riously gibbeted the next day, in all the papers, for your Sancho Panza exhibition."

"Pooh!" ejaculated Stubbs, "pooh! pooh! what care I for the rascally papers? Don't I know what sort of critics they are who guide the public taste, and fulminate their mighty we in the columns of a newspaper?"

Why, to be sure," answered M'Crab, "when it is recollected that nine-tenths of the gentlemen of the press are only competent to write down the ideas of others, never having tried to do so with their own, it is an absurdity to value at a pin's fee' their trashy slip slop; but the misfortune is, that however much you or I may despise, with equal scorn, their censure and their praise, there are those-and they not a few-who hold for gospel whatever they read in the newspapers."

"I know what I'll do," exclaimed Stubbs-"I'll prepare the public mind for my proposed innovation-or rather, innovations-for I intend introducing several new readings in the part, quite as original as the one I have now propounded to you. I'll address two or three letters to the Morning Post, and say a little about the gentleman' of independent fortune who is shortly to appear in Hamlet, and his original study of the character. That will be an excellent ruse de guerre, eh?”

"Dono such thing," replied M'Crab, with a malicious gravity. "Take the town by surprise. It is the only way, if it is to be taken at all. But what are your other new readings?"

"It would weary you, answered Mr. Stubbs, "to go through the whole. I'll mention one, however. I intend to let Ophelia see,

That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft.'

So, after bidding her go to a nunnery,' before I quit the stage I will take her hand, kiss it tenderly, look in her face with a silent expression of doting fondness, and sigh desperately as I slowly retire from her presence."

"It may be new," said M'Crab,

"but it will be a gross violation of the author's text."

"How so, friend M'Crab?" replied Stubbs.

"How so!" answered M'Crab. "You forget that Polonius and the King conceal themselves as lawful espials,' behind the arras, watching this interview, in the hope of thus discovering whether the madness of Hamlet springs from love or not; and that immediately after Hamlet quits the stage, they enter, the King exclaiming, Love! his affections do not that way tend.' But surely Shakspeare would not have put such a sentence into the King's mouth, if Hamlet were intended to show, by the very concluding act of his interview, that love was the predominant passion of his soul at that moment."

"Never mind," said Stubbs, a little disconcerted,-"I do not think I am quite so strong here as upon my fat point; but an impassioned kiss of the hand, as if to atone, by that silent though eloquent language of love, for his harshness, will produce an effect, depend upon it. It will elicit monstrous applause."

"It should do so," replied M'Crab, "for it will be monstrously ridiculous."

N'importe !" exclaimed Stubbs, gaily; "there are more admirers, in this world, of the ridiculous than of the true, that let me tell you. But I must to my studies, for the night approaches. Next Monday—and this is Thursday-and I am by no means au fait yet in my part. So good morning-let me see you soon again— and meanwhile adieu! adieu! remember me !"

Mr. McCrab departed; and Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs prepared to go through the soliloquy of "To be or not to be," before a mirror which reflected the whole of his person.

Monday came, and oh! with what a flutter of delight Mr. Stubbs cast his eyes upon that part of the paper, where the play for the evening was announced, and where he read, "This

evening will be acted the tragedy of Hamlet: the part of Hamlet by a Gentleman, his first appearance on any stage.' But this was not enough for the eager appetite of his supremely blest ambition. He rang for his boots; he put on his hat and gloves; he walked forth; he traversed more than fifty streets; stopped at all the greengrocers' shops, biscuit-bakers, butchers, and fishmongers, where the bill of the day was invitingly hung out, or leaned its rubric face against the railing; read, again and again, "The part of Hamlet by a GENTLEMAN, his first appearance on any stage;" wondered the managers did not send a bill to every shop in the metropolis; thought the cobbler's stalls ought not to be without them; sauntered past the stage door of theatre, and carelessly mingled with a group of five or six men and boys in fustian jackets, who were spelling the bill of the play; admired the increasing taste for dramatic exhibitions among the lower orders; and returned home delightfully fatigued with his perambulation. He had attended the last rehearsal on the preceding Saturday, and so had nothing to interrupt his meditations for the rest of the day; and in order that they might not be interrupted, he gave strict injunctions that he was at home to nobody." He dined alone, off a roast chicken and a pint of Madeira; and on one side of his plate was the " tragedy of Hamlet, by W. Shakspeare," and on the other, a small house bill, as it is called, spread out, with the decanter placed upon one corner of it, to prevent its blowing away whenever the servant opened the door.

