eaven's love lights up the quiet aisle,
And, praying as she prayed,
Our sorrow is allayed--
Our grieving changed to gladness in God's smile.

THE PASSING SHOW.

The political season is over, and popular fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of the drama. New York's gay winter festivities are opening,
and the theatres are nightly crowded with appreciative audiences. It
would be strange indeed if, with upwards of twenty-five comfortable
resorts for popular amusement in the metropolis, and a weekly change
of attractions drawn from the best American and European sources, the
most fastidious taste should fail to be pleased.

Probably the most successful of this year's dramatic ventures is "The
Yeomen of the Guard" at the Casino. The managers of that theatre have
been wise to replace their variety-shows with this excellent comic
opera. It steadily holds its own in spite of the critics, and after a
three-months' run continues as popular as ever. Mr. Aronson says it
may remain at the Casino until the end of April. Gilbert and
Sullivan's productions are always new, always attractive. Each has a
character of its own, yet no one could fail to detect the humor of
Gilbert and the merry melodies of Sullivan in them all. If one may
venture to compare their beauties, we should say that "Pinafore"
excelled in vivacity--that peculiar sprightliness which the French
call _verve_; "The Pirates" in humor; "Patience" and "Iolanthe" in
satire--the one of a social craze, the other of political flunkeyism;
and "The Yeomen of the Guard" in quaintness. The patter songs of the
first are lacking in the last, hence its airs are not so dinned into
one's ears by the whistling youth of every street-corner, but the
music is of a distinctly higher order. It is unfortunate that there is
no change of scenery between the two acts. The dingy background of the
Tower is not relieved by brilliance of costume, and the eye of the
ordinary theatre-goer, accustomed to look for altered scenic effects,
is disappointed at the repetition, only relieved by moonlight in the
second act.

Some of the incidents of the play resemble "Don Caesar de Bazan," and
are similarly worked out. Colonel Fairfax, imprisoned as a sorcerer,
marries a young ballad-singer, who receives a hundred crowns, with the
assurance that within an hour she will be a widow through her
husband's execution. He escapes, and is disguised as one of the Yeome