Drury Lane.-It is with much pleasure we record the fact of Caractacus having been withdrawn, together with its "grand pageant, and real animals." The last appearance of this trumpery was in Coriolanus, got up for the occasion, but which has not since been repeated. It was, if we except the very excellent acting of Mr. BUTLER, a most sorry production, and every way unworthy of a respectable establishment. Mr. BUNN must really mind what he is about. His recent insult to her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, by raising the prices of admission on the night of her visit, will not easily be forgotten either by her, or her subjects; nor will it render any service to the interests of the theatre, which is already in sufficiently bad odor; and which can only be respectably filled by an extensive issue of nightly orders.' We shall take an early opportunity of analysing the bills of this establishment; which are not only filled throughout with gross falsehoods, but are a positive disgrace to the lessee, the rules of grammar and common sense being alike despised and disregarded. Mr. BUNN should always keep a grammar and spelling-book in his private room. It is no disgrace to refer for information, on matters whereof a person may be ignorant. The amusements of the week have been Kenilworth, Gustavus, Masaniello, and the ballet of the Daughter of the Danube; which last, to please the renters and holders of free admissions, Mr. BUNN announces to be played every evening till Christmas! We shall notice the new opera of Joan of Arc (produced on Thursday) in our

next.

Queen's. We visited this little theatre on Saturday last, and may say, with truth, that we were much amused; for a more unique company of actors were never surely brought together. You not only laugh with them, but at them, a double consideration for the money advanced. The first piece was Joan of Arc; in which were two real horses, and a variety of laughable bipeds. The heroine was represented by a Mrs. J. PARRY; who, had she carefully concealed her legs, and been a leetle less in earnest with her arms and eye-balls (which rolled fearfully around), would have succeeded tolerably well. The only other character worth noticing was that of De Caneral, played by a Mr. SANTER, who had exactly two teeth,-one top and one bottom one. On these worthies rested all the interest of the piece, which was eminently successful. Raising the Wind followed, and afforded considerable amusement to a well-filled house. Between the acts, some of the ladies in the boxes refreshed themselves with a pull, or two, at certain little bottles of a clear fluid; which, from its peculiar fragrance, we took to be cream of the valley.' By the way, who was that gaudy old dowager, in a private box, with a long beard and an enormous turban? From the shouts of laughter with which she was received, it was evident that the management were under considerable obligations to her. It was worth walking some distance to see such a curiosity!

The Surrey, Victoria, and Sadler's Wells are doing wonders. At the Surrey, DAVIDGE is now aeting in two pieces every other night!

In a neat Volume, Price 2s. 6d. Cloth, THE REDEMPTION;

drawal of many of the fashionables who patronise the theatre, and the substitution of a less polished, and more noisy audience. The Love Chase, and Romantic Widow, are still being played; and these alone being worth the price of admission, respectable folks have no objection to leave the theatre early. A dose of T. P. COOKE, after 10 o'clock, acts like a draught of laudanum; it is, however, far more comfortable to sleep in one's own bed, than to doze in a the

atre.

Olympic.-A Dream of the Future, and Why did you Die? still continue highly attractive. Two other amusing trifles have been added to them, called Twice Killed, and the Conquering Game. In the latter, FARREN, as Charles the Twelfth, is irresistibly droll. The house has been crammed every evening.

A SACRED POEM.

FAITH.

London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL and Co., Stationers'Hall-Court, and sold by all Booksellers.

PIRACY OF MOORE'S "LALLA ROOKH."

WE, the undersigned, hereby acknowledge, that we have infringed the copyright of Messrs. Longman and Co., the Proprietors of Mr. Thomas Moore's Poem of "Lalla Rookh," in printing and publishing the tale of "Paradise and the Peri," in No. I. of the Weekly Newspaper, entitled "The Ladies' Newspaper," without their consent; and, in consideration of their not continuing legal proceedings against us for such infringement, we hereby apologise for having so acted, and undertake that no further copies of No. I., containing such tale, shall be sold; and that no further Piracy upon the said Work, or

any other Copyright of the said Messrs. Longman and

Co., shall be committed by us.

(Signed) RAYMOND PERCIVAL. JAMES CHARLES SMITH.

Published for the Proprietor by GEORGE DENNEY, at the Office, 7, Tavistock St. Covent Garden: sold also by Hetherington, 126, Strand; Strange, 21, and Steill, 20, Paternoster Row; Purkiss, Compton Street; and James Pattie, 4, Brydges Street, Covent Garden.

VOL. I.-No. 33.]

