When the actor took his benefit at the close of this laborious season, the theatre presented an opera-house appearance, and was filled to overflowing with a miscellany of brave men and fair women, the latter arrayed in special splendour and giving the whole an air of rich luxury and magnificence befitting the handsomest and best-appointed theatre in the kingdom. Bouquets of unusual brilliancy and dimensions were laid in position, clearly not brought for the enjoyment of the owners. The entertainment consisted of the stock piece of ‘The Bells.’ Mr. Toole performed Mr. Hollingshead’s farce, ‘The Birthplace of Podgers,’ a happy subject, which shows that the “germ” of the æsthete “business” existed twenty years ago. The feature of the night was the well-known scene from ‘The Hunchback,’ in which Modus is so pleasantly drawn into making a declaration. Sheridan Knowles is often ridiculed for his sham Elizabethan situations; yet it may be doubted if any living writer could treat this incident with such freshness or so naturally. It is a piece of good, wearing stuff, and will wear even better. When the scene drew up, the handsome curtains, festooned in rich and abundant folds, revealed a new effect, throwing out, by contrast, the pale greenish-tinted scene, and heightening the light so that the two figures were projected on this mellow background with wonderful brilliancy. Miss Terry’s performance was full of animation and piquancy. Most remarkable, indeed, was the new store of unexpected attitudes and graces revealed at every moment—pretty stoopings, windings, sudden half turns, inviting “rallyings”—so that even a Modus more insensible to her advances must have succumbed. But in truth this wonderful creature “adorns all she touches.” It is clear that there is a Jordan-like vein of comedy in her yet to be worked. Irving’s Modus was full of a quaint earnestness, and his air of helplessness in the hands of such a mistress was well maintained. Modus is generally made to hover on the verge of oafishness, so as to make it surprising that there should be any object in gaining such a being. Irving imparted a suitable air to it, and lifted the character into pure comedy. At the end came the expected speech, delivered with a pleasant familiarity, and dwelling on past successes and future plans. As in the case of another Premier, announcement was made of “improvement for tenants” in the pit and boxes, who were to have more room—to be “rooted,” if not to the soil, in their places at least. It was a pleasant and remarkable season to look back upon: the enchanting ‘Cup,’ which lingers like a dream, or lotus-eating fancy; the ‘Corsican Brothers,’ so sumptuously mounted; the splendid ‘Othello,’ the meeting of the American and the English actor on the same stage, and their strangely opposed readings of the same characters.