Beverley, the scene painter for Madame Vestris, half a century ago, brought fairy, or Pantomime, scenes to great perfection. Leopold Wagner, speaking of them, says:--"We have it upon the authority of Mr. Planché that these were almost entirely due to the skilled efforts and successes of Mr. William Beverley, who, in the nature of Extravaganza, so impressed the public with his fine talents as an artist upon theatrical canvas, that gorgeous scenes became quite the rage, and how, year after year, Mr. Beverley's powers were taxed to the utmost to outdo his former triumphs, and how the most costly materials and complicated machinery were annually put into requisition until the managers began to suffer." Speaking of the production on the 26th December, 1849, of "The Island of Jewels," Planché says, "The novel, and yet exceedingly simple, falling of the leaves of a palm tree, which discovered six fairies, supporting a coronet of jewels, produced such an effect as I scarcely remember having witnessed on any similar occasion up to that period. The last scene became the first in the estimation of the management. The most complicated machinery, the most costly materials were annually put into requisition, until their bacon was so buttered that it was impossible to save it. Nothing was considered brilliant but the _last_ scene. Dutch metal was in the ascendant. It was no longer even painting, it was upholstery. Mrs. Charles Mathews herself informed me that she had paid between £60 and £70 for gold tissue for the dresses of the Supernumeraries alone." I wonder what Mrs. Mathews would say if she could now visit this terrestrial sphere of ours? All this love of spectacular display soon began to supersede the good old-fashioned Christmas Pantomimes.