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Fraser's Magazine. December. J. Fraser. It is long since we met with so interesting a number of Fraser, as the one for the present month; that is to say, the contents are more varied, and of more general interest than usual. The first article, on the Doctor,' is particularly amusing; and proves clearly that the author of that work must be Southey. The subject is discussed in four separate chapters. The next interesting articles are the Anatomy of Gaming by Nimrod, a Review of the Bridgewater Treatises, and the Sacrifice; or, the Country, Town, and Continent. Travelling Titles; or, Omnibus Customers, is also a lively sketch. This we would copy, but for an article which has arrested our attention, called 'A Word on the Annuals. Our table being besieged with a goodly array of these gaudy butterflies, we cannot do better than give them one general notice, in the words of a critic with whose opinion we most cordially

coincide:

us.

A WORD ON THE ANNUALS.

"A parcel of the little gilded books, which generally make their appearance at this season, now lies before There are the Friendship's Offering embossed, and the Forget Me Not in morocco; Jennings's Landscape in dark green, and the Christian Keepsake in pea; Gems of Beauty in shabby green calico, and Flowers of Loveliness in tawdry red woollen; moreover, the Juvenile Scrap-book for good little boys and girls; and, amongst a host of others, and greatest of all, the Book of Gems, [No. 18, NEW SERIES.]

[PRICE ONE PENNY.

with no less than forty-three pretty pictures, for the small sum of one guinea and a half.

Now, with the exception of the last, which is a pretty book, containing a good selection of modern poetry, and a series of vignettes (which, though rather small, are chiefly from good sketches, or pictures), and of Jenble designs of Mr. Roberts, nothing can be more nings's Landscape Annual, which contains the admiratrumpery than the whole collection-as works of art, we mean. They tend to encourage bad taste in the public, bad engraving, and worse painting. As to their literary pretensions, they are such as they have been in former years. There have been, as we take it, since the first fashion for Annuals came up, some hundred and fifty volumes of the kind; and such a display of miserable thering of small wit, is hardly to be found in any other mediocrity, such a collection of feeble verse, such a gaseries. But the wicked critics have sufficiently abused them already; and our business, therefore, at present, is chiefly with the pictorial part of the books. prietors of these works have insisted, is the encourageThe chief point upon which the publishers and proment which they have afforded to arts and artists, by keeping them constantly before the world, set off by all the advantages of a pretty binding, a skilful engraver, and a poet, paid at a shilling a-line, more or less, to point out the beauties of the artists' compositions, and to awaken, by his verses or his tale, the public attention publisher's slave: to live, he must not follow the bent towards the painter. But the poor painter is only the

of his own genius, but cater, as best he may, for the public inclination; and the consequence has been, that his art is little better than a kind of prostitution: for the species of pictorial skill which is exhibited in such books as Beauty's Costume, the Book of Beauty, Finden's Tableaux, &c. is really nothing better.

It is hardly necessary to examine these books and designs one by one-they all bear the same character, and are exactly like the "Books of Beauty," "Flowers of Loveliness," and so on, which appeared last year. large weak plate, done in what we believe is called the stipple style of engraving, a woman badly drawn, with enormous eyes-a tear, perhaps, on each cheek-and an

A

exceedingly low-cut dress-pats a greyhound, or weeps into a flower-pot, or delivers a letter to a bandy-legged, curly-headed page. An immense train of white satin fills up the one corner of the plate; an urn, a stonerailing, a fountain, and a bunch of hollyhocks, adorn the other: the picture is signed Sharpe, Parris, Corbould, Corbaux, Jenkins, Brown, as the case may be, and is entitled "the Pearl," "la Dolorosa," "la Blondina," "le Gage d'Amour," "the Forsaken One of Florence," "the Water-lily," or some such name. Miss Landon, Miss Mitford, or my Lady Blessington, writes a song upon the opposite page, about water-lily, chilly, stilly, shivering, beside a streamlet, plighted, blighted, love-benighted, falsehood sharper than a gimlet, lost affection, recollection, cut connexion, tears in torrents, true-love-token, spoken, broken, sighing, dying, girl of Florence; and so on. The poetry is quite worthy of the picture, and a little sham sentiment is employed to illustrate a little sham art.

