some of ye just throw him over to the pit, and then we shall be able to converse at our ease?" On another occasion when there was a cry of "Sit down in front,” a gentleman at the back of the gallery immediately replied,“ Wid all my heart, only let me get there, I'll sit down fast enough.' When Tom Cooke was leader of the band, they used to call to him whenever any body in the course of the scene had to make love to Mrs. Cooke (who played the chambermaids); and a song of "When I'm a widow" was commonly honoured with a double encore, that the gods might reiterate again and again, " D'ye hear to that, Tom Cooke ?" I am speaking of Dublin Theatre twenty years since, when they were, if they took to an actor, the most liberal auditors in the world; but woe betide the unhappy wight to whom they did not take. Holman and Miles Peter Andrews.-Holman having been annoyed by some anonymous criticism, wrote on a pane of glass at the Booth Hall Inn, Gloucester My life is like the glass I mark, at best, Can smash a glass or actor at a blow.-J. G. H. Miles Andrews, who was travelling with him, wrote under it before they left Your life like to this glass! Not so, my lad: This has reflection, which you never had.-M. P. A. Building Theatres.-In 1585 the Rose (on Bankside, near the foot of London Bridge) was built at the expense of 1037. 2s. 7d. In 1812 Drury Lane Theatre was built at an expense of 100,000l., and the interior has since been altered at an additional cost of 15,000l. Suett's Landlady.-Suett had at one time a landlady who exhibited an inordinate love for the vulgar fluid yclept gin, a beverage which Suett himself by no means held in abhorrence. She would order her servant to get the supplies after the following fashion :-" Betty, go and get a quartern loaf and half a quartern of gin." Off started Betty: she was speedily recalled. 'Betty, make it half a quartern loaf and a quartern of gin:" but Betty had never got fairly across the threshold on the mission ere the voice was again heard-"Betty, on second thoughts, you may as well make it all gin." 66 Kemble and Liston.-When Liston was in the Newcastle company, he had a strong bias in favour of tragedy, and having been in the scholastic profession, it suited his notions of the dignity of the drama. In some case of emergency he was sent on for David in the "Rivals." C. Kemble, who was in Newcastle for practice and improvement, saw him play this one part, and advised Liston to stick to the country boys, and recommended him to the London managers, but the advice was not listened to until five years afterwards. Liston, during his tragedizing, applied to Stephen Kemble, the manager, for an increase of salary. Pooh! pooh!" said Stephen," such actors as you are to be found in every hedge." The insult struck deep, but Liston's mode of revenging it was peculiar. Some days afterwards, as the manager was driving from Newcastle to Sunderland, to his horror, he saw his perpetrator of kings and courtiers stuck up to his middle in a quickset hedge. "Good heavens, Mr. Liston!" he exclaimed: "what is the matter? what are you doing there?" Looking for some of the actors you told me of the other day," replied the comedian. 66 66 When Liston came to the Haymarket, he lived in a neighbourhood where the mixture administered to him by the name of milk was of a very dubious quality. He complained to his landlady, but this brought no redress, the proportions still remaining three parts milk to seventeen of water at last, he came to the door himself, and, holding forth two jugs, said, “Give it me separate, I'll mix for myself:" the hint was taken. Those who are unacquainted with the routine of provincial theatres will naturally look upon a man who plays Macbeth, Harlequin, Crack, and Captain Macheath, as a prodigy of versatility; but the initiated know that where there is a strong dramatic bias in any individual, he generally is "at all in the ring" during his noviciate. Elliston played every line of the drama in Swansea. Mrs. Sloman (now of Drury) was a few years ago known only as a singing chambermaid in the Canterbury theatre; and, four years since, I saw a performer in Glasgow, named *****, who played Richard, Rover, Paul Pry, Harlequin, Clown, danced clog-hornpipes, represented the "Grecian Statues à la Ducrow, sang serious and comic songs, was stage-manager, enacted every line of the drama, and officiated as principal dancing and ballet master for a weekly salary of 40s. Within twenty-five years T. P. Cooke danced in the figure at the Royalty theatre at a weekly stipend of 158. Pearman was at Sadler's Wells, delivering messages, &c. &c. at a similar salary. Lewis, the great light Comedian.-Lewis is rapidly whirling away from the recollection of the present generation: he blended the gracefulness of Barry with the energy of Garrick, and superadded to these acquirements his own unceasing activity, and amazing rapidity both of utterance and motion. In his early days he had been a tragedian, and retained enough of his serious powers to deliver sentiment gracefully: but his great qualification was of Nature's giving-his animal spirits. No greyhound ever bounded-no kitten ever gambolled-no jay ever chattered (sing neither the bird nor man in question can or could) with more apparent recklessness of mirth than Lewis acted. All was sunshine with him; he jumped over the stage properties as if his leapfrog-days had just commenced,-danced the hay with chairs, tables, and settees, and a shade never was upon his face, except that of the descending green curtain at the end of the comedy. A glare of light is the only thing to compare with his acting: it was too strong, too incessant, and now would appear much more so. But the tone of society forty years since excused and encouraged eccentricities, and Lewis was "fooled to the top of his bent." 66 Murphy (the Dramatist) and Lewis.