The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-27 00:00:00

HAYMARKET.

Mr. Buckston, makes two very wise arrange-
ments for Boxirg-night. He begins his evening
with an entertainment which is so good that no one
is in an unseemly hurry for the pantomime, and he
makes his pantomime, when it comes round, just
the sort of thing which children and young people
like, with a nice juvenile story, beautiful scenery,
and plenty of tumbling and dancing by the dranzatis
personce. Mr. Sterling Coyne's comedy of " Black
Sheep" was immensely relished yesterday evening.
The ladies, Mesdames Young and II ilkins acted
splendidly; Mr. Compton was as dry and as humor-
ous as usual,and the lessee himself acted in a manner
which showed how little he reflected that it would be
his painful duty to spend the latter part of the even-
ing in a state of frantic collision with the carpenters
and scene-shifters. Everybody was called before the
curtain at the end of the play, and nobody showed
any impatience for the pantomime. The latter,
however, was quite up to the Haymarket standard
of excellence. The innocent love of Miss Muffet
for the Little Boy Blue was the theme, and it was
worked out with a completeness and splendour
which must have delighted the wholejuvenile audi-
ence. It may be an insult to the literary research
of the majority of your readers to suppose that they
now hear of this interesting love story for the first

time ; but lest there should be ono or two who still
remain in ignorance, we must inform them that
little Miss Muffet, whilst sitting on a Tuffet and
enjoying an arcadian banquet of curds and whey,
suddenly conceived a violent passion for the Blue
Boy (not Gaink,,borougles), who is so insensible to
her love that he spends the principal portion of his
time under the haycock fast asleep. Anenvious spider

—there are envious spiders everywhere—becomes
his rival, and the dreadful schemes of this Daddy
Long Legs, who wishes to pass for a genuine
Tarantula, supplies the horrid incidents of the intro-
duction. Poor Miss Muffet receives several dread-
ful bites, and Little Boy Blue restores her to life by
the well-known specific of " blowing his horn."
Then Blue Boy gets bitten in turn, and there would
be universal destruction, and no end of coroners' in-
quests, were it not for the benevolent intervention
of Queen Bee, who always turns up at the nick of
time, counterplots Daddy Long Legs, and preserves
Miss Muffet and Little Boy Blue until they are
wanted for the harlequinade. The accessories to this
famous dramatic entertainment are superb. There
is a sweet scene of a wooded valley for the opening,
and a brilliant one with moonlight and wax lights
for the nocturnal ballet of the Bees; but the climax
is of course the transformation scene, in which Mr.
Fenton (if he could only get the scenery to move a
little faster) surpasses all his former triumphs. A
field of golden corn is seen to sway and bend to and
fro to the whispers of a gentle summer breeze. Anon
the stems fall away right and left, and beehives of
fanciful form, and sparkling as if they were all
made of koh-:i-noors, rise slowly and (last night)
somewhat hesitatingly in the open space. Then the
bees, who are uncommonly like handsome young
ladies, pop up their heads, each brilliantly illumi-
nated, and the poppies and corn-flowers all burst
open in admiration, whilst the audience burst forth
into a tremendous peal of applause. But this is not
all. Trellis of sparkling gold rises up gradually on
all sides, and wheels of equal lustre begin to spin ;
until finally red and blue fire shed their light over

the scene, and the cheering is only interrupted by
the frantic cries of " Up, up," from the boys in the
back of the gallery, who cannot possibly get enough
of the scenic splendour. It would be impossible to
imagine a greater magnificence of stage effect than
was produced by this transformation scene. Mr.
Fenton was cheered to the echo, but he was too busy
with his carpenters at that moment to re' any at-
tention to his Togation. 'There was good popular
music, and more than onc parody that was encored.
Tht, actut ‘eitC(l /si;:‘,lVtg COilliiiClidably, both
in talking and tutubling, and Ali LouLA, Leciercti
made quite a character of Little Miss Muffett. The
harlequinade, which, at the best of times is a dread-
ful contrast to the splendour of the introduction, has
this year the merit of being brief, Miss Rosins
made a graceful columbine, and Mr. Charles Le-
clercq a most agile clown. There were some good
carpenters' scenes, and the whole entertainment
finished gloriously with the picture of the good
ship Warrior steaming out to sea.