shop, in which shaving by steam is hit off, is excellent in its way, but not so well understood in its details, as to make it equally effective in representation. Vauxhall Bridge, and the Gardens which succeeds it, are also charmingly painted by the Grieves, and from hence the Clown and Pantaloon take an "Aeronautic excursion" to Paris. This is a revolving scene--the balloon ascends--and the English landscape gradually recedes from the view--the gradual approach of night--the rising of the moon--the passing of the balloon through heavy clouds--and the return of day, are beautifully represented; the sea covered with ships, is seen in distant perspective with the French coast; a bird's-eye view of Paris follows, and the balloon safely descends in the gardens of the Tuileries. The adjoining palace, mansions, and gardens being brilliantly illuminated, give the scene a most splendid and picturesque effect. A variety of other scenes, but far too numerous to mention individually, deserve the highest applause, particularly the village of Bow, Leadenhall Market, with a change to an illuminated civic feast in the Guildhall; Burlington Arcade at night, and the village of Ganderclue by sunrise. The Temple of Iris, formed of the "radiant panoply of the heavenly arch," by Grieve, is most brilliant. The advent of Pantomime, early in the eighteenth century, gave a special fillip to spectacular display, as they were all announced to be set off with "new scenery, decorations, and flyings." Some of the stage devices of Pantomime are of considerable antiquity; as, for instance, the basket-work hobby-horses, that figured as far back as the old English Morris dances, to be revived in the French ballet of the seventeenth century, and, in after years, in English Pantomime. The Pantomime donkey is at least, we are told, 200 years old. In "_Arlequin Mercure Galant_," produced in Paris in 1682, by the Italian Comedians, Harlequin made his entrance on a moke's back--and the merriment afterwards being greatly enhanced when Master "Neddy," with Pan seated on its back, suddenly came in two, to the consternation of the beholders. To the Italian Pantomime Comedians we owe many of our stage devices and tricks. The statue scene in "Frivolity," played by the Messrs. Leopolds, was introduced by the Italians in "_Arlequin Lingere du Palais_," when this piece was performed at Paris in 1682. Again, the device of cutting a hole in a portrait for an eaves-dropper's head to be inserted, was used in "_Columbine Avocat_" as far back as 1685.