Great are the virtues of the wheaten loaf.! Some years
ago, an inge- nious philanthropist wrote a pamphlet in which he tried to demonstrate that nearly all the maladies incident to humanity could be prevented by eating a crust before breakfast. The power of wheaten bread (the grand material used to clean panels) in curing the Princess's Theatre of its chro- nic disorder of dinginess, is something wonderful. The house was origi- nally beautiful; but its beauties were becoming more and more recondite, and in a few years they would have been hidden treasures. The spirit of renovation has come in time: the copious gilding is again bright, the pat- terns in the panels are again gay; and, that the loaf may not have all the honours, a new painting on the ceiling and a new chandelier form the top- most decorations. This restoration of the Princess's has really been very well brought about. There is reason to hope that the old plan of management will likewise be restored, and that the stage will be confined to opera and light after- pieces. By adhering to one class of performance, the manager raised his theatre in the first instance to a highly respectable position; and then, by jumping from one class to another, and engendering a troop of actors who could do everything a little but nothing well, he undid his own work. Operas, creditably performed, answered the purpose of the management heretofore, and there is no reason why they should not succeed again. At the same time, we suggest that the experiment of bringing out totally un- practised prime donne in the very first class of operatic ohmmeters should not be too often repeated.
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