As for the Second Act, with its Royal Drawing-room scene, its splendid costumes, and its mimicry of Court etiquette, have we not witnessed a similar spectacle on a larger scale in a Drury Lane Pantomime, not so very many years ago? And was not that arranged by the same artistic stage-manager, who is now, by a wise dispensation of theatrical providence, in command at the Savoy, yclept Mr. CHARLES HARRIS? I fancy the Drury Lane Pantomime had the best of it in point of broad fun, as, if I remember right, HERBERT CAMPBELL was the Queen, and HARRY NICHOLLS the King. Before this scene is the principal hit of the Second Act, when the King, Mr. BARRINGTON,--to whom author and composer are under considerable obligations for the success of the piece, and without whose acting, dancing, and singing the entertainment would fare indifferently well,--with his counsellors, an admiral, a Lord Chamberlain, and so forth, place their chairs in a row, and detaching from the back of each seat a musical instrument, turn themselves into a St. James's ("Hall" not "Court") Christy Minstrel Company, Unlimited, of which Mr. BARRINGTON, as the _Mr. Johnson_, is the life and soul. Is this the remarkably original creation of the united intellects of Messrs. GILBERT and SULLIVAN? Have they ever heard of, or did either of them ever see a burlesque entitled _Black Eye'd Susan_ at the Royalty, which ran a long way over six hundred nights, and in later days was revived at the Opera Comique and elsewhere? I will quote from the _Times_' notice of that burlesque:-- "The court-martial arranged after the fashion of the Christy's orchestra, every admiral being dressed in a colour corresponding to his title, an actual 'nigger' figuring as Admiral of the Black, is another odd device which keeps the audience in a roar." And it is this "odd device," with a Lord Chancellor, if I remember right, or some legal luminary in black, for one of the "corner men," which is, after all is said, sung, and done, just the one thing (of the two in the show) that brings down the house, and is applauded to the echo as the outcome of the combined whimsical originality of Messrs. GILBERT and SULLIVAN! Imitation being the sincerest flattery, the author of _Black Eye'd Susan_ must be indeed gratified by this tribute to his original success paid by the librettist and the composer of _Utopia_, and having no further use for this particular bit of humour, he will, no doubt, be willing to make a present of it, free of charge, for nightly use, to the distinguished Savoyards as a practical congratulation to the pair of them on their return to the scene of some of their former triumphs.