an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of remainder of our joint existences; that we reading in company: at which times she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully understanding its purport- which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably.

The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a farm-house, delightfully situated of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the

more

The only thing left was to get into the palace-or so we thought it. We were made house-and that was a difficulty which to welcome by husband and wife equally we, me singly would have been insurmountable; and our friend that was with us..- I had for I am terribly shy in making myself almost forgotten him- but B. F. will not so known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he Love, stronger than scruple, winged my shall read this on the far distant shores where cousin in without me; but she soon returned the kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was with a creature that might have sat to a made ready, or rather was already so, as if sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was in anticipation of our coming; and, after an the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by appropriate glass of native wine, never let marriage with a Burton, had become mistress me forget with what honest pride this hospiof the old mansion. A comely brood are table cousin made us proceed to Wheathampthe Brutons. Six of them, females, were stead, to introduce us (as some new-found noted as the handsomest young women in rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, the county. But this adopted Bruton, in who did indeed know something more of us, my mind, was better than they allat a time when she almost knew nothing.. comely. She was born too late to have With what corresponding kindness we were remembered me. She just recollected in received by them also how Bridget's early life to have had her cousin Bridget memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. into a thousand half-obliterated recollections But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, of things and persons, to my utter astonishwas enough. Those slender ties, that provement, and her own - and to the astoundment slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her—it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined in a

that was not a cousin there, -old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge-as I have been her care in foolish manhood since-in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire.

MY FIRST PLAY.

Ar the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old Drury-Garrick's Drury- all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of

our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil-shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstonebuildings, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech and had pretensions

above his rank. He associated in those days I journeyed down to take possession, and

with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at Bath-the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge. From either of these connexions it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years' nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre - and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's familiarity-or supposed familiarity-was better to my godfather than money.

planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!-with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door-not that which is left-but between that and an inner door in shelter-O when shall I be such an expectant again!-with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;". -chase pro chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosedbreathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shak

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds speare-the tent scene with Diomede — and Latin from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa — but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro-in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicised, into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow.

a sight of that plate can always hring back in a measure the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pitand the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what under glass, as it seemed), resembling-a homely fancy-but I judged it to be sugarcandy-yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!-The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again

and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up- I was not past six years old, and the play was Artaxerxes!

He is dead—and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans!-slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover that by his testamentary benefi- I had dabbled a little in the universal cence I came into possession of the only History- the ancient part of it- and here landed property which I could never call my was the court of Persia. It was being own- situated near the road-way village of admitted to a sight of the past. I took no pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When proper interest in the action going on, for I

understood not its import-but I heard the I saw these plays in the season 1781-2,
word Darius, and I was in the midst of when I was from six to seven years old.
Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. After the intervention of six or seven other
Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, years (for at school all play-going was in-
passed before me. I knew not players. I hibited) I again entered the doors of a
was in Persepolis for the time, and the theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had
burning idol of their devotion almost con- never done ringing in my fancy. I expected
verted me into a worshipper. I was awe-
struck, and believed those significations to be
something more than elemental fires. It
was all enchantment and a dream. No such
pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. lost! At the first period I knew nothing,
-Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I understood nothing, discriminated nothing.
remember, the transformation of the magis- I felt all, loved all, wondered all-

trates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.

The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost - a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead

the same feelings to come again with the
same occasion. But we differ from ourselves
less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does
from six. In that interval what had I not

Was nourished, I could not tell how

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone!-The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages to present a royal ghost," but a but to my apprehension (too sincere certain quantity of green baize, which was for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of to separate the audience for a given time antiquity as Lud-the father of a line of from certain of their fellow-men who were Harlequins-transmitting his dagger of lath to come forward and pretend those parts. (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. The lights-the orchestra lights— came up a I saw the primeval Motley come from his clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-second ring, was now but a trick of the work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. prompter's bell-which had been, like the So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice,
no hand seen or guessed at which ministered
to its warning. The actors were men and
women painted. I thought the fault was in
them; but it was in myself, and the altera-
tion which those many centuries, of six
short twelvemonths- had wrought in me.

My third play followed in quick succession. It was the Way of the World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe-Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and play of the evening was but an indifferent the parrot, were as good and authentic as comedy, as it gave me time to crop some in the story. The clownery and pantaloonery unreasonable expectations, which might have of these pantomimes have clean passed out of interfered with the genuine emotions with my head. I believe, I no more laughed at which I was soon after enabled to enter upon them, than at the same age I should have the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons been disposed to laugh at the grotesque in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete soon yielded to the present attraction of with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in the scene; and the theatre became to me, stone around the inside of the old Round upon a new stock, the most delightful of Church (my church) of the Templars. recreations.

MODERN GALLANTRY.

In comparing modern with ancient man- | you have not seen a politer-bred man in ners, we are pleased to compliment ourselves Lothbury. upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as females.