Since Miss FLORENCE WARDEN'S _House on the Marsh_, says the Baron, I have not read a more exciting tale than the same authoress's _Pretty Miss Smith_. It should be swallowed right off at a sitting, for if your interest in it is allowed to cool during an interval, you may find it a little difficult to get up the steam to the high-pressure point necessary for the real enjoyment of a sensational story. THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS. * * * * * SILENT SHAKSPEARE. DEAR MR. EDITOR, The great success that has attended the production of _L'Enfant Prodigue_ at the Prince of Wales's Theatre has encouraged me to make a suggestion in the cause of English Art. Why not SHAKSPEARE in dumb show? The Bard himself introduced it in "The Play Scene." Allow me to suggest it thus:-- SCENE--_A more remote part of the Platform in Elsinore Castle. Enter_ GHOST; _then_ HAMLET. _Hamlet_ (_in dumb show_). "Where wilt thou lead me? Speak!" (_In dumb show._) "I'll go no further." _Ghost, by kissing his hand towards the horizon, shows that his hour is almost come, when he is bound to render himself to sulphurous and tormenting flames. The latter part of his description is composed of his shrinking about the stage, as if suffering from intense heat._ _Hamlet buries his face in his hands, and sobs pitifully, expressing_ "Alas, poor Ghost!" _Ghost repudiates compassion by turning up his nose, and throwing forward his hands; and then, by pointing from his mouth to his ear, demands_ HAMLET'S _serious attention._ _Hamlet touches his own lips, points to_ GHOST, _slaps his heart, and bows, intimating that the_ GHOST _is to_ "Speak!" _and he is_ "bound to hear." _Ghost explains that he is his father's spirit by stroking_ HAMLET'S _face, and then his own, and then shrinks about the stage to weird music, descriptive of his prison-house. He concludes by appealing to_ HAMLET'S _love for him by pressing his clasped hands to his own heart, and then pointing towards the left-hand side of his son._ _Hamlet jerks his hands passionately upwards, as if saying_, "Oh Heaven!" _Ghost then asks for revenge by touching his dagger, and pointing towards the sky. He acts the murder in the garden, showing the serpent who stung him by gliding about the stage on his chest, like the boneless man. He shows his murderer to be of his own blood by walking up and down as himself, and then in the same way, but with a slight limp, as if he were his brother._ _Hamlet might here exhibit_ "_Zadkiel's Almanack" as_ "prophetic," _and slap the sole of his shoe for_ "soul;" _for_ "my Uncle" _it would be sufficient to produce a pawnbroker's ticket_:--"Oh my prophetic soul! Mine Uncle!"