In a drama like ‘The Dead Heart,’ music forms a fitting accompaniment furnishing colour and appropriate illustration. It is almost uninterrupted from beginning to end. M. Jacobi of the Alhambra furnished some effective, richly-coloured strains to ‘The Dead Heart,’ alternately gay and lugubrious. More, however, might have been made of the stirring ‘Marseillaise,’ which could have been treated in various disguises and patterns as a sort of _Leitmotiv_, much as Litolf has done in his symphonic work on the same subject. A Scotch play—an adaptation of ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’—was now prepared by Mr. Herman Merivale, a dramatist of much poetical feeling, but whose course was marked by piteous and disastrous incidents. Buoyed up by the encouragement and admiration of his friends, and of kindly critics who found merit in all he did, he struggled on in spite of miserable health and a too highly-strung nervous temperament. His work showed refinement and elegance, but it was more for the reader than the playgoer. A gleam of prosperity, however, came when Mr. Toole began to figure in the writers grotesque pieces, ‘The Don,’ and others—to which, indeed, the author’s wife had contributed some share. The new piece, which was called ‘Ravenswood,’ had lain long in the manager’s cabinet, where at this moment repose a number of other MSS., “commanded” and already purchased, from the pens of Wills, Frank Marshall, and others. The latter had fashioned Robert Emmett into a picturesque figure, the figure and bearing of the manager having no doubt much that suggested the Irish patriot; but the troubled period of Land Leagues and agrarian violence set in at the time of its acceptance with an awkward _à propos_.[51] There is a character, indeed, in which, as the tradition runs, he formerly made almost as deep an impression as in ‘The Bells.’ This was Bill Sikes, and we can conceive what a savagery he would have imparted to it. It would seem to be exactly suited to his powers and to his special style; though of course here there would be a suggestion of Dubosc. With Miss Terry as Nancy here would be opened a realm of squalid melodrama, and “Raquin-like” horrors. There are other effective pieces which seem to invite the performance of this accomplished pair. Such, for instance, is the pathetic, heartrending ‘Venice Preserved.’ Though there might be a temptation here for the scenic artist—since Venice, and its costumes, etc, would stifle the simple pathos of the drama. ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ has been often suggested and often thought of, but it has been effectively done at this theatre by another company. ‘The Jealous Wife’—Mr. and Mrs. Oakley—would also suit well. There is ‘The Winter’s Tale,’ and finally ‘Three Weeks after Marriage’—one of the most diverting pieces of farcical comedy that can be conceived.