Thus he sate, feeding on walnuts and glorious fancies, till he heard the five o'clock bell of the general postman, when he started up, and prepared to go to the theatre. His carriage was at the door-and he told the coachman to drive down street, that he might see, in passing along, whether the crowd at the pit and gallery doors, would obstruct his progress. It was not quite so large as to

stretch across the carriage road; but he was sure there were some hundreds, though so early, and he thought they must have heard who the "gentleman" was, that was then rolling by: He would not be positive, too; but he could almost swear he heard an huzza, as he passed along. There were above a dozen persons collected round the stage door; and he plainly perceived that they drew back with respectful admiration, as the new Hamlet stepped out of his carriage.

He hastened to his dressing-room, where he found his friend, the manager, Mr. Peaess, who shook him cordially by the hand, as he informed him that they had an excellent boxbook. Stubbs smiled graciously; and the manager left him with his dresser, to attire himself in his "customary suit of solemn black." Mr. Stubbs had kept his intention of stuffing the character a profound secret, fearful lest any mere technical objections should be made by Mr. Peaess, and desirous also of making the first impression in the green-room. When he entered it, therefore, in the likeness of a chubby undertaker, ready for a funeral, rather than in that of the "unmatched form and feature of blown youth"-in short, the very type and image of poor Tokely in Peter Pastoral, his eyes and ears were on the alert to catch the look of surprise, and buzz of admiration, which he very naturally anticipated. He was a little daunted by a suppressed titter which ran round the room; but he was utterly confounded when his best and dearest friend, Mr. Peaess himself, coming up to him, exclaimed," Why, zounds! Mr. Stubbs, what have you been doing? The audience will never stand this !"

"Stand what?" replied Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs.

"What?" echoed the manager; why this pot-belly, and those cherub cheeks."

"Pooh! pooh!" replied Stubbs, "it's Shakspeare, and I can prove it."

"You may pooh! pooh! as much as you like, Mr. Stubbs," rejoined

the manager; "but you've made a mere apple-dumpling of yourself."

"Do you think so?" exclaimed Stubbs, glancing in one of the mirrors -"Well; I do assure you it is Shakspeare, and I'll prove it. But what shall I do?" and he looked imploringly round upon the broad, grinning countenances of the other performers. "Do?" ejaculated Mr. Peaess; "you can do nothing now-the curtain has been up these ten minutes; Horatio and Marcellus are coming off, and you must go on.”

At this moment the ghost of Hamlet's father entered the room, but before he had time to look upon his son, the call-boy's summons was heard for the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, &c., to be ready, and forth sallied poor Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs, to prove, if he could, to the audience, that his rotundity was perfectly Shaksperian.

The awful flourish of drum and

trumpet was sounded ;-their majesties of Denmark, attended by their train of courtiers, walked on. There is a pause ! All eyes are bent in eager gaze to catch the first glimpse of the new Hamlet-all hands are ready to applaud. He appears-boxes, pit, and gallery, join in the generous wel

He

come of the unknown candidate. revives-hastens to the foot-lightsbows-another round of applausebows again and again and then falls back, to let the business of the scene proceed. He looks round, meanwhile, with the swelling consciousness that he is at that moment "the observed of all observers," and tries to rally his agitated spirits; but just as he is beginning to do so, his wandering eye rests upon the illomened face of M'Crab, seated in the front-row of the stage-box, who is gazing at him with a grotesque smile, which awakens an overwhelming recollection of his own prediction, that he would be "horribly laughed at, if he did make Hamlet a fat little fellow," as well as a bewildering reminiscence of the manager's, that

"the audience would not stand it."

It was soon evident that they would not, or rather that they could not, stand it.

