not be persuaded, for any length of time, that a star and a bundle of sticks compose a theatrical company worth listening to. We may take another instance, still nearer home. Under the management of Vestris and Mathews, and in spite of a deplorable absence of ventilation, the Lyceum Theatre has for many months past been nightly full to the roof, whilst nearly every other London manager has been wofully grumbling at the state of his benches and treasury. It is not that the performances at the Lyceum have been of a very high class; but of their kind they have been good, the company pulls well together, and there is a certain spirit and originality in the conduct of the theatre. And here, whilst avoiding comparisons with any particular theatre to which they might be unfavourable, we are yet led to remark, that an utter want of originality is one of the chief and most lamentable present characteristics of the London stage. Such a monotonous set of imitators was surely never beheld. They all follow each other in a string, like the boors after Dummling's precious goose. Unfortunately the golden feathers become dross in their grasp. If one makes a hit, forthwith the others copy; without pausing to reflect whether the novelty was not the principal charm, which will evaporate on repetition. Thus, last Christmas, at the theatre already referred to, a fairy spectacle of extraordinary beauty was brought out, and "ran," as the phrase is, an unusual number of nights, long outliving most of the very middling pantomimes and holiday entertainments elsewhere produced. Easter came, and behold! half-a-dozen other theatres, taking their cue from the lucky Lyceum, came out in the same line. Ambitious scenery, gorgeous decoration, wholesale glitter, and many-coloured fires, dazzled the eye in all directions. "If your voice were as fine as your feathers," said the crafty fox to the cheese-bearing crow, "what a bird you would be!" Were your taste equal to your tinsel, managers of the London theatres, what an improvement there would be in your receipts! Your dress-boxes and your cash-boxes would alike be replenished; and you would no longer have a pretext to indulge in undignified wailings about want of encouragement to native talent, preference given to foreigners, and the other querulous commonplaces with which the public is periodically bored.