Substitute General BOOTH for Jean of Leyden, and the tambourine girls for PALLADINO and the ballet, and then you have a modern version of Le Prophète.

But the whole point of the Opera is in the last Act, where there is a ballet that has nothing to do with the piece, but pretty to see little PALLADINO in short white skirts, dancing merrily in a forest glade, among the happy peasantry, to whom comes Ophelia, mad as several hatters, and after a lunatic scene, charming, both musically and dramatically, throws herself into the water, and dies singing.

Here is a suggestion for the effective compression and reduction of the Opera, and if my plan be accepted, DRURIOLANUS will earn the eternal gratitude of those who would like to hear all that is good in it, and to skip, as PALLADINO does, the rest.

PALLADINO looks in.