A SIXTH-FORMOSUS PUER.

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[Illustration:  FORM!

“GOOD HEAVENS!  WHAT A SWELL!  WHAT IS IT?  TEA-FIGHT?  WEDDING BREAKFAST?”

“OH NO; ONLY GOING TO MY TAILOR’S. MUST BE DECENTLY DRESSED WHEN I GO TO SEE HIM.  HE’S SO BEASTLY CRITICAL!”]

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ABOUT THE COURT.

At the Royal Court Theatre, which, as I read on the illustrated House Programme, is “Licensed by the London County Council to the Proprietors, Mrs. JOHN WOOD and Mr. A. CHUDLEIGH,”—­is the LORD CHAMBERLAIN out of it in this quarter? (how can there be a Court without a Lord Chamberlain?), and, “under which king, Bezonian?” Was it in the days of The Happy Land?—­but no matter.  To resume.  At the aforesaid Court Theatre is now being performed an original Farce, in Three Acts, written by Mr. R.R.  LUMLEY.  Ah!  Ah!  LUMLEY, this isn’t quite up to your other piece, Aunt Jack. Mrs. JOHN WOOD is invaluable, and keeps the game alive throughout; while ARTHUR CECIL’s Duke of Donoway—­not a Comedy Duke, but a Duke in farcical circumstances—­is excellent.  WEEDON GROSSMITH is funny, but in make-up, tone of voice, and mannerisms, the part seems mixed up with one or two others that he has played, and is very far from being in the same category with Aunt Jack’s crushed Solicitor.  BRANDON THOMAS as Captain Roland Gurney, R.N., is very natural. The Office Boy of Master WILSON and the little Gridd of Master WESTGATE (very near Birchington when the boy is in Mrs. WOOD’s hands), are capital.  Miss CARLOTTA LECLERCQ’s Duchess is equal to the occasion.  The two girls’ parts are unnatural and uninteresting.  What ought to make the success of the piece is the scene where WEEDON GROSSMITH volunteers to sing “The Wolf,” and everyone talks and chatters until the Babel ends in an explosion.  It convulses the house with laughter; and if this situation had been so contrived,—­as it might have been, allow me to say,—­as to end the Act, the Curtain falling on the climax, the dashing down of the enraged musician’s song and the exit of the Duke, the run of The Volcano would have been insured from now to Christmas.  Is it too late to retrieve this?  To quote the title of one of ANTHONY TROLLOPE’s novels, “I say No!” There is so much that is genuinely funny in the piece, that if the alteration is done with a will, hic et nunc, why within a week the piece could be fixed securely in its place for the London season, and beyond it.  Let funny little WEEDON reconsider his make-up, and come out as the flaxen-headed M.P. of a Saxon constituency.  And a word in his ear,—­SOTHERN fashioned Lord Dundreary out of a worse part than this. The Volcano shouldn’t “bust up.”  That’s my opinion, as

A FRIEND AT COURT.

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A SCHOOL OF CRITICISM.