[3] While this page was passing through the press, we witnessed a
        representation of “Ten Thousand a-Year” a second time, and
        observed that the offensiveness of this scene was considerably
        abated.  Mr. Lyon deserves a word of praise for his acting in
        that passage of the piece as it now stands.

Thus the string of rascality by which the piece is held together being cut, it naturally finishes by the reinstatement of Aubrey—­together with a view of Yatton in sunshine, a procession of charity children, mutual embraces by all the characters, and a song by Mrs. Grattan.  What becomes of Titmouse is not known, and did not seem to be much cared about.

This piece is interesting, not because it is cleverly constructed (for it is not), nor because Mr. Titmouse dyes his hair green with a barber’s nostrum, nor on account of the cupboard court of Nisi Prius, nor of the charity children, nor because Mr. Wieland, instead of playing the devil himself, played Mr. Snap, one of his limbs—­but because many of the scenes are well-drawn pictures of life.  The children’s ball in the first “epoch,” for instance, was altogether excellently managed and true; and though many of the characters are overcharged, yet we have seen people like them in Chancery-lane, at Messrs. Swan and Edgar’s, in country houses, and elsewhere.  The suicide incident is, however, a disgusting drawback.

The acting was also good, but too extravagantly so.  Mr. Wright, as Titmouse, thought perhaps that a Cockney dandy could not be caricatured, and he consequently went desperate lengths, but threw in here and there a touch of nature.  Mr. Lyon was as energetic as ever in Gammon; Mrs. Yates as lugubrious as is her wont in Miss Aubrey; Mrs. Grattan acted and looked as if she were quite deserving of a man with ten thousand a year.  As to her singing, if her husband were in possession of twenty thousand per annum, (would to the gods he were!) it could not have been more charmingly tasteful.  The pathetics of Wilkinson (as Quirk) in the suicide scene, and just before the event, deserve the attention and imitation of Macready.  We hope the former comedian’s next character will be Ion, or, at least, Othello.  He has now proved that smaller parts are beneath his purely histrionic talents.

Mr. Yates did not make a speech!  This extraordinary omission set the house in a buzz of conjectural wonderment till “The Maid of Honour” put a stop to it.

NOTE.—­A critique on this piece would have appeared last week, if it had pleased some of the people at the post-office (through which the MS. was sent to the Editors) not to steal it.  Perhaps they took it for something valuable; and, perhaps, they were not mistaken.  Thanks be to Mercury, we have plenty of wit to spare, and can afford some of it to be stolen now and then.  Still we entreat Colonel Maberly (Editor of the “Post” in St. Martin’s-le-Grand) to supply his clerks with jokes enough to keep them alive, that they may not be driven to steal other people’s.  The most effectual way to preserve them in a state of jocular honesty would be for him to present every person on the establishment with a copy of “Punch” from week to week.