So our audiences would decidedly prefer to have the _roles_ of _Lady Henry_ and _The Marquise de Rio Zares_ (with her wearisome iteration about "Don ALVA," and played with rather too much accentuation by Lady MONCKTON) reduced to the smallest possible algebraic expression. Mr. BANCROFT was the same _Count Orloff_ as he was years ago on the little stage of the old Prince of Wales's Theatre; his action more deliberate than when he was younger and more impetuous; his pauses for meditation longer by a thought or so than of yore; while in his tone and manner there was just a delicately-deepened colouring of the genuine original Bancroftian "Old Master." To Mr. BANCROFT, resuscitating our old courtly friend _Count Orloff_ (now _Count Orl-on-again_), I would address the once well-known line from "_Woodman, spare that Tree_"-- "Touch not a single _bow_!" [Illustration: "Three Men in a boat."] ARTHUR CECIL, too, as _Baron Stein_, excellent, _cela va sans dire_; yet, somehow, his effects now seem to me to be laid on with too broad a brush, especially in the scene of his last appearance, where he makes a sly, and, for the _Baron Stein_, a rather over-elaborated and farcical attempt to recapture the letter he has just given up. FORBES ROBERTSON is good from first to last as the very weak-knee'd _Julian Beauelere_, sufficiently emotional in the strong situations, and never better than when the character itself is at its weakest; that is, in the one great scene with his wife. The _Algie Fairfax_, of Mr. GILBERT HARE, was natural where the authors have allowed him to be natural, and best, therefore, in the last Act, where he has become a responsible personage in a diplomatic office. The "three-men-in-a-difficulty" scene went as well as ever, though, on the whole, played far too slowly, and with so much "suppressed force," that the celebrated "_Monsieur! a vos ordres!_" when _Orloff_ suddenly breaks out into "the language of diplomacy," did not electrify the house. On the contrary, the audience took it very quietly, awaiting with some curiosity the interference of _Henry Beauclerc_. And it was at this point that the services of Mr. JOHN HARE in this character were invaluable. Never had his crisp incisive style produced more marked effect. It is a pity that in the Third Act, which being the weak point of the play requires all the strength of the actor to be seriously employed, Mr. HARE should have given a very light comedy, nay, even a farcical touch to his treatment of the "business" of sniffing the perfume--when he is literally "on the scent"--and to the momentous situation of his interview with _Zicka_. "_Maintenant a nos deux!_" Odd that, in his treatment of the strength of the scent, SARDOU should have shown the feebleness of his methods. Yet so it is. The play, at this point, being practically played out, he carelessly chucks the puppets into a corner. He has made his great scenes, and there's an end of it; let the weakest go to the wall.