The pieces we saw were well got up and carefully acted; so that the patrons of the drama need not dread that, in this instance, the Astleyan-Olympic actors believe that “charity covers a multitude of sins.”  They don’t care who sees their faults—­the more the better.

* * * * *

“BEHIND THE SCENES.”

When a certain class of persons, whose antipathy to gratis sea-voyages is by no means remarkable, are overtaken by the police and misfortune; when the last legal quibble has been raised upon their case and failed; when, indeed, to use their own elegant phraseology, they are “regularly stumped and done up;” then—­and, to do them justice, not till then—­they resort to confession, and to turning king’s evidence against their accomplices.

This seems to be exactly the case with the drama, which is evidently in the last stage of decline; the consumption of new subjects having exhausted the supply.  The French has been “taken from” till it has nothing more to give; the Newgate Calendar no longer affords materials; for an entire dramatic edition of it might be collected (a valuable hint this for the Syncretic Society, that desperate association for producing un-actable dramas)—­the very air is exhausted in a theatrical sense; for “life in the clouds” has been long voted “law;” whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date.  In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king’s evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—­how, in fact, they disport themselves “Behind the Scenes.”

A visit to the English Opera will gratify those of the uninitiated, who are anxious to get acquainted with the manners and customs of the ladies and gentlemen of the corps dramatique “at the wing.”  Otherwise than as a sign of dramatic destitution, the piece called “Behind the Scenes” is highly amusing.  Mr. Wild’s acting displays that happy medium between jocularity and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque.  Mrs. Selby plays the “leading lady” without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable empressement, though supposed to be labouring at the time under the stroke of the headsman’s axe.  Lastly, it would be an act of injustice to Mr. Selby to pass his Spooney Negus over in silence.  PUNCH has too brotherly an affection for his fellow-actors, to hide their faults; in the hope that, by shewing them veluti in speculum, they may be amended.  In all kindness, therefore, he entreats Mr. Selby, if he be not bent upon hastening his own ruin, if he have any regard for the feelings of unoffending audiences, who always witness the degradation of human nature