could refuse the invitation? Certainly not I. So I
accepted, with pleasure, and was present at the initial performance. I
refreshed my recollection of college life at Oxford where men certainly
were not quite as serious as _Mr. Jack Lovell_, in the long since of the
"fifties." I could not help regretting that the Oxford of thirty years
ago had not the unconventional Mr. NICHOLLS amongst the Undergraduates.
Had he been there at the period to which I refer, I undoubtedly should
have sought the honour of his acquaintance, but on the condition that he
did _not_ introduce me to the aforesaid _Jack Lovell_, who on
matriculating at Drury Lane was about as lively as a mute at a funeral.
I was not at all surprised to find him rather out of sorts. Frankly,
_Mr. Jack Lovell_ in _Pleasure_ is not a nice young man. He reads for
the Church and gets plucked, as indeed he should, as he seems to have
employed the time that he ought to have occupied in hard reading, in
behaving in the most disgraceful manner to _Miss Jessie Newland_,
otherwise the ever charming Miss ALMA MURRAY. Very properly refused a
family living, he succeeds to a peerage, and immediately publishes the
story of his betrothed and refuses to marry her.

[Illustration: Bringing Down the House.]

Personally, I must admit that I received with joy the news that he was
drinking himself to death, and only felt the deepest regret when I
learned that he had not perished in an admirably contrived Earthquake.

[Illustration: Sweets to the Sweet.]

But, in spite of _Mr. Jack Lovell_, Oxford, at Drury Lane, contained a
number of interesting persons. The _Doddipotts_, father and son, with
their American relative (Miss BROUGH), were most amusing, and I was
quite satisfied to accompany them to Nice and Monte Carlo, to see the
Battle of Flowers, the Carnival Ball, and last, but not least, the
Earthquake. This latter effect, in more senses than one, "brought down
the house." In _Pleasure_ the stage-management is excellent throughout,
and, of the joint authorship of the piece, I think I may safely say that
its chief merit lies in the name of HARRIS. Not a mythical "HARRIS,"
like unto the friend of _Mrs. Gamp_, but some one far more substantial,
the great AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS himself. Whether one is gazing upon the
Sheldonian Theatre (the background to an Oxford Mixture of no common
kind), or the Barges, or the Promenade des Anglais, or the Carnival
Ball, the presence of an excellent m