But it was not alone his new reading in what regarded the person of Hamlet, that excited astonishment. Mr. Stubbs had so many other new readings, that before he got to the end of his first speech, beginning with, "Seems, madani! nay, it is," they were satisfied of what was to follow. When, however, Mr. Stubbs stood alone upon the stage, in the full perfection of his figure, and concentrated upon himself the undivided attention of the house-when he gathered up his face into an indescribable aspect of woe-but, above all, when, placing his two hands upon his little round belly, he exclaimed, while looking sorrowfully at it,

"Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, (Pat, went the right hand,) Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,"

(Pat, went the left hand,) the effect was irresistible. One roar of laughter shook the theatre, from the back row of the shilling gallery to the first row of the pit, mingled with cries of bravo! bravo! go on, my little fellow-you shall have fair play

silence-bravo! silence!-Stubbs, meanwhile, looked as if he were really wondering what they were all laughing at; and when at length silence was partially restored, he continued his soliloquy. His delivery of the lines,

"Fye on't, oh fye! 'tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature," &c.

was one of his new readings-for holding up his finger, and looking towards the audience with a severe expression of countenance, it appeared as though he were chiding their ill manners in laughing at him, when he said, "Fye on't-oh, fye!"

He was allowed to proceed, however, with such interruptions only as his own original conceptions of the part provoked from time to time; or when anything he had to say was obviously susceptible of an application

to himself. Thus, for example, in the scene with Horatio and Marcellus, after his interview with the ghost:

"Ham.

And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, Give me one poor request.

Hor.

What is it, my lord? We will. Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night."

"Let him, if he likes," exclaimed a voice from the pit-" he'll never see such a sight again."-Then, in his instructions to the players, his delivery of them was accompanied by something like the following running commentary:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, (that is impossible!) trippingly on the tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, (laughter,) I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.** Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow (like yourself) tear a passion to tatters, &c. -I would have such a fellow whipped (give it him, he deserves it) for o'erdoing Termagant.* ***Oh, there be players that I have seen play, (no, we see him,) and heard others praise, and that highly, (oh! oh! oh!) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the accent of Christians, (ha! ha! ha!) nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted (bravo! little 'un!) and bellowed, (hit him again!) that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made them, (who made you?) and not made them well, (no, you are a bad fit,) they imitated humanity so abominably." (Roars of laughter!)

It was thus Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs enacted Hamlet; and it was not till the end of the fourth act that he suffered a single ob

servation to escape him, which indicated he thought anything was amiss. Then, indeed, while sitting in the green-room, and as if the idea had just struck him, he said to Mr. Peaess, Do you know, I begin to think I have some enemies in the house, for when, in the scene with Ophelia, I said, 'What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?' somebody called out, loud enough for me to hear him, Aye! what, indeed?' It's very odd. Did you notice it, ma'am?" he continued, addressing the lady who performed Ophelia. "I can't say I did,” replied the lady, biting her lips most unmercifully, to preserve her gravity of

countenance.

This was the only remark made by the inimitable Mr. Stubbs during the whole evening, and he went through the fifth act with unabated self-confidence. His dying scene was honored with thunders of applause, and loud cries of encore. Stubbs raised his head, and looking at Horatio, who was bending over him, inquired, "Do you think they mean it ?”

"Lie still, for God's sake!" exclaimed Horatio, and the curtain slowly descended amid the deafening roars of laughter, and shouts of hurrah! hurrah!

The next morning, at breakfast, Stubbs found all the daily papers on his table, pursuant to his directions. He took up one, and read, in large letters-" THEATRE. FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE OF MR. HENRY AUGUSTUS CONSTANTINE STUBBS, IN HAMLET."

He read no more. The paper dropped from his hands; and Mr. Stubbs remained nothing but a GENTLEMAN all the rest of his life.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,-The following documents I gleaned from the voluminous journal of a lately deceased nephew. They are evidently written in the most careless manner, yet not

without an occasional spice of affectation; and, therefore, my regard for the memory of one who was almost a child to me would have restrained me from publishing them, if I had not