A third importation from France is Our Wife; a showy,
well-dressed trifle, produced at the Princess's as a sparkling appendix to the more solid splendour of the Midsummer Night's Dream. Messrs. Ryder and Fisher represent two nobles of the time of Richelieu, opposite in character, for one is slow and stately, the other quick and frivolous, but knit together by a " Damon-and-Pythias" friendship. Damon, whose life is forfeit to the state, and is bound in honour to get himself killed within three days, marries a girl of humble origin, that after his death she may be married again by Pythias, who loves her to distraction, but dares not offend his father by wedding a commoner. When the nuptial ceremony has taken place, Damon's pardon arrives ; so his chivalric intention is frustrated. Death is still, from motives of honour, pertinaciously wooed in the battle- field; but all in vain : which indeed is fortunate, as the lady loves Da- mon, not Pythias ; and the latter, very properly, finds comfort in another quarter.
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