present. As a whole, however, we can commend the "New Sporting Almanack" as built and brought out on the same plan as its two immediate predecessors-sufficient assurance in itself to all who have as yet patronized it-a course that every other sportsman who requires an almanack (and who doesn't?) should hasten to follow.

THE FINE ARTS.

BELL AND HARRY.-A FAVOURITE POINTer and Setter. This is a full-sized, well-finished engraving, from a very good sketch by Spalding. To the owner, and such as have witnessed the performances by "flood and field" of this brace of first favourites, it is no doubt a jewel beyond a price; while the spirited attitudes and expression of the dogs-that of the latter especially-recommend it to all who incline to the stubble, moor, or marsh, as worthy of a place in the drawing-room portfolio, or "the study's,' alias smoky's" side. The plate, engraved by Stubbs, has been brought out by Mr. Ford, of the Strand.

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS.

"Such was the popular favour which they engaged, that in a time of scarcity, when all strangers were banished from the city, the merit of contributing to the public pleasures exempted them (the pantomime personages) from a law which was strictly executed against the professors of the liberal arts."

GIBBON'S ROMAN EMPIRE.

The new year has accomplished its first cycle; one of jubilee to man and child. The pantomimes are great things, in their way, to Londoners. As for country folks, just ask one of them if they would not willingly journey to see them, though their metropolis were pitched in the plains of Khaurism, instead of planted amid railways. The taste for a good pantomime is a classic taste. We have Grecian authority for cultivating it; and the Romans, who took later to it, were even more zealously bent upon encouraging the professors of the mime, by shielding them from any possible let or molestation in the exercise of their calling. Perchance it is the fashion now-a-days to speak of these grand spectacles with contempt. But, for all that, we doubt whether such irreverence reaches further than the tongue. Look at that father and child at Drury Lane, for instance. They have both, by an inconceivable effort of impatient patience, sat out the dulness of "The Daughter of St. Mark:"

"The thing is dull; it was at first

Dull, O, so dull, so very dull!
Whether for song or speech rehearsed,
Still in its dulness is it cursed-

Dull, beyond all description dull."

But here is the pantomime Robinson Crusoe! And the very mo

dels of a Harlequin and Columbine to figure in it! Behold the transformation! How the eyes of the grown-up man brighten! how the muscles of his mouth dilate into breadth and good humour! how suddenly the infectious yawns have been exorcised and laid to sleep! and in their place, lo! grins, broad grins, broader than Cruikshank ever sketched, or Colman penned. Depend on't there's no more bonâ fide contempt of a pantomime in an adult than a juvenile breast.

DRURY LANE has been peculiarly fortunate in securing the services of Wieland as Harlequin, and Miss Carson as Columbine. The latter is supple, light, graceful, and dexterous, quite the poetry of hilarious motion; the freshest, sleekest, cleanest, prettiest Columbine of modern days: the very sylph of frisky, frolicsome dance. And then how audaciously happy is Wieland in his art, how neat and skilful in his jumps and somersets! His limbs are evidently of caoutchouc, and his genius lies in the art of doubling himself up for a leap, as though he were a roll of wire, or a fairy-land Hercules. He is suppleness itself-that Wieland.

"Robinson Crusoe" is not successful as a whole, notwithstanding the excellence of its component parts. The Carribee Indians are de trop in it. There are few hits, that tell, at the times; few jokes that bear cracking, like the pate of Pantaloon. The clown must hide his diminished head after him of Astley's. The love of fisty-cuffs and mischief in the one, of quarrelling in the other, does not reach its proper acmé. We ought to be able to say "Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun." The best hit is the public "Washing Establishment for the Labouring Classes." The best scene the wreck, with Patagonion crabs and Brobdignagian lobsters walking in the fore-ground au naturel.

