Well, I've not _said_ much, but I've thought the more: If I were fulsome in your praise, why, "Drat it!" you'd Most probably remark, or "What a bore!" So, therefore, please between the lines explore-- 'Twas _you_ who bade me thus descend to platitude! * * * * * 'ARRY says he was "much interested in 'earing of a nartickle in the _St. James's Gazette_ last week, 'eaded _The 'Aunt of the Otter_. He 'opes the writer will next give us _The Uncle of the Coolie_." * * * * * OPERATIC NOTES. [Illustration] _Saturday._--Production of _Harold_. New Opera; music by COWEN, book by Sir E. MALET, British Representative man in service of Foreign Office, writing words for diplomatic, and words for musical notes. However good-tempered a composer may be, yet when he wants to write an opera he cannot get on without "having words." No time left to give full criticism on _Harold_, which achieved sufficient success to satisfy composer and librettist; it may be as well to state that there is nothing "old" in it, except in last syllable of name. Years ago favourite subject with artists was "the finding of the body of HAROLD." Sir EDWARD has found body; COWEN clothed it. ALBANI is its life and soul. Composer conducted. May probably be heard again this season; so no more at present. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. My Baronite, constitutionally credulous, on reading the earlier works of JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, accepted the masculinity of the author as put forward on the title page. On reading _The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham_ (HENRY & CO.), he begins to doubt. No man, not the weakest-minded amongst us, habitually uses italics in writing a book. Moreover, none but a woman could draw such a creature as _Mrs. Anne Warre_. The more generous masculine nature could not imagine anything so unrelievedly undesirable. Doubtless she is made so bad the more strikingly to compare with _Allegra_, "whose charm was the charm of springtime and love, all the kind promises of the sunshine, the life, the tenderness, the warmth, the graciousness of nature." The book, the most ambitious, and, in point of length, the most important, that has come from the pen of JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, is marked by her gift of keen observation, that sees everything and sees through most people. Dialogue and narrative sparkle with felicitous turns, bubble over with epigram. There are boundless possibilities in JOHN OLIVER HOBBES; but she should turn her face more persistently to the sunlight. _Dr. Warre_ and _Allegra_ are so good and so pleasant, that the average reader would like a little more of them, and a little less of the almost impossible _Mrs. Warre_.