Permit the Baron to strongly recommend MARION CRAWFORD’s A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance.  Slight indeed is the plot, and few the dramatis personae:  but the latter are drawn with a Meissonier-like finish, and the simple tale is charmingly and touchingly told.  The wonder of it is that so little to tell should have occupied two volumes; and a greater wonder remains, which is, that, at the close, the reader should wish there were a third.  To create this desire is, after all, the very perfection of the art of novel-writing.  The novelist who does not make the reader “wish as there was more on it,” according to the philosophic dictum of Sam Weller on the art of epistolary correspondence, has failed.  Henceforth this novel of Mr. CRAWFORD’s goes forth to the world with the Baron’s best imprimatur.  This poor little cigarette-maker requires no puffing of her wares.  Enough that the Baron should say to his readers, “Tolle lege!” You will be delighted with it, “Il cigaretto per esser felice.”  It is a charming story, says emphatically,

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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HOPE FOR THE EAST END OF LONDON UNDER THE NEW MAYORALTY.—­If South Kensington and the Fashionable West are now complaining of smells everywhere in the S. and S.W. district, the City and the East End may, for one year at least, rejoice in the supreme rule of the Savory.  We can’t write of SAVORY without adding MOORE, so we must mention that the name of SAVORY is ominous for the continuation of the Mayoralty.  The Guildhall Banquets end with a Savory. Absit omen!

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WINTER OPERA.

[Illustration:  Our Maggie McIntyre as “La (Prima) Donna del ‘Lago.’”]

Royal Italian Opera is quite a winter rose in Covent Garden.  It blossomed well, and is doing bloomingly.  How lovely and of what happy omen is the name of MARIA PERI, whose Valentina in Les Huguenots is worth recording, even though it does not beat the record.  It is said to be an uninteresting part, yet I remember everybody being uncommonly enthusiastic about this same Valentina when GRISI played it, and her “Valentine” was Romeo-like MARIO.  Their struggle, his Leap for Life out of the window after the great “Tu M’ami” solo and duet, her despair, will never be forgotten.  “Nothing in the part,” quotha!  Nothing in the person more likely.  Signor PADILLA, excellent actor, is here again.  Signor INGENIO CORSI has been “lent” by Sheriff AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS, and we hope he’ll be returned safe, sound, and unspoilt, carefully packed, “G uppermost,” in time for the Royal Italian Season.  More nice names of good omen in the ballet, LOUISE LOVEDAY,—­hope she’ll “love-night” as well, and be always ready to dance,—­and “JESSIE SMILES!”—­does she!  Bless her heart!  Signor ARD ’ITTY, as ’ARRY would say, is the energetic “Conductor,” so that Signor LAGO’s ’bus “full inside—­all right!” ought to go along pleasantly, and do well.