COVENT GARDEN and the present attempt of its lessee deserve a more lengthy notice than we can give them. The success of so arduous an experiment as that of bringing the Antigone of Sophocles before an English audience could hardly be complete. It is, however, an attempt that has filled the learned with delight, conferred lasting honour on the good taste and enterprise of M. Laurent, and brought an accession of histrionic fame to Mr. Vandenhoff and his daughter, who have both ably, and the latter wonderfully, seconded the design of the translator and musical author, by bestowing so much time and genius in their embodiments of Creon and Antigone. Even the partial success of the endeavour is a glorious manifestation of the sublimity of the Greek mythical drama, whose root clothed in the finest material allegories, lies in the most metaphysical subtleties of human intellect. We wish complete triumph to this regenerated theatre, and the English public would do well to foster the present attempt to restore and add dignity to the drama. The extravaganza of "Harlequin Crotchet and Quaver" gives some stout slaps of the face to the present professors of music for the million and amateurs of song, and furnishes a staple attraction in the persons of Made

tificated acher, and loss of his license by the magistracy in case of his tracking with a certificated one, would have a safe and certain supply from the game-owners (if these at length can be brought to keep and kill game for sport, and not for fashionable slaughter), and therefore no longer any inducement to buy of the poachers, surely the latter must soon be driven out of the field.

The cost of such officers to the Government may be readily defrayed by an increase in the duty on game-certificates. The game has so decreased on all hands when it is not most strictly preserved, that the sportsmen throughout England would rejoice in the additional expense, if such brought back to the open country one-half of the game which existed over it previous to the passing of the present Game Laws. As it is, the fair sportsmen are giving up their guns in all quarters, and the public revenue, in this respect, has fallen off materially the last four years.

I have taken out a game-certificate for more than twenty years, and have been concerned in the prosecution of numerous cases under the Game Laws, so that I have had ample opportunity to witness their practical working; and, from the knowledge thus forced upon me, am emboldened to lay my opinions before the public. My name would add nothing to the weight of those opinions; but I send it you (under cover) in the event of any of your readers wishing to com. municate with me upon the subject of this letter. Peterborough, January 21st, 1845.

BENCRAFT'S PATENT HAMES.

It is the finish of the thing, the careful coupling together of nature and art, the well considered combination of outward appearance and actual utility, that gives us perfection-that general concord which strengthens the passing glance into a fixed look of admiration, or that minor discrepancy which quickly turns it elsewhere in search of something more like comfort and consistency. In all sorts of "turns-out" it is the same, the effect produced mainly depending on the attention paid to these too-often-thought trivial points.

"Fine, showy, dashing girl that, sir!"

"She is, indeed!"

And just as you have made up your mind to follow and see a little more of her, a hole in the stocking, or some such cruel neglect of the unities, meets your horrified gaze. Alas! how it pares down the romance and smothers the full swelling signs of bust and bustle; how it deadens the lustre of a Glaucopis, and amalgamates a pretty pout with a sullen sulk, a languish with laziness, and a freedom from self-conceit with an absence of soap and water!

Semper eadem! here we are again-never mind the lady-but look here!

"Well, certainly, that is good; an equipage that, in these days of

steam-safeties and aërial inventions, a man could hardly expect to see; so neat, so business-like, and still so gentleman-like. The mountings, the pads, winkers, bits, bridles, and horses' coats vieing with each other in shining polish; without, however, an atom of that extra gilt-ginger-bread ornament which lord mayors and dowager ladies so generally delight in. Then observe the owner of this muchto-be-envied team; mark his firm and graceful seat, the knowing knack with which he catches his point, the coolness and skill with which he worms his way through the bustle of Hyde Park Corner, and puts their heads for the park, the quiet confidence of his demeanour so different from vulgar assumption, the clean shirt and the clean shave-aye! not even a moustache or a long mane to mar the effect in so good a specimen of the gentleman-sportsman.' Wouldn't you swear, now, that man knew all that was to be known? and couldn't you conscientiously intrust your wife and family to him in the many dangers of a Derby day? Isn't he”

"Stop a bit! you see he has pulled up suddenly at the top of Rotten-row, and I don't know what you are prepared to affidavit, but I'll take my oath that grey horse, the near-wheeler, has got an awfully galled shoulder."

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O dear, O dear! "the hole in the stocking" again with a vengeance! Shining polish and galled shoulders; grace and ease, and galled shoulders; knowing knacks, quiet confidence, coolness, skill, and galled shoulders; Epsom disasters versus elegant coachmanship, and galled shoulders. There, my good feilow, it's no use saying another word to me, the illusion is destroyed right entirely;' there may be, I dare say, 'a singularly beautiful confirmation of size and symmetry in the chestnut with the white-leg-wonderfully, even matching with all four;' plenty of bone, blood, and-undoubtedly so, bone, blood, and galled shoulders!"

