with the Adelphi Theatre, reports his earliest introduction to public life to have been, when, seated in a box, he frightened from his propriety (or impropriety) the villain of the piece, then holding the heroine within his cruel grasp, by screaming out to him "not to kill dear mamma." The heroine being, of course, as almost every Adelphi heroine was at that time, the popular actormanager's still more popular wife, the late Mrs. Yates.

Don Quixote's interventions at the puppet show, in behalf of the flying pair of Christian lovers, and in chivalric defiance of the "base-born rabble" of Moors, upon whom he rained hacks and slashes, showering down and redoubling his blows, fore-stroke and back-stroke, with such fury, that in less than the saying of two credos he demolished the whole machine,-is not to be overlooked in this collection of disjecta membra. Nor, perhaps, should be Mansie Wauch's first night at the play, when that ingenuous tailor in Dalkeith, whom "Delta" Moir did his best to make immortal, accompanied a presbyterian neighbour, as staid and serious as himself, to the play-acting in Laird Wheatly's barn; and who could not refrain, in an access of genuine indignation, from assuring the heavy father in the piece that his daughter was hiding in the cupboard, albeit her lying lover stoutly affirmed his ignorance of her whereabouts-a rascal who "had the brass to say at once that he had not seen word or wittens of the lassie for a month, though more than a hundred folk sitting in his company had beheld him dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist, not five minutes before.

"As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised, for I aye hated lying as a poor cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten commandments; and I found my neighbour, Mr. Glen, fidgeting on the seat as well as me; so I thought, that whoever spoke first would have the best right to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, 'Dinna believe him, auld gentlemandinna believe him, friend; he's telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It's no worth arguing, or calling witnesses: just open that press-door, and ye'll see whether I'm speaking truth or not!'

Huge was the uproar that then and there uprose; and Mansie flatters himself the whole house was so glad to see the scoundrel exposed, as to set up "siccan a guffaw" and "thump away at siccan a rate at the boards with their feet," that at last down fell the gallery, and dire was the damage to flesh and blood.

Beaumarchais expresses his exultation at the fact that, during the representation of his Eugénie, he had heard persons of sensibility and naïveté exclaim, in accents of cordial compassion, "Ah!

la pauvre malheureuse!" and again, when the wicked lord eludes cross-examination, "Va-t'en, séclérat!" The pressure of truth, Beaumarchais flatters himself, elicited these involuntary exclamations; and therein he recognised the most pleasant praise an author can receive, and the best reward of his labour. "Voilà l'éloge qui plaît à l'auteur et le paye de ses peines." Mr. Thackeray more than once expatiated on the custom the people have, at the little Paris theatres, of yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre!" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; insomuch that the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infâmes Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not other monstrum horrendum.

66

Madame d'Arblay commemorates in her Diary a performance of Douglas, at which she observed two young ladies, far on in their teens, who were so much shocked by the death of Norval, that they both burst into a loud fit of roaring, like little children, and sobbed on, afterwards, for almost half the farce! I was quite astonished; and Miss Weston complained that they really disturbed her sorrows; but Captain Bouchier was highly diverted, and went to give them comfort, as if they had been babies, telling them it was all over, and that they need not cry any more."

One of Sydney Smith's bits of personal talk relates to his wife's similar kind, and even degree, of credulous susceptibility. “Oh, Mrs. Sydney believes it is all true; and when I went with her to the play, I was always obliged to sit behind her, and whisper, 'Why, Kate, he is not really going to kill her,—she is not really dead, you know;' or she would have cried her eyes out, and gone into hysterics."

ABOVE AND BELOW.

(AN EPISODE OF HOSPODAR, THE GERMAN, AND BROWN, THE BRITON, IN A SEASIDE LODGING-HOUSE.)

A MIGHTY hunter in his youthful years,

Herr Hospodar, now grumbling keeps his bed.
Much for his dear friend's life his doctor fears—
No fees will fall from his dear friend when dead;
At last, his eyes suffused with many tears,

For woman-like he wept at will, he said,
"You want a change-but then the devil's in it,
You can't get out, not even for a minute!"

"I can't get out!" the German starling cried,
Waking a moment from his woful gloom;
But suddenly his blue eyes opened wide,

"Doch, can't I hunt here in dees leetel room?

