His

Dora Wheeler" are the most striking. “Portrait of Whistler" is hardly to be considered seriously. His two water colors, "A Summer Afternoon in Holland' and The Tambourine Girl" are well known, they are always taken at first sight for oils. They are like neither oil nor water color, but have a certain charm of their own. In landscape, Mr. Chase has in No. 36, Hackensack River," and No. 48, "A Bit of Green," struck peculiarly true qualities of dull grey atmospheric effect. There are fine points about two studies of women, "The Morning Paper" and "Ready for a Walk," which a visitor to the galleries should not pass by unnoticed.

The number of works to be sold are 98, while 25 are loaned for exhibition only.

Ernest Knaufft.

LOST LOVE.

The sun is low down in the West, love,
The flowers to their slumber have gone,
And the birds wine their way to the nest, love,
As I sit in my sadness alone.

As I sit in my sadness alone, love,

My mind ever wand'ring to you,

And I think of the past with a moan, love,
When I fancied you all that was true.

When my step ever brightened your face, love,
And my voice sounded sweet in your ear,
When my smile seemed to add to your grace, love,
And you answered my frown by a tear.

But alas for the changes of time, love,
Your affection has traveled away,
From the sweet honest truth of its prime, love,
It has wondered forever astray.

God knows that I gave you my heart, love,
It was all that I had to bestow,
But I found you were acting a part, love,
That your tenderness was but a show.

Ah! why did you cheat me with smiles, love,
1 hen carelessly cast me away?

I knew not the force of your wiles, love,
You tempted me, but to betray!

It was but a poor fight at the best, love,
You fought it, and fought it alone,
But in robbing my soul of its rest, love,
Have you added one joy to your own?

In the night, when the stars softly shine, love,
Or in the bright splendor of day,
Will you think of the pain that was mine, love,
Of the heart that you crushed in your play?
Will remembrance e'er carry you back, love,
To the fond trusting words that I said,
Will you see then the desolate track, love,
That my footsteps are fated to tread?

Ah, yet, there are moments to come, love,
In which you will traverse the past,
And in the sweet silenc: of home, love,
You will value my truth at the last.

IN THE LIMELIGHT'S GLARE. THE play, stage, dramatics, and all that, are of huge interest to a great many people; but that great many have no idea what a greater many don't care anything about the bloody, mirthful, or any other sort of mimicry that comes forth each night to the violin's ripple, the piccolo's trill, and the cymbal's crash. There are more gradations in the shades of human taste than we wot of as we pursue our own individual narrow, limited little list of pleasures. We go into ecstasies over a certain delight, and feel like giving the rest of the world a good kick for not getting as excited as ourselves over it. It is one of the easiest things in life to drop into the theatre-going rut and believe that under the sun, or rather under the soothing glow of the city-bred moon, no entertainment exists which is so complete in itself, so intellectually refining, or so sensuously gratifying, as the eye-fascinating, ear-caressing, living panoramas that our theatre managers know how to serve so well at $1.50 a plate-I should say chair. And it is not any harder to be diverted from this rut, to swerve into green fields and pastures new, to learn to love the bleat of the browsing lamb in preference to the rehearsed harmonies and discords of the critic's prey; in fact, to relegate the playhouse to the back-number shelf, lay it away among the archives of outlived passions, tuck it into an era of the memory just a little less dim than that in which we have left our marbles, tops, and "hockeys." Some people never outgrow anything. It is very admirable, I suppose, to see an old duffer of about sixty-eight playing lawn-tennis, but I'd rather see him managing a big railroad system in a frock coat and long trousers. And I don't like to see intemperance in theatre-going among people who have no business to stick themselves out in front except just often enough to see the new things that are good-the little youths, the slick, starched, polished petits maitres, commingled with the jaunty, wheezy little old rednosed creaky swells, brevetted club-men," who trip in, stay a while, and trip out in magnificent glee and sublime self-satisfaction. Oh, they ricochet chills right down my back, they lull me into a troubled sleep, they make me feel like resting till the next day. This abnormal propensity for getting into a front orchestra chair and beaming inward rays of complete consciousness over one's own head and shirtbosom, is one result of having the human race divided into sexes. The brave little man gets into a parquet seat and spreads himself just as a peacock throws his resplendent fan up against the sky so that the lady peacocks in those parts can see what a daisy he is. And the little man sitting there so sweetly, believes,

right down to the attenuated apex of his beating little heart, that he is sitting right in the whirling little vortex of the gayest little world imaginable, and that there is no China, no Wall Street, no sailors skipping up aloft over frozen ratlines, no sentries pacing the ramparts of Spanish forts, no one dying, no one being born, no corn-popping, no tobogganing, no shrieks being sent up from drowning wretches -nothing but he himself, with an admiring collection of well-dressed people made happier and better by being placed in close proximity with his own elegant person. That's the sort of theatre-goer who is no good.

