On July 1, 1887, the manager of the Lyceum performed one of those many kindly, graceful acts with which his name is connected—an act done at the right moment, and for the suitable person. He gave his theatre to benefit a veteran dramatist, Dr. Westland Marston, who in his day had been associated with the classical glories of the stage, and had written the interesting ‘Wife’s Secret’ for Charles Kean. As he now told the audience from the stage, fifty years had elapsed since he had written his first piece for Macready. The committee formed was a most influential one, and comprised the names of such eminent _littérateurs_ as Browning, Alfred Austin, E. W. Gosse, William Black, Wilkie Collins, Gilbert, Swinburne, Tennyson, and many more. The performance was an afternoon one, and the play selected was Byron’s ‘Werner,’ written “up to date,” as it is called, by Frank Marshall. New scenery and dresses had been provided, though the actor did not propose giving another representation. He, however, intended to perform it on his approaching American tour. It must be said that the play gave little satisfaction, and was about as lugubrious as ‘The Stranger,’ some of the acts, moreover, being played in almost Cimmerian gloom. What inclined the manager to this choice it would be difficult to say. He has rather a _penchant_ for these morosely gloomy men, who stalk about the stage and deliver long and remorseful reviews and retrospects of their lives. The audience, however, sympathizes, and listens with respectful attention. ‘Werner’ was to illustrate once more the conscientious and laborious care of the manager in the production of his pieces. He engaged Mr. Seymour Lucas to furnish designs for the dresses, who drew his inspirations from an old volume of etchings of one “Stefano della Bella” in 1630. So patiently _difficile_ is our manager in satisfying himself, that it is said the dresses in ‘Faust’ were made and re-made three times before they were found satisfactory. In this case all the arms of antique pattern, the dresses, quaint head-dresses, and the like, even down to the peculiar buttons of the period, were made especially in Paris under Auguste’s superintendence.