Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/710

704 lightful and gorgeous denizens of the brilliant sunshiny world which may be like Japan (and for the sake of the Japanese we hope it is), but certainly is not like any other scene we know. Nothing can be more charmingly pretty than this play, if play it can be called. There is no buffoonery, no knocking about, no sitting upon, no hiding under tables. The art of the queer fairyland in which Mr Gilbert plays his pranks, is perhaps not a very elevated art, but at all events it is above devices of this kind. The delightful aristocrat, Pooh-Bah, is quite an original among state officials, and nothing so bland or so splendid as the Mikado himself has dawned upon our dazzled vision for a long time. It is delightful fooling all through, as pretty a spectacle as ever was, and for simple fun one of the very best of the author's productions. The three little maids from school in their beautiful dresses, with their gigglings and their gravities, could not be better; and Mr Rutland Barrington's face is of itself a study. We invite the reader who would deliver himself from all sublunary thoughts and enter the realms of pure whim, fun, and fancy, to approach without a doubt, and take his diversion undisturbed by criticism. The authors of "The Mikado" have secured just the combination of the unknown and the known which is good for their purposes, in the realm so captivating to the imagination, so pictorial, and so splendid as Japan.

By the way, the Japanese village, a curious little artificial encampment, seems about to be, for this season, a substitution for the Healtheries and Fisheries of previous years: a place where the stray population may lounge, and gaze at much or little as fate may graciously permit. It is too small, however, to give that margin to a crowd which has been found in these other exhibitions, and wants open air, and a possibility of a garden, and escape from the close little streets. Could it be transported to those grounds where London has amused itself for several seasons, and where the quaint shops and cottages might have a natural relief of greenery, it would be much more successful and captivating. As it is, the chief interest in it are the attendants, who have been of the greatest use, we are told on the playbills, to the management of the Savoy, and who shuffle about in their slipshod way, with their green, voluminous robes, in a manner that aids the effect of the play, and shows the difference between the humble classes and those sublime officials who conduct the government of that enlightened but mysterious land. We advise the visitor to let the one illustrate the other, and to have his tea served to him by the yellow little maid with her preposterous sash and wrappings, who is the genuine article, before he goes to see her dainty betters, the little maidens who are not yellow in their summer scene.

It is curious to have to speak of the English stage without any notice of Mr Irving, whose personality is about the most important and notable thing on the English stage as it stands. He will return to his patronage of Shakespeare in May, and he will succeed in making the world listen to his version of Hamlet, as no one else seems capable of doing. He comes across the Atlantic with more fame and dollars than ever, to meet the welcome of that singular popularity to which we cannot assign a reason, or explain the