-Murphy in his early life acted Othello, Archer, Jaffier, and other parts at Covent-garden, where he was engaged for a season or two; but as his success was not great, he left the stage for the bar, and, in after life, became a commissioner of bankrupts. He made some remarks on Lewis's acting that displeased the latter, who said, "Tell Mr. Murphy if justice instead of law had been consulted, he would not have gone to the bar, but have been sent to it." This, as it impugned Murphy's character, called for explanation. Murdering a Moor" was the crime imputed to him by Lewis. The mutual friend who gossiped between the parties, unacquainted with Murphy's early life, was obtuse enough to look upon this as a serious accusation, and repeated it to Murphy, who merely said, "It is true in my youth I committed that crime, and have repented it ever since; but it is cruelly ungrateful of him to name it after my endeavour to get him made a baronet" (alluding to his having persuaded the manager to let Lewis, then a young actor, play Sir Charles Rackett in his " Three Weeks after Marriage"). [The actors who commenced their career about Garrick's retirement, amongst whom were Quick, Lewis, Palmer, Wewitzer, Edwin, and Bannister, were all subsequently accused of having degenerated from the purity of the school in which they were bred to mere mummers and farce actors. Macklin published two or three accusatory letters against Quick on this score, and Murphy complained of Lewis; but, be it remembered, both of these dramatists were verging towards, if not in, their dotage when they vented their angry fulminations. Murphy died at the age of 76, leaving Macklin, who was a quarter of a century older, his survivor.] Rehearsals. When Macklin " got up" "Macbeth" in Dublin, in 1780, it was rehearsed daily for six weeks previous to its production. A new play is now frequently read on Thursday, and acted (after a fashion) on the following Monday. Nay, sometimes the author's labours and all are commenced and completed within that space: yet persons wonder at the deterioration of the drama! Gag. This term implies the ad libitum introductions which favourites embellish or destroy characters intrusted to them by making. Gagging, properly speaking, is additional matter of the actor's own: in the present day it has degenerated into language substituted at the moment for that of the author, which the comedian has not taken the trouble to commit to memory. Shakspeare's "Let your clowns," &c. proves the antiquity of gag; but the substitutory system originated with Theophilus Cibber, and his mantle has certainly fallen on the shoulders of Mr. John Reeve. F*** had written a drama, which was accepted and put into rehearsal. Reeve, who had absented himself from the reading, and the first and second rehearsals, bustled in on the morning of the third, found his scene on, and, for the first time, looked at his part. "Enter Ruddilaw, R. H. (meaning right hand.) "Ruddilaw.-Ah! my dear Marion. I've been, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c." "Marion. Ah! indeed. [This is the way the cue of the opposite character is written.] 66 Ruddilaw.—Well, and after that, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.” "Marion. “Ruddilaw.-Don't laugh, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c." John got thus far amid an ill-suppressed titter, and then stepped up to the dramatist with-"I beg ten thousand pardons,-wasn't at the reading, and I don't quite understand these et ceteras." "Oh!" said F***, with his peculiar drawl, “ as you never say what is written for you, I did it to save trouble to both of us; so where you see &c. &c., you can put in any thing you please." Mathews and his Namesake.-A man, well known through the provinces as Irish Mathews, travelled from about 1815 until within a year or two, with an entertainment entitled "Mathews at Home." He was of course continually mistaken for the real Simon Pure, but as Mathews was his genuine patronymic, he replied to all remonstrances-" Get out of that entirely; why will I change it? Wasn't it my father's name? let t'other chap (meaning the renowned Charles) change his." To all requests to omit the words "At Home," he replied with similar ingenuity. Irish Mathews was a man of great muscular power, and amid his "other vocal performances," lifted an anvil from the ground by fastening it to the hair of his head by whipcord. He had shoulders of ample dimensions, and was altogether a handsome fellow, as the ladies would say, which is equivalent to an "ugly customer," in the less polished phraseology of the ring. one occasion the Mathews arrived at Norwich, and, to his great dismay, saw the Irish jontleman's bills stuck all over the town. "D-n this impostor," said Charles; "I'll kick him, sure as he's born I will-I'll kick him out of the place." The more Mathews thought of it, the more resolved he became to perform the aforesaid operation upon the person of On his namesake. Y--, who was with him, thinking to make the impostor's shame more certain, advised him to go to the performance at night, and declaring himself, then and there kick out the intruder. "The justice of it pleases me," quoth and quoted Mathews: and together they went, paid for admission, and entered the