LIBERTY AND LICENCE.--It is said that _The Maske of Flowers_ would never have drawn gold on Monday last to the coffers of that excellent charity, the Convalescent Home at Westgate-on-Sea had not one of the Prominent Performers consented to become the responsible and actual Manager of the "Theatre Royal, Inner Temple." By the terms of his licence he was bound, amongst other things, to see that no smoking was permitted in the auditorium, no exhibition of wild beasts was allowed on the premises, and no hanging took place from the flies. It is satisfactory to learn (that, in spite of many Benchers being present) none of these wholesome regulations were infringed. It is true that the Music of the _Maske_ was duly executed, but then this painful operation was conducted (by Mr. PRENDERGAST) from the floor of the building, and not from its roof. Thus the orders of the LORD CHAMBERLAIN were strictly observed by a Barrister, who can now claim to have been Manager of a genuine Temple of the Drama. * * * * * A REMINDER.--Mr. EDMUND B.V. CHRISTIAN, in _Baily's Magazine_, quoted by the _P.M.G._ last Thursday, complains "that cricket, the most popular of games, fills so small a space in literature." Does he forget that CHARLES DICKENS devoted one entire Christmas Book to _The Cricket on the Hearth_? * * * * * LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS. NO. I.--TO SOCIAL AMBITION. DEAR SIR, OR MADAM, I trust you will observe and appreciate the discreet ambiguity of style with which I have chosen to address you. I may assure you at once that I have done this not without considerable thought. For, though I have often watched you in the exercise of your energies, I have never yet been able to satisfy myself as to whether I ought to class you amongst our rougher sex, or include you in the ranks of those who wear high heels, and very low dresses. Sometimes you fix your place of business in a breast adequately covered by a stiff and shining shirt-front and a well-cut waistcoat. Sometimes you inhabit the expansive bosom of a matron. Nor do you confine yourself to one class alone out of the many that go to the composition of our social life. You have impelled grocers to ludicrous pitches of absurdity; you have driven the wife of a working-man to distraction because her neighbour's front room possesses a more expensive carpet, of a sprucer pattern than her own. Clerks have suffered acutely from your stings, and actresses have spent many a sleepless night under your malign influence. You have tortured Dukes on the peaks of gracious splendour where they sit enthroned as far above common mortals as they ought to be above the common feeling of envy; and you have caused even Queens to writhe because there happened to be a few stray Empresses in the world. [Illustration]