PARISIAN Tnmentreara.
The transition from a popular song to a comic drama is as natural in France as the transition from a caterpillar to a butterfly. M. de la Pa- lisse who ever since the commencement of the eighteenth century, if not long before, has been renowned in the ballad literature of France as a bearer, real or imaginary, of all sorts of odd truisms,—M. de la Pelisse, of whom the anonymous poet sings,
"le jour de son trepas Put le derider de sa vie "— this great M. de in Pelisse gives his name to a new piece at the Va- rlet& ; where he is represented by M. Arnal. In his theatrical domicile he is a countryman tormented and cheated by town wits, like M. de Pourceaugnac.
A list of serious French dramas would involve enough cases of con- science to give employment to a whole college of Jesuits. In a new five- act comedy by M. Serret, just produced at the Odeon, the question is discussed, whether a gentleman ought to marry a widow with whom he has had a liaison during the period of her wifehood. M. Serret decides the point in the negative ; though the title of his piece, Qua dire le Honda ? shows that he rather takes public opinion than any fixed ethical theory for his standard.
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