but be treated with the greatest respect, but still it will be seen that Professor Owen's views as to the nature of the head of the animal, do not coincide with the descriptions given of the form and length of the body annexed to the head of the supposed seal. The absence of any hitherto discovered relics of existing marine Saurians is only negative evidence; as we have before [remarked, the rarity of the animal seems to be one of its greatest peculiarities. The floating of serpents after death, also, only lasts till the gases are disengaged by accident or decomposition. The different circumstances under which the secondary and tertiary, and recent deposits occur, have, also, been alluded to and viewed in another light. It is evident, however, that the nature of the animal of the Daedalus is doomed to be a vexed question, like its predecessors; and under those circumstances, it is to be hoped, that the statement of its having been met with by the crew of an American vessel may turn out to be correct.

Captain M Quhe has also answered the professor, if not in a scientific, certainly in a very sailor-like, straightforward, and, we are inclined to think, satisfactory way in the Times for November the 18th:

Professor Owen correctly states that I " evidently saw a large creature moving rapidly through the water very different from any thing I had before witnessed, neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark, an alligator, nor any other of the larger surface-swimming creatures fallen in with in ordinary voyages." I now assert, neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant, its great length and its totally differing physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a "Phoca" of any species. The head was flat, and not a capacious vaulted cranium;" nor had it "a stiff, inflexible trunk"-a conclusion to which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by the simple statement, that no "portion of the sixty feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation."

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It is also assumed that the "calculation of its length was made under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast ;" another conclusion quite the contrary to the fact. It was not until after the great length was developed by its nearest approach to the ship, and until after that most important point had been duly considered and debated, as well as such could be in the brief space of time allowed for so doing, that it was pronounced to be a serpent by all who saw it, and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispassionately contemplated, at so short a distance too, for the "eddy caused by the action of the deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic seal raising its head above the surface of the water," as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.

The creative powers of the human mind may be very limited. On this occasion they were not called into requisition, my purpose and desire being, throughout, to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exaggerated representations, nor with what could by any possibility proceed from optical illusion: and I beg to assure him that old Pontoppidan having clothed his sea serpent with a mane could not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen from the Daedalus with a similar appendage, for the simple reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his sea serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence between us in that particular in order to unravel the mystery.

Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty, and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific may exercise the "pleasures of imagination" until some more fortunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with the "great unknown"-in the present instance most assuredly no ghost.

THE HABITUE'S NOTE-BOOK.

BY CHARLES HERVEY, ESQ.

"Andremo a Parigi," Persiani, Ronconi-"La Vieillesse de Richelieu," BocageMlle.'s Tooth-Rachel v. Judith-Stars and Regulars-"L'Ile de TohuBohu"-Mlle. Ozy's Diamonds-" Jeanne la Folle," Mlle. Masson at the Salpetrière" Many small Articles make up a Sum."

IN 1716, a company of Italian actors were allowed, as a special favour, to play alternately with the Opera troupe in the theatre which then existed in the Palais Royal. The first printed record of their representations runs as follows:

"In the name of the Lord, of the Virgin Mary, of St. François de Paule, and of the souls in purgatory, we commenced our performances on the eighteenth of May with l'Inganno Fortunato."

In the title of this very pièce d'ouverture, with the simple addition of one letter, we find a most appropriate and ready-made comment on M. Dupin's recent attempt to modernise Rossini at the Salle Ventadour. Whenever "Andremo a Parigi" is performed, M. Vatel's successor has only to peep through the trou du rideau to satisfy himself that his "inganno," in exhuming the soporific "Viaggio a Rheims" from the tomb of the Capulets, and in transfering the terminus of the journey from the city of consecrations to that of barricades-from Rheims to Paris -has been indeed "sfortunato." We are told that we should believe nothing we hear, and only half we see if the latter part of this axiom be correct, the manager of the Italian Opera has no occasion to draw largely on his own stock of credulity, for what he does see in the shape of audience is, like Mr. Handycock's whiting in "Peter Simple," "not worth halving."

Nor-justice avant tout-are either composer or librettiste under any very great obligation to their interpreters; Persiani's singing, indeed, is, as usual, brilliant and sparkling like a firework, fiz, fiz, fiz, every fiz more marvellous than its predecessor; until, when one thinks all is over, out comes the bouquet.

But una voce poco fa, as the same lady is in the habit of trilling in the "Barbière," we might just as reasonably expect one swallow to make a summer as one singer a succès, when hampered by such wet blankets as Morelli (who should have been called Morella, after the cherry, whose teeth-setting-on-edge properties his shakes possess in a remarkable degree), and Arnoux, dit Arnoldi. Poor Persiani!

Que pouvait-elle faire, et seulé, et contre tous ?