I've been long enough on this tack, and haven't gained any ground at all, so I'm going around. Hard a-lee!

THE dramatic critic and the baseball umpire could hardly be classed in one category, though there seems some slight similitude in their vocations if viewed carelessly. Baseball umpires get $1,000 a year and traveling expenses. They wear wire masks and also springheel shoes, these latter that the ground may be relinquished with the requisite agility for eluding the whizzing ball. It is not their office to say whether a play was done well or badly, but whether it was done at all. If they say it was, then they are very likely to be killed. If they say it wasn't, they stand good chances of being stoned to death. Their salaries are not too great when one takes these little risks into account. A dramatic critic does not need to anticipate instantaneous death, so he does not wear a wire mask. He usually wears eyeglasses and keeps an inquisitive lookout for slow starvation. I don't mention salaries. Salaries don't count when fame is sought. Leave that for the grovellers, the men who have to eat and have their hair cut with some regularity. The poet, the unsung musical composer, and the man who pants out his opinion on art, they live as the birdlings live, on bird seed, on anything that may be lying around — olives, small bullet-like fish-cakes, beans, sometimes naught save pretzels, though they get to know the places where anything so contracted as the last forms the unprinted ménu, and fly like homing pigeons to those resorts where glistening blazers emit the perfume of active cookery. When a critic stops eating long enough to write something, he usually scoffs at the popular idea of things. Scoffing at the popular idea of things is the critic's great hold. If he ever allowed himself to stop scoffing people wouldn't call him a critic any longer. Now I'm going to be serious for just one minute. Because a man is an adept in the fashioning of pleasant sentences, can turn

a graceful period and titillate one's literary sensibilities, must he, perforce, be a person of exceptional judgment, able to point out to the multitude that which is excellent in art? Might not the best critics living be unable to say or write what their souls knew to be right? Are the men who tell us what is bad and what is good on the stage hired for their journalistic skill or their superlatively refined perception and artistic tastes? Could not a rhymester who possessed an idiosyncrasy which rendered the fragrance of a rose obnoxious to him woo his muse into dealing out musical rhapsodies over that same flower if the shekels of a publisher would make it an object? And what could the shy young maiden say about the crimson flower which was picked for her by her first lover's hand? Its perfume makes her brain reel from its very sweetness, but she never describes that sensation, because the talent for felicitous expression may not be hers. Yet she, and not the poetaster, has absorbed and felt the glory of a red rose. So it can possibly be with the beauties of stage art. A ray of young genius may be shot straight into the eyes of a man who can juggle his brain and a fountain pen into a perfect shower of hyperboles, and yet remain undiscovered or ignored, while some inconspicuous, dreamy-eyed young fellow up in the dress circle feels his heart begin to throb over it, knows it, recognizes it, carries the consciousness of it away in his heart, but never speaks about it. I would take the judgment of several of my acquaintances on a play that I had not seen just as quick as I would the ornamental dissection served up by a paid professional. Most of these latter fancy themselves dramatic epicures. Now I wouldn't follow the lead of an epicure as a rule. An epicure in gastronomy usually has a decided predilection for sweet-breads, terrapin stew and very gamey game, in fact for anything that is extremely unpopular. And the dramatic epicures somehow seem to steer clear of and decry that which reaches the human heart. Whatever caresses the physical senses or the pocket commands some attention. C. M. S. McLellan.

A SHARP PEN.

(New York News-Letter.)

Welch is as noted for his sweet smile as his sharp pen; the latter he employs as editor of his bright little periodical called THE THEATRE.

IT GROWS. (Columbus Ohio Dispatch.)

The current number of THE THEATRE is entertaining and instructive Its sketches and criticisms are bright and pointed. It grows in favor weekly. New York: The 1 heatre Publishing Co.

WOMEN AND WOMEN.

