Mr. BEERBOHM TREE, who has become lessee of the Haymarket, has commenced his management by producing a one-act romantic play, called _The Ballad Monger_, a version (capitally adapted by the two WALTERS--POLLOCK and BESANT) of M. THEODORE DE BANVILLE'S _GRINGOIRE_. I remember the same piece was "done into English" some twenty years ago at a Gaiety _matinee_, when the translator, Mr. ALFRED THOMPSON, appeared himself as the principal character, with the probably unlooked-for result of shelving the drama, so far as London was concerned, from that distant date until last Thursday evening. However, the _motif_ of the play is pretty well known. _Gringoire_, a revolutionary "Poet of the People," with the connivance of _Louis the Eleventh_ of France, is induced to recite an anti-Royalist song in His Majesty's presence, and is then promised his forfeited life by the same amiable sovereign if he can woo, and win, a maiden who has never set eyes on him before, within a quarter of an hour. In the scene at the Haymarket a table is discovered spread with a meal (I could not quite make out from the text whether it was intended to represent breakfast, dinner, supper, or tea), including some wine, a few grapes, and a freshly-cooked goose redolent of savoury perfumes. Mr. BEERBOHM TREE is the poet, and were his method of performance only equal to his power of imagination, he would be very good indeed. Unhappily his excellent ideas are not carried fully into action, and consequently, after seeing him for forty minutes, or thereabouts, sniffing at a property goose, staggering about the stage with a wine-cup, and declaiming poetry of unequal merit to Miss MARION TERRY, one feels that the piece could only have "a happy ending" were _Gringoire_ to be carried away for immediate execution. It is a little unfortunate, too, that the maiden to be wooed and won should be the charming actress I have just mentioned. Miss MARION TERRY, in a "piece of absurdity" called _Engaged_, made a great hit some years ago by appearing as a young lady with a chronic appetite for food, that she was for ever seeking to satisfy. Since then I have always looked upon her as one craving for her meals. Consequently when I found her within easy reach of a goose and in an atmosphere of herbs of a savoury character, it seemed unnatural to me that she should deliberately turn her back upon all these good things to listen to Mr. TREE'S poetically (but lengthily) expressed views upon liberty. I could but wonder why her choice had not fallen upon the goose on the table. Mr. BROOKFIELD as _Louis the Eleventh_, incidentally suggests that that wily monarch was guilty of a crime with which he has not hitherto been credited--a proneness to give imitations of Mr. IRVING in the character of _Mephistopheles_. For the rest, the piece itself is most interesting, is capitally staged, and in the subordinate characters, fairly acted. In the _Red Lamp_, which followed the _Ballad Monger_, Mrs. TREE appeared