:F U iN.


[DECEMBER 7, 1861.


 COMMENCEMENT OF THE LONDON SEASON.




 PAN AT THE PLAY.
 WELLT, MR. CHARLES MATITEWS and his clever partner have started
 their entertainment with every prospect of a brilliant success. It is
 strikingly unlike every previous exhibition of the kind, and is, I think,
 a great improvement on the best of them. MR. MATrIEWs does not
 rely on the rapidity with which he changes his dress and wig, he
 depends more upon the exhibition of 'character," and a lively de-
 scription of his doings, "the battles, sieges, fortunes he has passed,"
 even from "his boyish days." He starts with his birth, and gives his
 audience a panoramic picture of his whole life. In the illustration of
 various phases of his chequered existence, he is ably assisted by
 SM31s. MATl :ES, whoso energy throughout the entertainment is un-
 flag-ing, and whoso impersonation of a regular Yankee gal" is fully
 s1eal to anything ever done by MRS. BARNEY WILLIAMS or MRS.
 FiloniaiXCE. I should advise MR. MATHEWS to excise all that portion
 of the entertainment which reveals somewhat painfully his Lancaster
jail experiences. Audiences go to see CHARLES MATHEWS to be
made laugh; and at a cheery banquet of this nature the skeleton is a
guest we can very well do without. Her Majesty's Concert Room, as
the elegant theatre in which the "At Home" is given is termed, has
been crowded nightly since the commencement, and will be so as
long as the popular couple choose to keep the doors open.
 Court Cards at the Olympic is not a particularly sparkling comedy,
Iut it is intricate in plot and not too long. MR. PALGRAVE SIMPSON
has taken the groundwork from the French, but has materially altered,
and indeed improved, the original.
 The Peep o' Day, which Mr. FALCONEIp has very sensibly compressed
and consequently improved, is attracting large audiences nightly, the
" quarry" scene producing an excitement amounting toa "sensation."
By the way, this word is becoming a terrible nuisance; what with
sensation melodramas, jigs, goats, divines, burlesques, and "headers,"
it is rapidly assuming a tyrannical position in the English language.
It is a phrase borrowed from America, and, like most of their
theatrical importations, we see and hear a good deal too much of it;


I


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 always excepting Miss AVONIA JONES, who is, as I have before re-
 marked, the "genuine article."
 A burlesque depending on the mirthfulness of its dialogue was
 certainly an experiment on the great stage of Drury Lane, but liss
 Eily O'Connor, a per-version of the Colleen Bazun, was a great success,
 and Miss LoUISA KEELEY and MR. ATKINS especially distinguished
 themselves as Miles and Eily.
 PAN is enabled to enlighten his readers as to the Christmas novelties
 and their writers. The Drury Lane and Sadler's Wells Christmas pieces
 will be written by IMR. BLANCHARD ; the Lyceum, by MR. LEICESTER
 BUCKINGHA'n; the Olympic, by Ma. BURNAND; the Strand and
 Princess's, by MR. H. J. BYRON; the St. James's, by MR. W. BRoUGI ;
 and Covent Garden by MR. MADDISON MORTON. For the next month the
 above-named gentlemen will pass feverish nights in "bowers of per-
 petual joy" and glens of gloom;" they will have the nightmare in
 the shape of a remorseless stage-manager, who will fiercely demand
 "thirty more lines to enable them to set that 'cut wood;'" and
 ecstatic visions of applauding thousands will not appear to be a
 sufficient compensation for the agony endured when the good fairy
 keeps the stage waiting, or that marvellous magic tree refuses to do
 anything but stick. Of course the Soho (I beg its pardon, the New
 Royalty) will, as usual, have "the best pantomime in London;" and
 at the City of London, MR. NELSON Lee will produce, with unpre-
 cedented effects, his eighteen hundred and sixty-second Christmas
 piece.


 COUNTRY THEATRICALS.
 From Provincial Correspondents.
 BRADFORD.-The lessee of our pretty little theatre has engaged, at
 an enormous salary, CHOWCUDDER BOBAJEE LOLL, the eminent
 Affghanistan tragedian, who will make his deb-t this evening in the
 character of Othello. It is rumoured that his personation of the
 jealous Moor will be characterized by several important innovations.
 Among other improvements, the business of the last scene will be
 entirely remodelled, Othello stabbing Desdemona, and eventually
 smothering himself with her pillow.
 BEDDGELERT.-A thrilling spectacle will, in the course of a day or
 two, be presented to the fortunate residents in the vicinity of this
 picturesque spot. M. BLONDIN, the eminent rope-walker, has
 announced his intention to walk along a rope stretched from the
 summit of Snowdon to that of the neighboring giant, Cader-idris.
 When half way between the two mountains, he will suddenly appear
 to lose his balance, and, throwing away his pole, he will fall headlong
 towards the earth, a distance of 3,000 feet. When within a foot or so
 of terra firma, his course will be suddenly arrested by a stout line
 tied round his ankle, and communicating with the main rope. With
 the assistance of this line he will re-ascend, and conclude his perilous
journey. The public will thus have an opportunity of thoroughly
enjoying all the thrilling horror of a hideous accident, without being
shocked by any unnecessary display of blood or broken limbs.
 BULLOCKSMITHY.-We understand that a sensation drama of the most
powerful manufacturing interest is about to be produced at this
theatre. The piece is said to abound with situations of the most
thrilling description. One of the scenes, the exterior of the shaft of
an iron-farnace, will be especially exciting. In this scene the villain
of the piece and his rival engage in a desperate struggle at the very
mouth of the shaft. The rival is eventually precipitated, head fore-
most, into the blazing furnace, and is poured out at the base, in the
shape of unrecognisable slag. The last scene takes place in a railway
tunnel. Two heavy villains have enticed the heroine into the tunnel
under the pretence that the hero of the piece (to whom she is secretly
married, but whom she has not seen for years) will be there to meet
her. The villains are about to murder the unhappy girl, in order to
obtain possession of her marriage certificate, when, providentially,
two excursion trains on the same line, but driving at full speed from
opposite directions, come into collision on the spot, killing the two
villains, besides about three hundred passengers. At this moment
the tunnel falls in, and the lover and other characters, who have
been celebrating a village feast on a spot immediately above the
scene of the collision, apd also the heroine's father, who happened to
be passing at the time, are precipitated head-foremost into the gulf.
The hero and heroine, thus ingeniously brought together, confess
their union to the father of the latter, and implore his pardon. The
parental blessing will bring the piece to a strikingly novel but highly
satisfactory conclusion.

 BETIREMfENT.--MR. DISRAELI, tired of public life, has, it is reported,
taken the veil-of Aylesbury, Oxfordshire.