The " retired humourist" has emerged from his retirement and produced a now fairy play at the Garrick Theatre, called the" Fuiry's Dilemma.". His old vein of today-tury humour proves as rich as ever, and the piece is a great success, though not quite an unequivocal snee Some of the critics complain that is a Savoy comic opera without the music, and that the elaboration of Bab Ballads which proved admirable with the accompaniment of Sir Arthue Sullivan's most tuneful and appropriate music companiment. in while the quaint proves a little thin without that ac-
ideas of the "Fairy's Dilemma" are all entirely original in the senso that they are the product of no-one's brain but Mr. Gilbert's own, they are not absolutely now. We have had them before from Mr. Gilbert in slightly different gu The story is that of a fairy who interferes in human love affairs with the best of motives but with disastrous results. It is much the same sort of mixture of the " supernatural and the unnatural," to use Mr. Gilbert's own description of his dramatic person, as we had in "The Sorcerer" and in "Tolanthe." Still, it is full of wit and humour and is admirably acted; and its success, at least from a pecuniary point of view, is assured.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.