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The charge is prepared, and the evidence clear,
"He was caught in the cellar a-drinking the beer!
And came there, there's very great reason to fear,
With companions, to say but the least of them queer;
Such as witches, and creatures,

With horrible features,

And horrible grins,

And hook'd noses and chins,

Who'd been playing the deuce with his Rev'rence's binns."

The face of his worship grows graver and graver,
As the parties detail Robin's shameful behaviour;
Mister Buzzard, the clerk, while the tale is reciting,
Sits down to reduce the affair into writing,
With all proper diction,

And due "legal fiction ;"

Viz: "That he, the said prisoner, as clearly was shown,
Conspiring with folks to deponents unknown,

With divers, that is to say, two thousand, people,
In two thousand hats, each hat peak'd like a steeple,
With force and with arms,

And with sorcery and charms,
Upon two thousand brooms

Enter'd four thousand rooms;

To wit two thousand pantries and two thousand cellars,
Put in bodily fear twenty thousand indwellers,

And with sundry, that is to say, two thousand, forks,
Drew divers, that is to say, ten thousand, corks,

And, with malice prepense, down their two thousand throttles,
Emptied various, that is to say, ten thousand bottles;
All in breach of the peace, moved by Satan's malignity,
And in spite of King James, and his Crown and his Dignity."

At words so profound

Rob gazes around,

But no glance sympathetic to cheer him is found.

No glance, did I say?

Yes, one-Madge Gray!

She is there in the midst of the crowd standing by,

And she gives him one glance from her coal-black eye,

One touch to his hand, and one word to his ear,

(That's a line which I've stolen from Sir Walter, I fear,)While nobody near

Seems to see her or hear.

As his worship takes up, and surveys with a strict eye
The broom now produced as the corpus delicti,

Ere his fingers can clasp,

It is snatch'd from his grasp,

The end poked in his chest with a force makes him gasp,
And, despite the decorum so due to the Quorum,

His worship's upset, and so too is his jorum ;

And Madge is astride on the broomstick before 'em.
"Hocus Pocus! Quick, Presto! and Hey Cockalorum !
Mount, mount for your life, Rob!-Sir Justice, adieu !—
Hey up the chimney-pot! hey after you!"

Through the mystified group,

With a halloo and whoop,

Madge on the pommel, and Robin en croupe, The pair through the air ride as if in a chair,

While the party below stand mouth open and stare,

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"Clean bumbaized” and amazed, and fix'd, all in the room stick,
"Oh! what's gone with Robin, and Madge, and the broomstick?"
Ay, "what's gone" indeed, Ned ?-of what befell
Madge Gray and the broomstick I never heard tell;
But Robin was found that morn, on the ground,
In yon old grey ruin again, safe and sound,
Except that at first he complain'd much of thirst,
And a shocking bad head-ache, of all ills the worst,
And close by his knee

A flask you might see,

But an empty one smelling of eau de vie.

Rob from this hour is an alter'd man;

He runs home to his lodgings as fast as he can,
Sticks to his trade,

Marries Miss Slade,

Becomes a Te-totaller-that is the same

As Te-totallers now, one in all but the name;

Grows fond of Small-beer, which is always a steady sign,
Never drinks spirits except as a medicine;

Learns to despise

Coal-black eyes,

Minds pretty girls no more than so many Guys;

Has a family, lives to be sixty, and dies!

Tie

Now my little boy Ned,

Brush off to your bed,

your night-cap on safe, or a napkin instead,

Or these November nights you'll catch cold in your head;
And remember my tale, and the moral it teaches,

Which you'll find much the same as what Solomon preaches.
Don't flirt with young ladies! don't practise soft speeches;

Avoid waltzes, quadrilles, pumps, silk hose, and knee-breeches;

Frequent not grey ruins, shun riot and revelry,

Hocus Pocus, and Conj'ring, and all sorts of devilry;

Don't meddle with broomsticks,—they're Beelzebub's switches;

Of cellars keep clear,-they're the devil's own ditches;

And beware of balls, banquettings, brandy, and-witches!

Don't run after black eyes, above all!-if you do,
Depend on 't you'll find what I say will come true,

Old Nick, some fine morning, will "hey after you!"

THOMAS INGOLDSBY.

WILL-ING MOURNERS.

