nation there is no doubt on
subject, "We shall be in a position," he added, "to put something like
1,200,000 men in the field," a sight that would make WELLINGTON, not to
mention MARLBOROUGH, stare.

With that patriotic zeal that has marked attitude of Opposition since
war began BONAR LAW warmly supported proposal. Vote agreed to without
debate or division.

_Business done._--Having voted additional half-million men for Army,
House adjourned till Monday.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"BLUFF KING HAL."

The arrangements for the production of Mr. LOUIS PARKER'S pageant-comedy
had of course been made long before war was contemplated. The completion
of Mr. BOURCHIER'S beard in itself points to a comparatively remote date
for the play's inception. Certainly there is nothing very apposite in
its theme at the present juncture; for HARRY OF ENGLAND, suffering from
the gout, blustering into a sixth marriage, and haunted by the ghosts of
four dead wives and the wraith of the sole survivor, is not a figure
precisely calculated to inspire patriotic fervour. Still, the
circumstances of the play are sufficiently national, and it should serve
well enough as a permissible distraction for non-combatants.

You need not be terrified by the complexity of the cast, which consists
of twenty prominent characters, twenty-four in smaller type, four ghosts
and a wraith, and a sprinkling of nameless "halberdiers, huntsmen,
minstrels, servitors, etc." (The soldier-supers--a type not to be
confused with the super-soldier--were a very scratch lot; and I must
hope that this defect was due to the enlistment of the more martial
spirits in the profession.) The history of the period is made easy for
all intelligences, and the relations of _Katharine Parr_ with her lover,
_Sir Thomas Seymour_, furnish a clear thread of human interest.

It was pleasant to make the acquaintance of two future Queens--_Mary_
and _Elizabeth_--at the less familiar stages of girlhood. _Mary_, very
nicely played by Miss MINA LEONESI, showed no sign of her subsequent
taste for blood; but Miss KATHLEEN JONES, in the part of the pedantic
little _Princess Elizabeth_, gave us some very happy premonitions of the
domineering qualities of the Virgin Queen. The tiny _Prince Edward_,
too, who was prepared to compose an epithalamium for his royal parent's
final wedlock, already gave promise of a scholarly career. Apart,
however, from the charm of Miss VI