To burlesque such a work as “Norma,” then, is to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH.  Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint having been dropped in one of our “Pencillings,” an Adelphi scribe has acted upon it.  An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had at half-price.  A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out “her wood-notes” (being a Druidess she worships the oak) “wild,” with a volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide sound asthmatic.  In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford.  The children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. Pollio is made a most killing Roman roue by Mrs. Grattan; but Norma’s attendant does not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent-Garden Flavius.

But, above all, commend we Mr. Wright’s Adelgeisa.  It is a masterpiece; all the airs and graces of the prima donna he imitates with a true spirit of burlesque.  As to his singing, it astonished everybody, and so did the introduction of “All round my Hat,”—­a most unnecessary interpolation, for the original music is quite as droll.

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