It would be curious to know who are the gods from whom these fair poetesses draw their inspiration, (and whatever be their Castaly, they have, as it were, but to turn the cock, and out comes a ready dribble of poetry, which lasts for any given time), or who are the persons from whom the painters receive their orders. It cannot be supposed that Miss Landon, a woman of genius-Miss Mitford, a lady of exquisite wit and tasteshould, of their own accord, sit down to indite nambypamby verses about silly, half-decent pictures; or that Jenkins, Parris, Meadows, and Co., are not fatigued by this time with the paltry labor assigned to them. Mr. Parris has exhausted all possible varieties of ringlets, eye-lashes, naked shoulders, and slim waists; Mr. Meadows, as a humorous painter, possesses very great comic feeling and skill: who sets them to this wretched work?-to paint these eternal fancy portraits, of ladies in voluptuous attitudes and various stages of dishabille, to awaken the dormant sensibilities of misses in their teens, or tickle the worn-out palates of elderly rakes and roues? What a noble occupation for a poet! What a delicate task for an artist! How sweet!" says miss, examining some voluptuous Inez, or some loving Haidee, and sighing for an opportunity to imitate her. "How rich!" says the gloating old bachelor, who has his bed-room hung round with them, or the dandy young shopman, who can only afford to purchase two or three of the most undressed; and the one dreams of operagirls and French milliners, and the other, of the "splendid women" that he has seen in Mr. Yates's last new piece at the Adelphi.

The publishers of these prints allow that the taste is execrable which renders such abominations popular, but the public will buy nothing else, and the public must be fed. The painter, perhaps, admits that he abuses his talent (that noble gift of God, which was given him for a better purpose than to cater for the appetites of faded debauchees); but he must live, and he has no other resource.'

We conclude with some lively verses, on two popular songs:

ALL ROUND MY HAT!

Young Colin was gathering a posy,
To give to the fair of his heart,
Offlowers all fragrant and rosy,

And twined with a true lover's art.
In presenting the gift to the maid,

She laughingly whispered him, that "On her bosom his gift should be laid, Or she'd circle them all round her hat!"

He met the fair maid on the morrow,
Who coquettishly turned her away:
All his joy was now changed into sorrow,
For where was the lover's bouquet?
Then the maiden maliciously said,

As poor Colin looked downcast and flat,
"When Love's gifts are not on the heart laid,
Can't you see that it's all round my hat?"

We know not with whom these pithy sayings originated; but certes they are very expressive.

What an appeal to the feelings of an unfledged youth is there in

DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW YOU'RE OUT?
Young Adele, upon the green,
Mourned in tears her unkind swain;
Scarcely was the maid sixteen-
Spring-time of that gentle pain!
Wanton Cupid danced around,

From flower to flower, upon the ground;
When, laughingly the maid spoke out-
"Does your mother know you're out?"

The little god-malicious thing!-
Lanched an arrow from his bow,
Then spread wide each silver wing,
And balanced in the air to go.
"Cruel!" she cried, as Cupid rose:

"Ah, me! what have you been about?" "No matter what my mother knowsYou know pretty well I'm out!"

London Portraits; on Steel by John Grant, from Drawings by Robert Cruikshank, Esq. No. 1.-J. Grant and Co.

This is the first of a Series of Portraits of celebrated characters. The subject is the Duke of Wellington in his dress of Field Marshal. It is one of the most pleasing likenesses of his Grace that we have yet seen, and the drawing is The Engraver, too, altogether in good taste. deserves our good word; he has preserved ali the spirit of the artist, and given considerable effect to the ensemble of the picture. It must be borne in mind that this Mr. Grant is not the author of "Random Recollections," "Sketches of London," &c., with which he has been, more than once, charged. The perpetrator of these 'Guesses' at truth is Mr. James GRANT; and he alone must be accountable for his literary crimes.

The second number of the London Portraits will contain a likeness of the Duke of Gordon, accompanied, like the first, with an interesting letter-press description. Being published at a very cheap rate, this publication can hardly fail of securing a good sale.

THE THEATRES.

"See that the Players be well used."-Hamlet. "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." Othello.

Covent Garden.-On Saturday last was produced O'Rourke's, (or as he is more familiarly called, Rooke), new opera of Amilie ; or, the Love Test; the plot of which is as follows:

Amilie (Miss SHIRREFF) is an orphan girl, betrothed to Aderl, a young man who has gone to the wars. He has, however, promised to return in a year, and she relies stedfastly on his fidelity. Meanwhile she is persecuted by the addresses of Jose (WILSON), a lawless hunter, who strives to make her his mistress. His comrades fire her cottage in the hope of forcing her to seek shelter with Jose; she however finds a friend in the Count de Tiemar (PHILLIPS), who has just returned to his estate. The Count has

discovered a long-lost son in Aderl; and learning that he is in love with the humble Amilie, has promised to consent to their union, if the damsel prove faithful for a year. The absence

of Aderl is purposely contrived to put her love to the test. Jose perseveres in his base attempts; albeit, he is somewhat daunted by the prophecies of a gipsy, Pierre, (MANVERS), who tells him all attempts will be fruitless. He extorts from her a promise that, if she loses Aderl, she will accept of no other but himself, and then forges a letter from Aderl, whereby she is made to understand that the latter is married. She almost loses her senses on this discovery: and to the horror of Jose, resolves on taking the veil; however, the sudden appearance of Aderl, who has throughout watched the fortunes of his beloved, in the guise of the gipsy, Pierre, sets all to rights, and the happy pair are duly united.

