although the tragedy now divides the week with the ever-charming "Lady of Lyons." In the latter play Mr.Barry Sullivan's Claude Melnotte is well known, as is also Mrs. Hermann Vezin's Pauline. Both are most able personations. The "Life-Chase," the new comedy produced at Mr. Hollingshead's neat and com fortable theatre, the GAIETY. belongs to the spasmodic order of melodramas, and almost con veys the impression that it was intended to burlesque the Victoria Theatre melodrama! It is adapted from the "Drame de la Rue de la Paix," brought out at the Theatre Français a year or more ago. The Parisians admired the terror-inspiring fable upon which the piece is founded; namely, of a fashionable widow's clandestine lover being suspected, and furtively hunted through his married life as a murderer! Such is Alvimar, the lover of Madame Bouval. Of course the situations into which these two characters are thrown, in consequence of Alvimar being a suspected assassin-the assassin of his inamorata's late husband-are sufficiently strong, exciting, and vitiating in kind. Like many such adaptations, the "Life-Chase" is hardly an improvement on the original-with all deference to the English dramatists Messrs. Oxenford and H. Wigan. But the drama has been admirably put upon the stage, and is, as we have observed, not wanting in powerful situations. The acting throughout is generally good; Messrs. Alfred Wigan and Clayton, and Miss Neilson, being fairly supported by the rest of the Gaiety company, and doing much themselves to sustain the corps dramatique to which they belong. Still, as a whole, the "Life Chase" has a disappointing effect. It moves, as it were, by jerks; an air of unreality pervades it from first to last; it produces on the spectators a feeling of uncertainty which prevents him from throwing himself heartily into the scenes before him. In point of dialogue the play is generally dull, what of wit it contains being reserved for the little Marquis of Fontelle (Miss Wilson), while Peregrine Thrill (Mr. J. Robins), does duty in a mild way for the satire. Bertrand Alvimar is well interpreted by Mr. Alfred Wigan, whose sang froid generally and easy show of indifference in the opening scenes of the play, are matched by the sudden power of his last tragic interview with Madame Bouval, the unsuspected widow of the man he had been accused of assassinating. Nor would it be easy to outdo Mr.Wigan's masterly acting in the supper scene; his quiet coolness at the first, his momentary self-betrayal under Vaubert's searching experiment, and his readiness in accounting for the weakness into which, for the moment, he had been surprised. The scene indeed was rendered by all three of the leading characters in a manner worthy of its dramatic capabilities. But in spite of some striking effects, the part of Alvimar fails to satisfy former impressions of Mr. Wigan's genius. In it he seems great by fits only, not all through. At times, indeed, Bertrand is well-nigh eclipsed by Vaubert, a part very ably sustained by Mr. Clayton. Miss Neilson's presentment of Madame Bouval was decidedly effective. Her attitudes are becoming, and her general manner free from affectation. The smile that grows upon her face as she takes in the apparent proof of Alvimar's innocence evidenced histrionic power, as did her pleading for forgiveness from the man she thinks she has wronged by the suspicions which the assassin's own avowal is presently to confirm. To conclude, "The Life Chase," will well enough pass muster as a moderately good form of Gaiety melo-drama. We should, however, like to see the Gaiety come into the possession of a real prize in the form of a well built-up play suitable to the audience. And this the theatre has not yet, we believe, met with. The management systematically produce the works in their programme in a style of costly magnificence; but sometimes the pieces upon which money has been lavished, have not intrinsically deserved the splendid mountings bestowed on them. E. H. MALCOLM. THE LADIES' PAGE. DOYLEY. MATERIALS.-Crochet-cotton No. 20, of Messrs. Walter Evans & Co., Derby. Pattern No. 1. Make a chain of 14 stitches, stitch of double crochet in 1st round, make 6 and unite it. chain, repeat. 1st round.