A PLAY FOR CHILDREN.*
Mn. BAX has pieced together very skilfully a tragi-comedy out of the rhymes and fables of the nursery. The vicissitudes the Knave of Hearts and Tom Tucker suffer before they achieve life- long happiness as the husbands of Mary Q. Contrary and the King of Spain's daughter are of a kind to enrapture children. Children will delight in the discomfiture of Mother Hubbard when Taffy stole her leg of beef and the agony of Daddy Longlegs who was obliged to eat all the tarts at ono--for the Queen of Hearts is not such an experienced cook as she has been made out to be.
Old King Cole would be a good play for.children to get up at Christmas. The humour is not sophisticated (except in one or two instances) beyond their understanding, and this is a virtue of which adults often forget the use. The rhymes, too, most children probably know already, or if they do not they will bo the better for learning them. There will bo a danger of tears when Humpty-Dumpty has his disastrous fall, but he is quickly made into an omelette, and soon everyone is dancing to the tune
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