Of the music in this opera, it gives us plea sure to speak favorably; not so much for its originality, as for the skill with which it is arranged. We heard a vast number of our favorite airs; but they were so interwoven with the fancies of Mr. Rooke, that they had a novel and decidedly pleasing effect. Those parts of the music which pleased us most, were the hunting chorus "To the Mountain,"-the gipsy chorus and song "Tarry not Brother," and "Under the Tree," a charming Tyrolean ballad, "When the morning first dawns;"-" My Boyhood's Home," by PHILLIPS; an air, "Who has not marked?" by WILSON, and a duet by WILSON and MANVERS, called " Mark, the gipsy hath told thee." The performers, one and all, deserve especial praise. They exerted themselves most successfully; and did ample justice to the music allotted to them. The chorusses, too, were quite perfect, and well sung. By the way, we cannot approve of an author sending in claqueurs, by wholesale, to applaud a new piece. It evinces a very bad taste. These gentry were so annoying on this occasion, that many of them had well nigh been ejected, vi et armis. They encored the overture, before it was quite finished; and shouted brar-vo! in the midst of the finest portions of the music! moreover, by their persisting in encores, greatly to the disgust of the respectable part of the house, the curtain did not fall till half-past ten o'clock! Mr. ROOKE was then called for, as usual-came, as usual-bowed and looked pleased, as usual-and then disappeared, as usual. Joan of Arc increases in popularity, and is being played nightly, with the above.

Drury Lane.-Nr. BALFE's new opera of Joan of Arc, produced in opposition to the piece bearing a similar title, at Covent Garden, has, since the first night of its performance, been greatly improved by curtailment. The principal performers are ANDERSON, TEMPLETON, GIUBELEI, SEGUIN, Miss POOLE, and Miss ROMER, who enacts the heroine. To the united exertions of these vocalists, 'the piece is mainly indebted for its success; for, as a spcc

tacle, it comes far short of its rival at Covent Garden. The concerted music proves Mr. BALFE to be a thorough musician; and we cannot help considering this to be one of his most successful efforts. There is one melody in the opera, entitled "Dearest Maid, while thou art sleeping," (sung by TEMPLETON), which is alone worth going to hear. We have little doubt that the opera will run till Christmas. The Daughter of the Danube brings capital houses, at half price. It is the prettiest ballet that has been produced for some time past.-One word to Mr. BUNN before parting. When issuing orders, to fill the vacant boxes, it would only be correct to do so with a certain proviso. A few evenings since, on entering the dress-circle with a young lady, we found ourselves in company with a carcase-butcher in top-boots, and a dirtyfaced mechanic with a long unshaven beard. We also heard one of the check-takers, as we were progressing up stairs, desire a lady to take off her pattens if she was going to the dress-circle! How MACREADY must laugh at such a management!

Haymarket.-The Love Chace, and the Romantic Widow, are still in the ascendant here. The former was played on Tuesday, for the 50th time, on consecutive nights; and on this occasion, there were new dresses, new scenery, and new decorations. WEBSTER, thou art a

lucky manager!

St. James's.-We should be glad to hear that this establishment was flourishing; but can hardly expect it, until some striking novelties are brought forward. The Cabinet, Temptation, and the Eagle's Haunt, have been the bill of fare for the week. In the second of these; Mrs. STIRLING is seen to great advantage.

Adelphi.- -"In consequence of repeated enquiries, and urgent entreaties," Rory O'More has been again played every night this week, with Mr. LYON as the hero, in lieu of PoWER; who has just had the misfortune to lose his mother. Valsha has been the leading piece; and the finale, a new military spectacle called Victoire; or, the Fall of Constantia: produced for the purpose of showing off the peculiar abilities of Mademoiselle CELESTE, whose performance was, throughout, particularly effective. Miss SHAW, too, came in for a considerable share of applause, in the very insignificant part of Lucille; which, in her hands, was made an interesting feature. This young lady improves rapidly, and shows much good sense in taking pains even with the most trifling parts she has to play. The public always estimate these things properly. The scenery in this piece is very beautiful, and the tableaux-that in the last scene in particular-are admirably contrived.