*Work 4 long stitches, make 3 chain, and repeat from * 7 times more. 2nd. Work a stitch of double crochet into the 3 chain, make 7 chain, and repeat. 3rd. Work 2 stitches of double crochet, beginning on the 1st of the 7 chain, make 5 chain, turn, miss 1 loop, work into successive loops a stitch of double crochet, and 3 long stitches, miss 3 loops, work 2 stitches of double crochet, make 5 chain, turn, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st of the 5 chain, and repeat. 4th. Work a stitch of double crochet at the point, make 11 chain, and repeat. 5th. Work a stitch of double crochet, make 5 chain, miss 3 loops and repeat. 6th. Work 3 stitches of double crochet into the 5 chain, make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st, work 3 more stitches of double crochet into the same place, make 1 chain and repeat. 7th. Work a stitch of double crochet into the 1 chain, make 9 chain and repeat. 8th. Work 8 stitches of double crochet into the 9 chain, make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st, and repeat. 2nd Pattern. Make a chain of 21 stitches, and unite it, make 21 chain, and unite it, work 3 stitches of double crochet into the 21 chain, * make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st of the 5 chain, work 3 stitches of double crochet, repeat from 6 times more, work into the other 21 chain, the same as 1st. Four of these patterns will be required for this doyley. 3rd. Make a chain of 16 stitches, and unite it, make 16 chain and unite it, make 16 chain and unite it, then work into each of the 16 chain 24 stitches of double crochet. Eight of these patterns will be required for this doyley. 4th. Make a chain of 9 stitches, and unite it, make 9 chain and unite it, inake 9 chain and unite it, then work into each of the 9 chain 11 of double crochet. Four of these patterns will be required for this doyley. 5th. Make a chain of 6 stitches and unite it. 1st. round. *, work a stitch of double crochet, make 4 chain, repeat from * 5 times more. 2nd. Work into the 4 chain a stitch of double crochet, 4 long stitches, and another stitch of double crochet, repeat. 3rd. Work a stitch of double crochet over the 4th. Work into the six chain in last round, 1 stitch of double crochet, 6 long stitches, 1 more stitch of double crochet, repeat. 5th. Work a stitch of double crochet over the one in 3rd round, make 8 chain and repeat. 6th. Work into the 8 chain, 1 stitch of double crochet, 8 long stitches, 1 of double crochet, repeat. 7th. Work a stitch of double crochet over the one in 5th round, make 10 chain and repeat. 8th. Work into the 10 chain, 1 stitch of double crochet, 10 long stitches, 1 of double crochet, and repeat. 9th. Work a stitch of double crochet over the one in 7th round, make 12 chain, repeat. 10th. Work into the 12 chain, 1 stitch of double crochet, 12 long stitches, 1 of double crochet and repeat. 11th. Work a stitch of double crochet over the one in 9th round, make 14 chain and repeat. 12th. Work into the 14 chain, 1 stitch of double crochet, 14 long stitches, 1 of double crochet, and repeat. 13th. Work a stitch of double crochet over the one in 11th round, make 14 chain, and repeat. Work 2 patterns for this doyley. 6th Pattern. Make a chain of 12 stitches, and unite it. Work into the circle a stitch of double crochet, *, two long stitches, make three chain, repes, from * twice more, work 2 double long stitchest make 4 chain, work 2 double long stitches, *, make 3 chain, work 2 long stitches, repeat from * twice more, work a stitch of double crochet, make 7 chain. Repeat from the beginning. In working the 2nd pattern, join it to the 1st with the 2nd 3 chain, work 3 leaves in this manner, then make only 3 chain, and work a 4th leaf without joining it to the 3rd, make 3 chain after the 4th leaf, and work a stitch of double crochet into the last 7 chain, make 3 chain. Work 4 patterns for this doyley. 7th Pattern. Make a chain of 5 stitches, and unite it. 1st round. Work a stitch of double crochet, make 5 chain, and repeat 4 times more. 2nd. Work into the 5 chain a stitch of double crochet, make 3 chain, and repeat till 5 stitches of double crochet are done; repeat. 