"St-st-st-now he's off again-the grey starts badly, in an agony of torture that may be taken for eagerness; but a strong application of the double thong soon puts all to rights, a good whiphand being a very necessary and consistent accompaniment to a galled shoulder.

Hie! presto! and we sink down to that relic of respectability, the possession of a horse and gig.-"The commercial' yonder, though rather inclined to make a hero of himself, seems an agreeable companion; sings the Ivy Green' in good style; has no particular objection to chicken-hazard, and really drank his bottle of claret, as if he did prefer it to port. A goodish sort of nag he must have, too, if all he tells us is true-Bury St. Edmunds, Newmarket, Cambridge, St. Neot's, Bedford, and Woburn since 7 o'clock this morning!"

"Yes, sir; sixty long miles at least. And here he is as dry and as comfortable as need be, ready for his third feed, and working away at the litter in the meantime; as game a little beggar as ever was collared."

Collared! didn't he seem to shrink at that last word? as, by the bye, does his horse at the approach of John Ostler with that-that horrible mixture of lamp-black and brandy. What the deuce is he going at with it? "The hole in the stocking" once more! the sad

moiselles Adèle and Louise, to those who frequent ballet, and admire opera-dancing.

The HAYMARKET THEATRE proprietary, rejecting the idea of a pantomime as out of fashion, brought out another of those charming burlesques, that seem made expressly for Miss P. Horton and Mr. J. Bland, so excellently do their talents chime in with the graceful mock-heroic diction of these French fairy-tales. The present extravaganza is from the same skilful pen that produced that prettiest of all burlesques, and the most pointed, "The Fair One with the Golden Locks." It is decidedly inferior in composition to that last-named one, yet "Graciosa and Percinet" has merits of its own quite sufficient to attract frequent audiences. No doubt, in the events of the last year there were not many salient points for satire to butt at, nothing new enough to surprise, or absurd enough to jest upon; yet the whole is entertaining, and supremely well sustained by Miss P. Horton, Mr. Bland, Miss Julia Bennett, and Mrs. Glover. The King, greedy of gold, is enacted with ludicrous solemnity by Bland; the fairy, Prince Percinet, the most redoubted of champions and the most amiable of lovers, is personated by Miss P. Horton with the same natural, intelligent grace that always characterizes her; and Miss Julia Bennett is arch and pretty enough for all tastes. All that is put on the stage at this amusing house is done well. There seems an aptness for management in Mr. Webster that is shown in its effect of untiring good humour on the part of his audiences. The moving diorama which follows the comedy is a pleasing one, giving with breadth and distinctness the chief points of interest in the scenery of the Swiss Cantons.

The LYCEUM, under the able management of Mrs. Keeley, progresses in public estimation, notwithstanding a somewhat over-dose of thrift and economy in its ordering. Saving the pantomime of "Valentine and Orson" (a good one, as pantomimes go), there has been little novelty of late to attract mere variety-seekers to these doors. But then Keeley is a host in himself-multum in parvo indeed. There is a certain helpless childishness of tone and manner in his comicality that would move an owl to mirth; and while this little pair, therefore, give us so much sprightly fun out of their own cleverness, audiences will not grumble at a little sameness in the bill of fare.

The latest novelty at the PRINCESS'S THEATRE is worth seeing; it is entitled "Monseigneur in 1720." Wallack is very grand or grandiloquent as its hero. He is just the man to move the sympathies of the class who attend this snug little house. However, operas are more after the fashion, and, successful as Mr. Maddox has been with these from the commencement, he may do well to continue his plentiful provision of Squallini's, good, bad, and indifferent, Signors and Signoras, English versions of real Squallini's, and, as in the case of Mr. Allen, very good versions too. The house is on too small a scale for a pantomime; but "Joe Miller and his Men," a piece of renown, terminates the evening's entertainment, to the satisfaction of the juveniles, at all events. Oxberry is amusing enough in the first affair we mentioned. He is an actor that can be laughed