THE LENT ORATORIOS.
THESE performances have for some years been slipping out of the public favour; and M. LA.PORTE has commenced his season with a novel exhibition of Sacred Music,—no other than a regular dra- matic performance, entitled "The Israelites in Egypt, the music by HANDEL and ROSSINI;" a conjuncture certainly from which we augured no good. The exhibition of this piece is, of itself, suf- ficient to show the folly of a dramatic censorship. A play of SHAKSPEARE or an opera of BISHOP is interdicted on the holy days of Lent, but the Bible is suffered to be burlesqued and buf- fooned with impunity. Think of PHILLIPS and Wiesorr strutting about the stage in the guise of Moses and Aaron, singing Opera songs to sacred words; and the piece concluding with a pasteboard and canvass exhibition of the passage through the• Rek Sea
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