3rd. Work a stitch of double crochet into the one in first round, make 7 chain, and re- chain, work a stitch of double crochet into the peat. 4th. Same as 2nd. 5th. Work a stitch of double crochet into the one in 3rd round, make 7 chain, and repeat. 6th. Same as 2nd. 7th. Same as 5th. 8th. Same as 2nd, only 4 chain instead of 3. 9th. Work a stitch of double crochet into the one in 7th round, make 8 chain, and repeat. 10th. The same as 8th, only making 5 chain instead of 4. Two of these patterns will be required for this doyley. 8th Pattern. Make a chain of 8 stitches, and unite it. let round. Work a stitch of double crochet, make 11 chain, miss 1 loop, and repeat 3 times more. 2nd. Work into the 11 chain,, 3 stitches of double crochet, make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st chain, repeat from twice more, work 3 more double crochet, refrom the beginning of the row. Four patterns of this number will be required for this doyley. 9th Pattern. Make a chain of 8 stitches, and unite it. 1st round. Work into the circle 1 long stitch, make 3 chain, repeat 9 times more. 2nd. Work into the 3 chain a stitch of double crochet, make 17 chain, work another stitch of double crochet into the same place, make 1 uext 3 chain, make 1 chain, and repeat. 3rd. Work into the 17 chain 20 stitches of double crochet, work a stitch of double crochet into the 1 chain, make one chain, work a stitch of double crochet into the next one chain, and repeat. 4th. Work a stitch of double crochet into the 1 chain in last round, *, work 5 stitches of double crochet into successive loops, beginning on the 1st of the 20, make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st of the 5, repeat from * twice more, then work 5 stitches of double crochet into successive loops, and repeat from the beginning of the round. Four of these patterns will be required for this doyley. 10th Pattern. Make 21 chain, and unite it, make a chain of 27, and unite it, make a chain of, 21, and unite it. 1st round. Work into the 21 chain 25 stitches of double crochet, work into the 27 chain 31 stitches of double crochet, work into the 21 chain 25 of double crochet. 2nd. Work 3 stitches of double crochet into successive loops, make 5 chain, work a stitch of single crochet into the 1st of the 5 chain, repeat this 6 times more, then work 3 stitches of double crochet, and repeat from the beginning in the centre loop, repeat this 9 times instead of 7. Four of these are required for this doyley. The patterns have now to be united into the desired form. OUR LIBRARY TABLE Amuse a CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS BOOKS. publisher has not favoured us with others we WARNE'S PICTURE-BOOKS.-(F. Warne & cannot say. The idea is worthy of a good Oo., London.)-There is a practical knowledge fairy, conscious of the mischief that is sure to of child's nature and its requirements in the ensue when children have no means of turning new idea embodied in the highly-coloured illus- their natural restlessness to account. trations of the thin quartos before us, which child and you keep him out of half-a-dozen will be appreciated by the small denizens of small scrapes and naughtinesses-a state of many a nursery. These books afford a treble things which may every day be observed in feast. First there are the pictures themselves, children of a larger growth. From the Puzzle then the story they serve to illustrate, and lastly Toy-books other beneficent results may be the satisfaction of cutting out the figures, which hoped for. The impatient or careless child will are printed on separate pages, and of pasting be certain to disappoint his intentions, for the them into their proper places in blank spaces objects require to be cut out with care and preleft for the purpose on a coloured back- cision, or they will not fit the spaces left for ground. Scissors, and gum, and camel-hair them. Their neat adjustment, again, will debrush, are all called into requisition, thus giv-pend on the exercise of these habits, which, ing occupation as well as amusement to the when once formed in the child, will do him serpossessors of "The House we live in," "The vice ever after. Loving grandmammas (as useNursery Play-book," and "Holiday Fun." ful as the fairy-godmother of old) or childless The series may be more extensive, but as the aunt or bachelor uncle, who play the role of |