In the less immediate past, dialogue-writing after the fashion of the witty and audacious Syrian was not very frequently adventured. Just twenty years ago some writer or writers supplied to a weekly miscellany a few imaginative conversations between deceased worthies; but these were not particularly brilliant. They were in verse--in the heroic couplet, to which a good deal of point might have been imparted; but advantage was not taken of the opportunity. There was one 'dialogue' in which Shakespeare, Thackeray, and a critic were supposed to be engaged, and in the course of which Thackeray was made to say to the critic: 'Don't crack your jokes, but flit.' To which the critic: 'Your pardon, sir; I took you for a wit.' To which Thackeray again: 'Did you, indeed? Then, compliments to pass, I took you just for what you are--an ass.' But this, which one hesitates to pronounce Thackerayan, was surely even trite. However, these dialogues at least remind us of what English society was saying and doing in the year of grace 1868. Thus, Thackeray tells Shakespeare that his dramas are played but scarcely acted: 'For I won't deny That people now are tickled through the eye. No one to thought a deep attention lends, And if a play's successful it depends Far less upon the language than the scene.' Again, in another colloquy, Meyerbeer informs Mozart that 'The "Traviata" and the "Trovatore" Of "Il Barbiere" have eclipsed the glory. As Margarita Patti fills the stage, And Marta sung by Nilsson is the rage.'