Tis rich old Hunks's burial day,

And friends have round him swarm'd

How joyfully his heirs will play

At Funerals perform'd !"

For they've no fears of fond hearts breaking
At such "a pleasant UNDERTAKING !"

TOUJOURS GAI.

THE FRENCH OR ENGLISH.

"If they have a fault, it is that they are too serious," so says Sterne of the French; though he does not give us, or the Count, in his Sentimental Journey, the promised explanation of his meaning; but it is curious, with the received and vulgar opinion that the French are a gay and frivolous people, that we should have the recorded judgment of so many celebrated men that they have been in all times a serious nation. The Roman Emperor Julian, long a resident at the primitive Paris, and by nature sad, declared the gravity of the inhabitants of his dear Lutetia pleased him; the essayist, Jouy, and the traveller, Kotzebue, have remarked this spirit of melancholy in the French.

It is the more curious that this gaiety and frivolity is always spoken of in contrast with the dulness and sobriety of their neighbours, the English; yet when the manners and habits of the respective people are observed, it is difficult to say why this should have become so common an assertion. It is indeed difficult to say what are characteristics of a nation; what makes gaiety, frivolity, and their contraries, melancholy, seriousness, dulness, and gravity, when so many of the latter qualities appear to belong to the French: so many of the former to the English. The two nations are, nevertheless, classed almost without exception under the opposite categories.

Perhaps the character of a people cannot be better taken than from their public amusements, and this especially applies to the French, who devote so much of their time to them. Sir Walter Scott says it is remarkable that the French, thought to be a gay and lively people, should have a drama, which no other nation can bear for its dulness, the tedium of its dialogue, and the slowness of its plot. Dryden makes the same observation on the French Theatre; but the classic drama which Walter Scott and Dryden allude to has ceased to be in vogue. The performances of Thespis are now based upon a much broader foundation, and the new school of the romanticists, in opposition to the classics, has established itself. The French, however, still attend the heaviest representations at the Theatre Français, conversations, called comedies, and tragedies which progress in rhyme, and end à l'etiquette. They still admire the mellowness of their verse, which takes away from the force of the sentiment, and from all power and nature in the acting. Given up to the license of the romanticists, they de light in an assemblage of horrors, and in a voluptuous excess of guilt. Everybody has either heard of, read, or seen, La Tour de Nesle, and Lucrece Borgia. Pieces of this description are constantly succeeding, though no longer so well written. Clotilde, a tragedy, in which Ma. demoiselle Mars performed at the Theatre Français, was equal to any of the productions of the Porte St. Martin; and the tore given by these two play-houses for so long a period has pervaded all the minor and Vaudeville theatres. The time has been when it was not possible to choose an entertainment without tragedy; and sometimes the theatre devoted to farces would play all sad and affecting pieces: the Vaudeville, "Le duel sous le Cardinal Richelieu," and "Un de plus ;" the Ambigue,"Fils de l'Empereur;" the Theatre de la Gaiete, not

notwithstanding its name, "Le bal et la mort ;" at the Varieties there was no other variety; and at the Gymnastiques they were in the same practice. Dance and song alike join in this general conspiracy. All the performances are of a pathetic nature in the Academie, as, for example, " Masaniello," "Gustavus," "The Jewess," and the "Massacre of St. Bartholomew." The dead dance in their burial clothes in "Robert la Diable;" whilst devils waltz, and angels sing, in "La Tentation."

Many nations have their interludes to dissipate the sadness of tragedy, or the monotony of the same performance. The Romans listened to some satire after a gloomy representation, which sent them away in a livelier humour. The Italians have dancing, or other entertainments, between the acts. But the French, giving a unity of thought to every piece, assign to different theatres separate per. formances. Our theatres are indiscriminately devoted to all the purposes of the drama, if their shows and pageants can be classed under this title: nor is seriousness, or any continuity or similarity of entertainment, ever allowed to reign long. When John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons acted in Macbeth, we were relieved by some broad farce; and in the winter season Mother Goose, clown, and panta. loon, completely effaced all previous lugubrious recollections. Happy people, who can pass so quietly from one sensation to another, from tragedy to farce, from comedy to buffoonery!