As for Ronconi, he knows by this time, and it is a pity he never found it out before, that Lablache is not to be imitated with impunity: le gros de Naples is a privileged individual, and may indulge in lazzi-always regulated as they are by the nicest tact-which in anybody else's mouth appear misplaced and impertinent. He, moreover, has the physique de l'emploi; whereas little Giorgio has nothing droll about him, no one feature legitimately suggestive of mirth or spontaneous humour; his

laugh is a grimace, his very smile a contortion. His merriment, indeed, involuntarily reminds one of Ralph Nickleby's grating chuckle; it is so evidently against the grain.

Why will not so gifted an artiste rest contented with being sublime in tragedy, without vainly puffing himself out in the Icarian hope of attaining ox-like proportions in comedy; and why will he compel me to make a Judy of myself by owning to the authorship of so atrocious a conundrum as the following-à propos to his unlucky personation of the bourgeois in "Andremo a Parigi?"

Why is a certain celebrated baryton like a mistaken rabbit?
Because he's a WRONG coney.

(N.B.-I may be allowed to doubt if Punch's or the Man in the Moon's insanest contributors ever came up to that).

Were any dramatic Belzoni or Mungo Park to search among the répertoires of the twenty-two Parisian theatres (by-the-way, there are twenty-three of them now, the Théâtre St. Marcel having just re-opened, with every reasonable prospect of shutting-up shop again in a month or two), his industry would probably be rewarded by the discovery of some dozen pieces, relating more or less to the career of the celebrated Duc and Maréchal de Richelieu. Perhaps the only one of these which has survived the epoch of its production-and that rather owing to Déjazet than to its own intrinsic worth-is Bayard's lively vaudeville, "Les Premières Armes de Richelieu;" the dramas of Alexandre Duval and Ancelot, "La Jeunesse de Richelieu" and "Richelieu à 80 Ans," having been long since consigned, as relics of antiquity, to the archives of the Théâtre Français (I beg its pardon, de la République), wherein they sleep beneath an inch-thick coat of time-hallowed and venerable dust.

A similar fate-though the exact period of its entombment is yet uncertain-awaits Messrs. Feuillet and Paul Bocage's comedy, or rather imbroglio, entitled "La Vieillesse de Richelieu," just produced at the same theatre with that peculiar attention to scenery, costume, and general getting-up for which "les Comédiens ordinaires du Président (?)” are so deservedly celebrated. Every thing has been done on the most liberal scale; the very best actors of the troupe have lent their aid towards the fitting interpretation of the presumed chef-d'œuvre; Regnier, Delauney, and Mademoiselle Brohan, in their respective characters of a gardener, an amoureux, and an opera-dancer, contributing an inexhaustible store of wit, humour, grace, passion, youth, and piquancy (I have jumbled them all together, like the lady who, having forgotten to punctuate her letter, dotted off a mass of commas and semi-colons at the end, leaving her correspondent to allot them, as the railway people say), and all to little or no purpose. Even Augustine Brohan's bewitching laugh, and the sight of her godly twin-rows of pearly teeth (by-the-way, I'll tell you a story about teeth presently when I have squared accounts with M. le Duc) could not keep the audience from showing their masticators, and yawning comme des bien heureux.

* A wine-merchant would probably apply the term ordinaire to the actors of the Théâtre de la République as follows:-Ligier and Beauvallet, those five-foot heroes of tragedy and drama, would in his estimation be ranked as "du petit ordinaire ;" Brindeau and Maubant, who boast a few inches more in longitude, might each aptly be styled "grand ordinaire ;" while Regnier and Samson alone could have any fair pretensions to the grade of "extra-ordinaire."

Nay, my worthy friend Bocage himself, for whose rentrée the piece, partly written by his nephew, had been specially brought out, encumbered as he was with such a nightmare as the personage of Richelieu, had enough to do to fight his own battle, without troubling his head about Master Paul. However, if he did not succeed in immortalising his kinsman, he, at all events, gained his own cause, and once more proved, as he has invariably done on every successive return to the stage, that the creator of Antony, Buridan, and Jarvis l'Honnéte Homme was still un Bocage toujours vert.

And now to redeem my promise while I think of it, for fear of a lapsus memoriæ. A certain actress, who for the last ten years (I say ten at random, for I cannot afford to be over-particular about dates just now) has combined the professions of artiste dramatique and lorette,and, what is more, found them to work admirably together, had the misfortune a year or two back to lose a front tooth. This loss was the more to be deplored, inasmuch as the said actress's "superior" lip, being naturally of an ambitious turn, has a tendency to curl upwards, thereby disclosing an hiatum valde deflendum, or, in other words, giving an odd appearance to that which should be even.

