a loud shout and clapping proceeded from the Royalists; but I fancy if hands had been shown these last would have been in a sad minority. I have often amused myself with comparing the _Mérope_ of Voltaire with that of Maffei and am puzzled to which to give the preference. Maffei has made Polyphonte a more odious and perhaps on that account a more theatrical character, while Voltaire's Polyphonte is more in real life. In the play of Voltaire he is a rough brutal soldier, void of delicacy of feeling and not very scrupulous, but not that praeternatural deep designing villain that he is represented in the piece of Maffei. In fact Maffei's Polyphonte appears too _outré_; but then on the stage may not a little exaggeration be allowed, just as statues which are destined to be placed in the open air or on columns appear with greater effect when larger than the natural size? Alfleri seems to have given the preference to the Mérope of Voltaire. I have seen Talma a second time in the part of Nero in the Britannicus of Racine; Mlle Georges played the part of Agrippina. Talma was Nero from head to foot; his very entry on the stage gave an idea of the fiery and impatient character of the tyrant, and in the scene between him and his mother Agrippina nothing could be better delineated. The forced calm of Agrippina, while reproaching her son with his ingratitude, and the impatience of Nero to get rid of such an importunate monitress, were given in a style impossible to be surpassed. Talma's dumb show during this scene was a masterpiece of the mimic art. If Talma gives such effects to his rôles in a French drama, where he is shackled by rules, how much greater would he give on the English or German stages in a tragedy of Shakespeare or Schiller!