But, with us, still more odd associations enter into the more serious business of life,-a ball used to terminate the sessions; and, when the victims of the law were dangling on the gal lows, the judges, lawyers, sheriffs, chaplains, and the tender sex, were practising the light fantastic toe. I have danced at an English gaol during the race-week, where the clanking of chains might have added to the sound of the orchestra. Our report of crimes is the subject matter of daily mirth, and forms an annual comic budget, wherein many may inquire with Miss Martineau, which are the most criminal, the reporters and the readers, or the reported. The British public stand by like an audience of grinning schoolboys, by nature equally inclined to roguery, to enjoy the laugh at the expense of the unfortunate scapegoats who are offered up as victims to the offended majesty of the laws. The Gazette des Tribunaux, the most successful journal in Paris, is chiefly occupied by a study of the morale and statistics of guilt rather than in relating the facetiæ of crime; of the grave matters of the law as well as the mere affairs of police, the former of which is thought inadmissible in general English society, aad engrossed by readers of black letters, smellers of musty parchment, and tyers of red tape.

ence.

In the light effusions of the French vaudeville there are many pieces of intellectual interest, wherein some nicety of manners, or something of a domestic nature, is portrayed, that would never come up to the point of exaggeration necessary for an English audiOur five-act comedics are but five-act farces: but, if this difference is observable in the drama, and on the stage, nowhere is it more marked than in the audiences. The great attention of the French may be contrasted with the noisy interference of the English; and, though it may be alleged to be owing entirely to the fear of the military, yet it is worthy of remark, that the French people of their own accord range themselves in long lines, two by two,

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previously to the opening of the doors, and on their entrance to the theatres.

It may be said that the French show a frivolity in the passion they display for music and the dance; but the latter they copy from the Italians, where it is essentially and generally a serious performance. An ancient stoic wept to see a ballet; and well might tears be excited by the pathos and poetry of Taglioni.

Music alone is the object of attraction at the Italiennes at Paris. There is no dance, and the decorations and the mise en scene are miserable; but there, and also at the Academie, with what deep attention do the people listen? The imperative command to silence in their chut, chut! strikes everybody dumb. But with us the opera is rather a fashionable passe temps, and place of visiting and conversation, though there is more variety on the stage in dance and song, more splendid decorations, than in Paris, and more frequent change of representations and performers than in any Italian Opera in Europe.

We are perhaps the most particular people in the world, after the Americans, in our conversation; but we have always allowed great freedom and grossièretés on the stage, which argues an inconsistency of character. The French are in the opposite way the most remark. able for their freedom of specch: however, I have heard some of them hiss Molière, and the sweet organ of Mademoiselle Mars in the Femmes Savantes, where the dialogue is a little too plain; while we let pass much grosser indecencies of language in Othello.

But our pantomimes, which are the universal farce of Christmas, strongly mark the fun and frolic of the English character, in opposition to the French. In Shakspeare, we have the constant introduction of clowns; they constitute the whole histrionic effort in our Fairs; and the pantomime is the original drama of England. The French have no such comic originality on their stage; nor did I ever see anything of the kind in their country fetes The rustics still stick to the mysteries, and, instead of clowns, harlequins, and columbines, you have representations out of the New Testament. The more frequent dancing in France is often mentioned, as a proof of the greater gaiety and vivacity of the French. But on the stage it is a science; in the feet of Taglioni a fine art; and without her, says the Journal des Debats, speaking of the Bayaderes, the ballet is insuf ferably tedious. I have too often heard it said that the French would jump up and dance at the sound of music, whilst we remained deaf to the animating strains of the waltz and quadrille. Now, I have been to a masked ball at the opera, so advertised in all the announcements, where no other music was of course played, and from eleven o'clock to three in the morning, all parties and both sexes (the men with their hats on their heads) did nothing but walk arm-in-arm, and by couples up and down the room. Every other piece of music in the Concert, Musard, and the Champs Elysees certainly relates to the dance; but I never perceived it produce a movement to that effect.

All other nations have some national dances, which represent the hilarity of the meeting and the extravagant emotions of their minds. The sentimental Italian, the saltarello; the grave Spaniard, the fandango; and we, with the Irish and Scotch, the jig, country dance, the hop, the reel, the hornpipe, &c, ; but I never heard the French had any. thing corresponding. They all seem reduced to the formal monotony of the quadrille.

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