Mademoiselle -'s looking-glass soon told her that a visit must be paid, and that speedily, either to Stevens, Brewster, Rogers, Fattet, Désirabode, or Guy d'Amour (this last practitioner had not then been taken up as an insurgé), and she was on the point of stepping into her brougham on her way to the Rue Neuve Luxembourg or Rue St. Honoré -no matter which-when a poor, half-starved, little Auvergnat, who had been crouching beneath her porte-cochère, implored "un p'tit sou, pour l'amour de Dieu." Glancing rapidly at the suppliant, Mademoiselle was suddenly struck by the extreme regularity and whiteness of his teeth.

"Sapristi!" she ejaculated, (in her capacity of lorette, Mademoiselle considers herself privileged to indulge in occasional expletives of the kind) "voilà mon affaire! Dis donc, petit, si je t'achetais une de tes dents ?"

"Plâit-il, madame!" stammered out the poor lad, staring like a Fleet turnkey when a prisoner is sitting to him for his "portrait."

"Il me la faut absolument. Je t'en donnerai, voyons, je t'en donnerai cinq cents francs!"

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Chinq chents francs !" exclaimed the Auvergnat, "vrai ?" "Puisque je te le dis."

"Tope!" cried he, "che le veux bien !"

In another hour the transfer was effected, and the dearly-bought treasure securely fixed in its new domicile.

"Elle est un peu plus blanche que les autres," murmured Mademoiselle, on again consulting her mirror; "eh bien, c'est moins monotone, voilà tout.'

"

To return to the Théâtre de la République-which I find as troublesome to get rid of to-day as Sindbad did the Old Man of the Sea-I must, at the risk of encountering a pinch for stale news (more Etona) say a word or two about a matter which has been for some time playing "l'enfer et le petit Thomas" (as a Frenchman once rendered a rather questionable phrase current in certain of our own circles) in the foyer and coulisses of la Comédie Française. The facts are simply these :Dec.-VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CCCXXXVI.

2 N

:

One of the minor stars of this theatre, Mademoiselle Judith, after serving her apprenticeship as pensionnaire for nearly two years, lately chose to imagine-rightly or wrongly-that she had fairly earned promotion to the rank of sociétaire, her claim to advancement being strongly supported by the Commissaire des Beaux Arts, M. Charles Blanc, brother of infinitesimal little Louis. Mademoiselle Rachel, however, thought otherwise, and so did M. Lockroy, the then manager of the theatre, and Mademoiselle Judith's application was flatly refused. Thereupon both parties set to work in good earnest; nothing was heard of in literary and dramatic circles but the great Jewish question, Felix v. Bernat--Rachel v. Judith: the patriotic rivalries of Kossuth and Jellachich, those lions of the day, or rather hour, for, since February, almost every hour has given birth to a new one-sank at once into insignificance before the feuds of Hermione and la Fille d'Honneur.

M. Sénard, then Minister of the Interior, being called on to unravel this Gordian knot, preferred cutting it, Alexander-fashion, by quietly relieving M. Lockroy of his managerial responsibilities. On this Mademoiselle Rachel immediately sent in her resignation, and Mademoiselle Judith, having been officially informed that her claim was inadmissible, removed herself, trunks and bandboxes, from the Rue Richelieu, and accepted an engagement at the Vaudeville, consoling herself with the ower true saying,

Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier.

The sociétaires, however, in despair at Rachel's departure, and fearing lest she might transfer her throne from Paris to St. Petersburg, bethought themselves of invoking in self-defence Napoleon's famous Moscow decree, according to the terms of which, any member of their society, who should voluntarily cease to be such, could in no case again appear on any stage, either in France or elsewhere. All this time it was reported that the fair deserter had taken refuge at Pisa, that sultry solitude, thinlypeopled by poitrinaires and galley-slaves, which Měry so felicitously styles "une ville dégoutée du monde, et qui s'est retirée à la campagne. Such a step, which in the present volcanic state of Italy might, in more senses than one, have been termed a Pise aller, appears never to have been seriously meditated by Mademoiselle Rachel, who, while she was supposed to be skimming the Mediterranean in the Veloce, or toiling up Mont Cenis in a caleche de voyage, was tout bonnement within half-adozen miles of the Paris fortifications, in her little snuggery at Villa Nuova.

How matters may end I do not pretend to foresee; it is, however, evident that the Comédie Française can no more afford to do without Mademoiselle Rachel than Mademoiselle Rachel without the Comédie Francaise; the motive of their mutual dependence on each other originating in the famous device, adopted by Belgium and by the Bundle of Sticks Club at Lewes-" Union is Strength." A reconciliation, therefore, sooner or later, will probably be brought about, and a very reasonable sine quâ non on the part of the actress will be the immediate re-nomination of M. Lockroy as director. Authors, actors, and the public in general, will concur in applauding so just and recommendable a measure. It will, moreover, be but an amende honorable on the part of those who advocated the dismissal of this excellent manager, if, applying to their