EDITOR OF THE THEATRE:-They say that Poverty and Want go hand in hand. I thought so when I climbed to the top of the Metropolitan Opera House Saturday. Poverty went to see "Rienzi," and Want took a seat in the family cir cle for just one dollar. In the second row of first balcony I noticed the " crazy Wagnerites" stood up during the performance and paid two dollars for the privilege of sitting down between acts. This is all quite right for those who like it, but I am not that kind of an enthusiast, although I would undergo a great many discomforts for the sake of enjoying the German opera. However, if it hadn't been for the climb up those stairs, the heat, the noise of the shuffling-footed ushers, the late comers and the awful women pirates who will wear high bonnets at the theatre, I might have been quite happy

I never was so disgusted with my own sex as I was here; two women with bonnets on as high as the Fire Island light-house sat directly in front of us, and of course completely obstructed the view of the stage. I noticed that many of the ladies were considerate enough to remove their head gear after entering the house. But the women in front of us-oh, they were dreadful. In a moment of desperation and frenzy I leaned forward and asked her, in the most dulect strains I could possibly muster up under the circumstances,-if she would please remove her bonnet What do you think she did; why, she didn't; she merely glanced at me to see if my bonnet was on my head and ** kept on knitting.' The words framing the request were no sooner out of my mouth than didn't I wish I had left them unsaid. I felt so awfully small, so infinitesimal Of course, after it was all over, I realized that, through impulsiveness, I had taken a most unwarrantable liberty in making such an audacious request. I ought to have known she would not remove the obnoxious bonnet before asking; she had that kind of a look; a sort of "Come-in-or-you- will freeze your ears off" look. Yet, that bonnet sat on that head in 'ghoulish glee" throughout the long opera. It almost seemed like something alive, uncanny; how I hated it. I was nearly convulsed with laughter when my companion whispered that she hoped the woman with the bonnet would fall off her seat in a fit. A very wicked wish, but we were cross. Now how accommodating the ladies in the boxes are they remove their wraps, bonnets, wear low bodices and even remove the small shoulder-strap. I was much afraid some of them would be arrested for indecent exposure. Nell McLean.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR. DEAR THEATRE:-I have a request to ask of you: As you are strong, be merciful. I went to the Casino the other night, with a young gentleman from the far West. He wore drooping black side-whiskers, had large, melancholy dark eyes, and altogether gave one the impression of being a very sentimental and poetical

young snob, and I was proud to be seen in his company. In fact, he assured me that his friends considered he bore an unmistakable likeness to that naughty, wicked, but delightful, Lord Byron. Well, he was very cordial and attentive to me until we arrived at the Casino, where they are still telling nightly audiences what that chestnut-y" dicky-bird is saying; and, by the way, I think the Casino will continue to hear from that indefatigable dickybird until, let us hope, his warble will be completely and mercifully stopped this summer by a sun-stroke. But, revenons à nos moutons; as I was saying, we had hardly seated ourselves when that irresistible Erminie made her appearance, and immediately my western "brave" was absorbed in the play. And when I mildly criticised her acting, and said that she trod the boards rather as though the flooring was composed of egg-shells, and that she twirled her fan far too much, he actually gave me such a Corsair-like glare that I grew limp, and did not dare whisper even the slighest disparagement of the lovely Pauline. And yet, I

"

How

think she deserves infinite credit, too.
can a human being, with the ordinary amount
of nerves, sing that lullaby for more than two
hundred nights, beginning, “Dear mother, in
dreams I see thee! I would advise a little
change in the "bill of fare." I give this advice
to her manager gratis. Why not, I say, warble
forth instead, Dear mother, my dreams are
night-mares!" It might brace her up a little,
until the warm season arrives, when the dicky-
bird will have been gently done for, and she
join her husband in New Mexico, where, I hear,
he has found a silver mine, worth a million and
a half. Lucky Pauline! Well, after the play
we went to Delmonico's, and all the way there
he simply raved about "beautiful Pauline
Hall," and I heard him murmur, as he gazed
at the moon-by the way, I don't remember
whether there was a moon that night-

"Could I find out her heart through that velvet and lace!
Can it beat without ruffling her sumptuous dress?
She will show us her shoulder, her bosom, her face;
But what the heart's like, we must guess."

And when, arrived at Delmonico's, an imposing waiter came to serve us, and asked in a gentle, insinuating voice, "What ze gentleman would like to order?" my Corsair eyed him sternly, and said, "We will have Pauline Hall on the half shell," and as I burst out laughing, and the polite but astonished waiter looked mystified, he seemed to awaken as from a trance, and had the grace to blush, as he stammered apologetically, "I mean oysters on the half shell, of course." And while waiting for those oysters to be served, he confided to me that he “felt inspired," and drawing forth a paper (which I fear was an unreceipted bill),

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