Our visitor has been' unable to accept the many theatre invitations extended to hims Lyceum with his excellent mia; would, Sir Henry Irving were he playing at the doubtless be able to press a box for acceptance on the Eastern ambassador. Apropos of Irving, his son's marriage the other day to Miss Dorothy Baird, the "'Trilby" of a several months' London production, has given the distinguished actor much satisfaction. He came on to town from a provincial holiday to grace the ceremony, and he beamed on the assembled guests wien signing the register in his cabalistic and.
The Istest London book talked of in the theatrical world is the work of Clement
journey round the world a few years Soot, the Telegraph's dramatic criti, whose ago: made him familiar with China' and its residents both English and Chinese. This book is a collected form of Mr. Scott's published dramatic essays on Sir Henry from The Bells in November, 1871, to King Arthur in January, 1895. Thirty-eight ae have been produced during this period of what may be called an epoch: making time in the drama. Mr, Scott is more than a critic, he is an essayist on the annals of the stage. It is not over-praise to call Mr. Scott the Hazlitt of to-day. A few years ago Irving and Wilson Barrett held the London public at their feet. Mr. Barrett had his following in the classic drama, as well as in melodrama, and Trying had his Shakespearean and "up-to-date" drama, audiences. Once more Wilson Barrett is in London after many travels across sea and land, and his public have remained his faithful friends, receiving him with enthusiasm from the first night of his re-appearance until now. Nine months he has played The Sign of the Cross, and the numbers who crowd to the Lyric Theatre seem to increnso rather than decrease. The play will eventually tour the world, and be played in varying tongues. The Intest suggestion is to produce it in the Finnish language which is a mixture of many dialects. Mr. Barrett has such faith in the play that he is about to put it into bool form, having each one of his mal companies sell the book in the lobbies of theatres where they. play, in America as well as England. Meantime the Daughters of Babylon is put aside for rehearsal later on, for as yet there is no flagging in the interes in the Sign of the Crass. It has held its own all this hot summer when other houses one by one have closed their doors, until autumn. Theatres after London's fashionable season are not patronised as a rule, people preferring oxhibitions where they can sit out in the cool air and listen to bands playing and fountains plashing in the electric light, It is curious though how some of the dramatic houses in the metropolis which have histories are still patronised. Of these, the oldest in London jis that outcome of the 't Merry 'Monarch's" (Charles the Second) music house, in North London, known as Sadler's Wells 'Theatre. The "Wells" are no more. That excellent tonic water dispensed' in a shadowy past by the monks of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, exists now only in the records of dead days, for in 1764 the well was covered over, to give place to the foundation stones of a theatre. The first managers were King, of Drury Lane, Charles Dibdin and sons, and then Phelps and Greenwood, who made here an abiding. place for "the legit Phelps played Hamlet for the longest run then known, and the Grimaldis for three generations left their hall mark," so to The Grimaldis live in the yousiger genera:
ik, on: the ancient temple of Thespis.
tion as having given the name' Clown" to a near-by public house. And such is fame! How few of these youngsters know that Grimaldi made his amusement mark on the time! This summer, after many. viciss issitudes, the old square ugly house with its blind alley branching off,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.