The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-16 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BoußsE, DEC. 15.—The market has shown ra-
ther more buoyancy, and the business transacted
has been done ut an improvement on the closing
prices of Saturday. Threes, for the Account, are
now firm at 70f. 75c. The Railway Share Market
has been also firmer, with a limited business. The
Italian Loan has well maintained its former quota-
tion, as an idea prevails that another will not be
contracted, at least for some time. The market
closed as follows :-
4t per Cents 97 95
Do. end month —
3 per Cents
Do. end month 7O 75
New 3 per Cents
Do. end month —
Credit Mobilier —
Do. end month —

Bank Shares 3390
Credit Foncier l33i --
1 Piedmontese Fives 71 50
Italian Loan 7l 70
Russian .. —
Austrian
• Spanith Threes —
• Home Debt — -
MAYS.

RAIL'

Cash. Account.
1072 50 .. 1072 50
1042 50 .. 1040

Orleans
Northern
New ditto
Lyons and Mediterranean 1153 75 .. 1155
Geneva 375 376 25
Southern 786 25 .. 788 75
Western
Eastern
Sardinian ..

Austrian
Lnrobard
North of Spain
Saragossa 666 25 .. 663 75
Ditto to Barcelona 320 .. 320

I,zO) AL ENGLISH OPERA, COVENT

GARDEN.

The pantomime here is from the pen of Mr.
Henry J. Byron, and is entitled " Harlequin Beauty
and the Beast ; or the Gnome Queen and the Good
Fairy." The first scene is the boudoir of Brutina,
the Gnome Queen, who has tried all her charms,
such as they are, upon the unsusceptible heart of a
captive prince. He will have nothing to say to her,
though she calls in the aid of the court coiffeur,
modiste, and enameller; and finally brings to her
aid the attractions of an allegorical ballet, in which
the Prince is successively, bat not successfully
tempted by wine, youth, and beauty. Enraged at
the cailousneas of the youth, she changes him to a
beast. A good Fairy, whose power is equal to the
Gnome Queen's, makes a stipulation with her that
should any maiden be found to declare a passion for
the transmogrified prince he is to instantaneously
assume his original form. Squire Tiddlywinks and
his man-servant, Muddlehead, are returning home
in the family gig, when a terribly high wind
drives them into an enchanted wood, in which
the trees do all sorts of strange things, we
will not spoil our reader's pleasure by
anticipating, and in which the belated tra-
vellers eventually come across the palace of the beast.
Entering this magic domicile they are entertained
most sumptuous.y by fairy attendants, who cut up
magical legs of mutton and draw enchanted cham-
pagne corks, and treat them generally with extreme
hospitality. The squire having promised his three
daughters a present each, plucks a rose for his
youngest child, Beauty, and is immediately seized
by the outraged beast, whose horticultural feelings
appear of as sensitive a nature as those of the head
gardener at Hampton Court. The Squire is about
to lose his life when he makes a pathetic appeal,
and the Beast lets him go home on a promise to re-
turn with. Beauty. The Squire briuga his charm-
ing child back with him, and the Beast falls in love
with her and detains her, permitting the parent to
return to his suburban villa. All his attentions,
however, are bootless. Beauty adores her father,
and refuses to be comforted by the inevitable grand
ballet popularly supposed to have a soothing effect
upim heart-broken heroines. When she sees in a
vision her father utterly broken-•down with grief,
she implores the Beast to let her go, and she is
allowed to return to alleviate the Squire's suffer-
ings, though the Beast says he shall be utterly die.
traught and miserable without her. The return of
his child restores the Squire to reason, for since her
leaving him he has become a maniac and a prey to
a troupe of variously thinkin physicians, and they
all start off to the Beast's palace. They are too late,
however : the Gnome Queen, afraid that her scheme
may fail, has poisoned him, and the poor Beast is
discovered dead, to the extreme agony of Beauty.
In her wretchedness she exclaims that, were he
alive, she would love and wed him, and the Beast
immediately vanishes, the original Prince appear-
ing in his place, to the extreme delight of every-
body concerned, with the exception of the Gnome
Queen, who retires to the sulphurous seclusion of
her own residence. The scenery, appointments,
decorations, &c,, are all on a scale of unexampled
magnificence. Mr. Callcott's transformation scene
excells anything of the kind before witnessed even
in this theatre.