" This, in answer to thousands of
correspondents, is our last word on the subject; so after this (except
on the 9th of November), we say--_nil_.
* * * * *
SUCH A "LIGHT OPERA!"
[Illustration: "Pity a Poo' Bar-itone!"]
Had Sir ARTHUR written the music for _The Mountebanks_, and Sir BRIAN
DE BOIS GILBERT the book of _Haddon Hall_, both might have been big
successes So, however, it was not to be, and Sir ARTHUR chose this
book by Mr. GRUNDY, which labours under the disadvantages of being
original, and of not owing almost everything to a French source. It
isn't every day of the week that Mr. GRUNDY tumbles upon _A Pair of
Spectacles_ in a volume of French plays. The period to which the very
slight and uninteresting story of _Haddon Hall_ belongs is just before
the Restoration, but the dialogue of "the book" is spiced with modern
slang, both "up to date" (the date being this present year of Grace,
not sixteen hundred and sixty) and out of date. The "out-of-date"
slang, which is, "_I've got 'em on"_--alluding to the Scotchman's
trousers--has by far the best of it, as it comes at the end of the
piece, and enjoys the honour of having been set to music by the
variously-gifted Composer: so that "_I've got 'em on_," with its
enthusiastically treble-encored whiskey fling, capitally danced by
Miss NITA COLE as _Nance_, with Mr.
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