Trees, wald, horns, whips, all dese man shall provide,

Hounds, hares beim Himmel! furze and golden broom."

So said, so done the things were gathered there;

His parlour was, I think, full seven feet square.

Above this German, who the third floor hired,
A Briton lodged, a lord of airy attics,

Who by a fierce enthusiasm fired,

Devoted time and mind to mathematics;

Of tender Tupper's tunes was never tired,

And solved equations, as he dreamed, in statics.
He, roused by the hunt below one night, grew surly,
And asked the cause of such wild hurly-burly.

"Was I do in mine room ist mine affair,

I like de hunting, be it hares or bocks;
Es thut mir leid-I mean, though you may stare,
To-morrow morn at six to hunt de fox!"
Brown tried to change the purpose of meinherr,
He might as well have talked to trees or rocks;
Just then the barking hounds a leveret started,
And Brown, with rancour in his breast, departed.

Herr Hospodar alone in all his glory,

Sat thinking he had done dat Briton brown,
When on a sudden from the upper story

Some drops as of a drenching rain fell down;
Which changed into a stream; then more and more he
Felt gradually damp from toe to crown.
His temper was put out; and still more dire,
The crescent flood, alas! put out his fire.

Half swimming then he gained his chamber door,
With words, which blessings certainly were not;
Then mounted madly to the upper floor,

And there, what did this German see? ach Gott!
Brown on his camp-bed sat, water galore

Around him, fishes in it; with his lot

Content; nay, more, his features flashed with glee!
While boys still brought more water from the sea.

"Potz-tausend! do not be one such big fool,"

Gasped Hospodar, "you've spoilt mine hunting-ground, Mein forest ist geworden a salt pool,

And I myself bin darin nearly drowned."

"Was I do in mine room," said Brown, quite cool, "Ist mine affair. I think this is my ground.

Es thut mir leid, the

"Donner und--"

water through should dribble.”

"Stop, by Heaven! I've got a nibble."

"I have him—no, he's gone! But stay, Herr! stay,
If you will there agree to hunt no longer,

I'll take my oath too from this very day,
Here not to fish again for cod or conger;
But if you will not-I can only say

I feel my fishing-penchant hourly stronger." "Topp!" cried the German, "das ist I agree;" And so these smoked the pipe of amity.

JAMES MEW.

BRADY'S FOUR ACRES OF BOG.

BY FELIX M'CABE.

IV.

KATTY PHILLIPS AT HOME.

FAIRY LAWN is at present very quiet; everything is changed from the good old days of Windham Phillips; the family circle, for nine months of the year, consisting of Mrs. Phillips, Miss Katty Phillips, her only daughter, and Miss Rebaldi, the governess. Mrs. Phillips is a quiet, unassuming, ladylike person. She is called by the poor people the "madam." They will tell you she knows more law than "honest Billy Kennedy," the attorney, and will give as good advice as the priest himself. Since her husband's altered circumstances, she has taken the entire management of her household, and reduced her staff of servants to onehalf. People who knew her as the pretty Miss Caroline Bonsal in former years can scarcely recognise her as the silent, self-possessed Mrs. Phillips. Time has, no doubt, made some change in her very regular features; her anxieties for her husband's affairs and his delicate health have left the marks of care; and now, as she looked out on her daughter, who is evidently amusing her father with some strange anecdote, her calm blue eyes brighten up, a smile crosses her still handsome features, while she breathes forth a prayer that Providence may restore him, the husband of her choice, to the position which he always adorned.

Miss Katty had taken her papa over the lawn, Pluto the dog in attendance. Mr. Phillips heard of a Mr. Sandon, a young gentleman who has recently joined the depôt of his regiment, whose mamma had his life insured before she would allow him to depart among the "wild Irish." The said Mr. Sandon was the source of some amusement to Katty; his views of the Irish were listened to by that young lady with no little pleasure; her governess frequently tried to stop the current of questions, but no, Miss Katty would draw out "the little creature," as she called Mr. Sandon, until Miss Rebaldi could no longer keep up a serious counte

nance.

"Well, papa, dear," said Katty, "I am sorry I did not send up Mrs. Kennedy to you. She was here about an hour ago, and asked how was the dear invalede." "

Sept.-VOL. CXLVII. NO. DXCVII.

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