t41 Orem.
If, on surveying the four burlesques produced this Christmas, we are to give the palm to the one which displays the highest degree of literary merit, we unhesitatingly select Diogenes, produced at the Now Strand Theatre, and ascribed to Mr. T. Taylor. This truly Attic little production at once reveals the scholar and the man of thought. In witnessing it, we feel we are in company with one who has read Aristophanes, and has reflected on the more important fea- tures of the age. The knowledge of the world displayed in many. holyday works is often of a kind derived rather from cider-cellars and casinos than from broader arenas of humanity ; but that is not the case with Diogenes. Using the search after an honest man as the peg whereon ho may hang various exhibitions of dishonesty, the author with an ancient Greek pun- gency exposes the humbug of Chartism, the rabid freaks of puffery, and the vices attendant on speculation. All this is done in the most polished verse, every other line coming in with an epigrammatic force. As we have made the two categories of Pantomime and Burlesque, and as the latter appellation is generally given to comic pieces in rhyme, we have chosen to adopt it here ; but truly, if we called Diogenes an Aristo- phanic comedy without choral songs or parabasis, we should be much nearer the mark. Certain we are, that a thought of Aristophanes floated before the mind of the author when he wrote his work. Jupiter and Mi- nerva, who? descending from the sky with the other deities, become mortal characters in the piece, are excellently played by Mr. Leigh Murray and Mrs. Stirling. The delivery of the verse by the lady is pure melody.
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