• On the evening of Ash Wednesday, when all the
theatres and other places of amusement were closed, there was a so-called "grand musical festival" at Exeter Hall ; a monster-jumble of all sorts of music, from the most solemn strains of the Messiah to the "Death of Nelson" and the "Largo al factotum" of the facetious Barber. As a subject of criticism such a concert is beneath notice, being a mere medley of hacknied pieces, performed without preparation and consequently in a slovenly manner. Mr. Sims Reeves, "the great English tenor," figured in the bills as the prime object of attraction ; and there was an immense concourse of 4hil- 1ing and two-shilling visitors, whose deportment greatly resembled that of the theatre galleries on a "boxing night." The affair was quite of a piece with the "Lent Oratorios," as they were called, which were per- formed at Drury Lane and Covent Garden twice-a-week during the long period the theatres were ordered to be closed. Better taste and feeling have put an end to that mockery of religion' but is there not still a - mockery of religion in shutting up the theatres on one of the solemn fasts of the Church, and at the same time licensing an entertainment in which the sacred and the profane are as indecorously jumbled together as ever they were at the Lent Oratorios ?
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