Nothing could be better than the acting all round in the new three-act play at the Court. It is distinctly first-rate, and those who want a hearty laugh should proceed to the Court to enjoy it. And yet there is also serious relief, as there should be--light and shade. First there is Miss LOTTIE VENNE, who shows us that she can mingle pathos with comedy, temper smiles with tears. She is as bright as sunshine in the comic scenes, and when she has to say good-bye to her newly-married daughter, she glides from peals of merriment into sobs of sorrow that are intensely touching because they are intensely natural. Then Mr. HAWTREY, in a part that fits him down to the ground (in the Stalls) and up to the ceiling (in the Gallery), is greatly amusing. And he, too, has his more mournful moments. People accustomed to seeing this accomplished actor in butterfly touch-and-go parts would scarcely credit him with the power of becoming pathetically unmanned. And yet so it is. Mr. HAWTREY, indignant at a false accusation emanating from his wife, commences a letter full of angry reproaches, addressed to her solicitors, and gradually forgets everything in his despairing appeal for the love he craves but which he fears he has lost. Nothing better than this has been seen for a long time in a London theatre. Then Mr. GILBERT HARE (inheritor of his father's cleverness) causes roars of laughter by his comical sketch of a man with a cold. But here, again, the mirth is tempered with sympathy. The echo of the "ha, ha, ha," in spite of its inappropriateness, is "Poor fellow!" Mr. THORNE, too, is good, and so is Mr. RIGHTON, and so is everyone concerned. * * * * * FINISHING TOUCHES. ["Canon FURSE said he believed no man's education was complete who did not attend public meetings."--_Daily News._] [Illustration] My classics were not shaky, nor my mathematics weak, My great linguistic fluency enabled me to speak In half-a-dozen languages with quite surprising skill, And yet--I always felt it--there was something lacking still. But, though profoundly conscious of a lingering defect, The cause of imperfection I was puzzled to detect, But Canon FURSE explains it; for I sorrow to relate, I shunned all public meetings, which accounted for my state. Well, over chances past and gone, 'twere idle to shed tears, I'm striving now to rectify the fault of former years, And every afternoon and night I rush from street to street, Endeavouring to make my education more "complete." Where Anti-Vivisectionists their armaments encamp, Where Democrats democratise, and stage-reformers ramp, Where fervent Ulstermen point out that MORLEY is a fool, Where Parnellites insist upon the beauty of Home Rule;