which she was representing.  And, a propos of songs, the music of this Pantomime lacks “go.”  WAGNER borrowed from pantomime his notion of dramatic music to carry on the action and tell the story of serious opera; but we don’t want our Pantomimes to become Wagnerian; or, at all events, as the lamented GEORGE HODDER would have said, “Let’s have plenty of the ‘Wag,’ and none of the ‘nerian.’” What he would have exactly meant by this nobody would have known, but everyone would have laughed, as he was one of those self-patented jesters at whose witticisms the company laughed first and wondered afterwards.

DRURIOLANUS MAGNUS, not content with his own special pantomime-pie and a Drama at Covent Garden, has had a finger,—­only a little one, perhaps, and not the thumb, with which JOHANNES HORNERIUS extracted the plum,—­in the Christmas pie at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, of which the Manager is HORATIUS SEDGERIUS.

[Illustration:  Seeing the ’Mime, December 30; or, A Draught at Night.]

Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, patres et matres, et tutores, if you want to know what to take your little children, your bigger children, your boys and girls to see, and what you yourselves, familiar with your THACKERAY as I take you to be, would enjoy seeing, I say emphatically and distinctly, without any evasion, reservation, or mental equivocation, “Go and see, and take them all to see, The Rose and the Ring, written by SAVILE CLARKE, with music composed for it by WALTER SLAUGHTER, put on the stage by Les deux Ajax CAROLUS and AUGUSTUS HARRIS,—­Christmas CAROLUS being facile princeps at this difficult business.”

There is an excellent orchestra here, playing the musical game of “follow my leader” to perfection, and kept together, as sheep, by a CROOK.  Mr. HARRY MONKHOUSE is very droll in the little he has to do.  Mr. SHALE’s speech as the Court Painter is capitally given, but there isn’t enough of it.  A touch more, a few more good lines, and the speech, as a showman’s speech, would have been encored.  Mr. S. SOLOMON as Jenkins, the Hall Porter, is made up so as to be the very fac-simile of THACKERAY’s own illustration, and to reproduce that Master’s sketches with more or less exactitude has evidently been the aim of all the actors; but Jenkins has been peculiarly successful, as has also Prince Bulbo, of whom more anon.  As Polly in Act the First, and General Punchikoff in the Second, Miss EMPSIE BOWMAN was delightful, and her elder sister, Miss ISA BOWMAN, made every sharp point tell, and into the gold, of which success the name of BOWMAN is of good omen:  and this is almost a rhyme.  The part of Prince Giglis, in the absence of Miss VIOLET CAMERON, was satisfactorily rendered by Miss FLORENCE DARLEY.  Miss MAUD HOLLAND looked and acted prettily as the Princess Angelica, and Madame AMADI was quite Thackerayan in her make-up as Countess Gruffanuff.  Miss ATTALIE CLAIRE entered fully into the spirit of the merry piece; her rendering of a song with the refrain “Ah! well-a-day!” being deservedly encored.