place; the hero of a thousand at homes reiterating to his companion-" I'll kick him—don't try to prevent meI will kick him." At the moment they came into the exhibition-room, the Irish jontleman had just concluded his feat of strength, and was putting away the anvil with as much apparent ease as Mathews could lift a chair. This, to say nothing of the " brawny shoulders four feet square" of the exhibitor, was enough. "Come along, my dear fellow," exclaimed Mathews; "it isn't worth while to make a disturbance; he's a low fellow, you see, beneath my notice." Dr. Johnson I never saw but once, if it be certain, as I have heard many of my contemporaries declare, that at or about 1780 he did not go on crutches; but if he did, then it was he I saw, many a time and oft. The once I have alluded to was some two or three years previously. I remember his "looming large" through Temple Bar, looking like a model of a giant made in Indian rubber: if the reader knows a Jew bruiser, called Bitton, who has perambulated London for the last twenty years, and can recall his appearance, they have a short copy of the great lexicographer. In my youth I heard of the Doctor, as I heard of St. Paul's Cathedral, as a something great that everybody saw once. Then a thousand anecdotes were rife about him, and I know that I was bred in the belief that his Dictionary was the most wonderful (uninspired) book in existence. At the age of fourteen I should no more have dared to speak to the Doctor, had the opportunity presented itself, than I should have dreamt of walking into the House of Lords, and commencing a confab. with the Chancellor. I remember he had list bound over his shoes to prevent him from slipping (it was a hard frost), and he coughed and spat a great deal. I thought it was something to see the author of Rasselas spit. Mathews and Curran.-The mimic was introduced to the orator as he has pleasantly narrated in his youthful days. When Mathews went from Dublin to the provinces, some one asked Curran why he had gone: “Och! the fellow's gone on a mimicking excursion," replied Curran, "and wants to catch the stray brogues of the barefooted pisantry." Hecate. When Incledon was in the zenith of his fame, he did almost as he pleased. Kemble sent to him to ask his aid in "Hecate." This Charles was inclined to consider infra dig. "The national singer,-d- me, play this he-cat! The fact is,-d- me, you may tell Mr. Kemble,-dthat if he'll play one of the thieves to my Macheath,-d- me, I will play a He cat, or any cat he likes, to his Macbeth,-d me!" me, THE FLYING ISLAND. A LEGEND OF NEW ENGLAND. 666 "I tell thee, an island thou shalt have,' said the knight, 'round and regular, and as fine a bit of earth as ever the salt sea washed.' "I thank your worship for nothing,' replied Sancho. 'The worst of it is, this same island can never be got at.' "-Don Quixote. THOUGH the New World cannot boast her moss-grown towers and nodding temples, her crumbling arches and "chiefless castles, breathing stern farewells," yet she is not without antiquities and antiquaries, -relics of bygone times-to stir up dreamy thoughts of eld, and men who delight to muse over them. There is a certain spot on the seacoast of New England which has always been specially dear to me, from its associations with the poetry of the past. To a mind truly alive to the influence of poetry, the past is ever poetical; and in this spot I find materials for no ordinary excitement of that feeling" most musical, most melancholy." The place in question is one of the few remaining records of the existence, decay, and extermination of one of the many kingdoms of men-an aboriginal nation of Indians. It is true these men were but painted savages, and the land of their dominion a howling wilderness; yet their history is not wanting in claims upon our regard, and their premature fate cannot but excite our sympathy. With a bold and striking originality of character, and qualities of unsurpassed heroism, it has been their lot to suffer a total extinction in a career tenfold more rapid than that of the ordinary generations of mankind. Everything in the character and institutions of this remarkable race bespeaks them a young people; and to what results their slow, but certain, progress toward self-civilization might have reached in a course of centuries, had they remained in undisturbed possession of their native soil, we can only conjecture; but they have perished even before their prime. The nations who reared the temples of Pæstum, and founded the Cyclopean walls on the rocky hills of Etruria, have perished, too, with all their history, literature, and language. Barbarism and civility seem thus destined, at times, to a common end by some strange caprice of fate. The philosopher and moralist may contemplate with different feelings these two races of men in their career; but the similarity of their catastrophe serves to impress upon the mind this simple truth,-that the course of nature is one unbroken chain of creation and destruction. The locality to which I have alluded, is a pleasant and quiet green valley, at the mouth of one of the numerous rivers that wind in a thousand mazes among the hills, and dash in cataracts over the rocky ledges of this rough and romantic land. On a lofty eminence, rising gently from the river's margin, a few miles from the sea, you may take your stand on a bright summer day, and behold a scene which, if you be either a lover of natural beauty, or a New England antiquary, will not fail to delight your eyes, or set you pondering in a reverie on the days |