Brian de
Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan_, and so generally active and artful as
to be quite a _Becky Sharp_,--nor, I say, did Miss MACINTYRE seem to
treat her precocious parent (_Isaac_ must have married very young,
seeing that _Becky_ is full twenty-one, and _Isaac_ apparently
very little more than twenty-eight, or, say, thirty) with any
great tenderness and affection; but these feelings no doubt will be
intensified, as she becomes more and more accustomed to her jewvenile
father during the run of the Opera, and he may say to her, as the
Bottle Imp did to his victim, "Ha! Ha! You must _learn_ to love me!"

[Illustration: The game of "Becky my Neighbour." The Stout Knight lays
low.]

I have not time to enumerate all the charming effects of the Opera,
but I must not forget the magic property-harp, with, apparently, limp
whip-cord strings, "the harp that once," or several times, was played
by those accomplished musicians, _King Richard_, and _Friar Tuck_,
the latter of whom has by far the most taking song in the Opera,
and which would have received a treble [or a baritone] encore, had
_Barkis_--meaning Sir ARTHUR--"been willin'." The contest between
_Richard_ and the _Friar_ is decidedly "Dicky." Nor must I forget the
magnificent property supper in the first scene, at so much a head,
where not a ham or a chicken is touched; nor must "the waits" between
some of the sets be forgotten,--"waits" being so suggestive of music
at the merriest time of the year. Nor, above all, must I omit to
mention the principal character, _Ivanhoe_ himself, played by Mr. BEN
DAVIES, who would be quite an ideal _Ivanhoe_ if he were not such
a very real _Ivanhoe_--only, of course, we must not forget that he
"doubles" the part. There is no thinness about "_Ben Mio_," whether
considered as a man, or as a good all-round tenor. I did not envy
_Ivanhoe's_ marvellous power of sleep while Miss MACINTYRE was singing
her best, her sweetest, and her loudest. For my part I prefer to
believe that the crafty Saxon was "only purtendin'," and was no more
asleep than _Josh Sedley_ on the eve of Waterloo, or the Fat Boy when
he surprised _Mr. Tupman_ and _Aunt Rachel_ in the arbour, or when he
pinched _Mr. Pickwick's_ leg in order to attract his attention. But,
after all, _Ivanhoe_ and _Rowena_, as THACKERAY remarked, are a poor
namby-pamby pair, and the real heroine is _Rebecca_. The Opera ends
with a "Rebecca Riot." Every one wishes success to the new venture.