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 might share them in equal division. But answer yes or no to a question, without fully that is impossible. The house was at that understanding its purport which is pro- time in the occupation of a substantial voking, and derogatory in the highest degree yeoman, who had married my grandmother's to the dignity of the putter of the said ques- sister. His name was Gladman. My grandtion. Her presence of mind is equal to the mother was a Bruton, married to a Field. most pressing trials of life, but will some- The Gladmans and the Brutons are still times desert her upon trifling occasions. flourishing in that part of the connty, but When the purpose requires it, and is a thing the Fields are almost extinct. More than of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but forty years had elapsed since the visit I in matters which are not stuff of the con- spoke of; and, for the greater portion of that science, she hath been known sometimes to period, we had lost sight of the other two let slip a word less seasonably. branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End -kindred or strange folk-we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore.

Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids.

In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; but best, when she goes a journey with you.

We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that fine corn country.

By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from St. Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though I had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I had conjured up so many times instead of it!

Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart of June," and I could say with the poet,

But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,

Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation!

Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again some altered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections-and she traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown)

with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in some things is behind her years.

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 all- more at 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.

our going (the elder folks and myseit) 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.

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 We went with orders, which my godfather shaking some forty years from off my F. had sent us. He kept the oil ·shop (now shoulders, recurring to the evening when I Davies's) at the corner of Featherstonepassed through it to see my first play. The buildings, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave afternoon had been wet, and the condition of person, lofty in speech and had pretensions

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

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.

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 companiment in those days. As near as I 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.

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 ac

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

a sight of that plate can always bring 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 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!

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. 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 inpassed 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- the same feelings to come again with the struck, and believed those significations to be same occasion. But we differ from ourselves something more than elemental fires. It less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does was all enchantment and a dream. No such from six. In that interval what had I not 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 but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud - the father of a line of Harlequins-transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patchwork, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

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 certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights- the orchestra lights— came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell-which had been, like the 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 alteration 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 manners, we are pleased to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which are supposed to pay to females, as

we

females.

you have not seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.

Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.

I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can forget, that in the Until that day comes, I shall never believe nineteenth century of the era from which this boasted point to be anything more than we date our civility, we are but just begin- a conventional fiction; a pageant got up ning to leave off the very frequent practice between the sexes, in a certain rank, and at of whipping females in public, in common a certain time of life, in which both find with the coarsest male offenders. their account equally.

I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the fact, that in England women are still occasionally – hanged.

I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen.

I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just dissipated.

I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting, and intending to excite, a sneer: when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one has "overstood her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.

I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not observed when I shall see the traveller for some rich Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, mertradesman part with his admired box-coat, chant, and one of the Directors of the Southto spread it over the defenceless shoulders of Sea company- the same to whom Edwards, the poor woman, who is passing to her parish the Shakspeare commentator, has addressed on the roof of the same stage-coach with a fine sonnet - was the only pattern of conhim, drenched in the rain-when I shall no sistent gallantry I have met with. He took longer see a woman standing up in the pit of me under his shelter at an early age, and a London theatre, till she is sick and faint bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his with the exertion, with men about her, precepts and example whatever there is of seated at their ease, and jeering at her dis- the man of business (and that is not much) tress; till one, that seems to have more in my composition. It was not his fault manners or conscience than the rest, signi- that I did not profit more. Though bred a ficantly declares "she should be welcome to Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, his seat, if she were a little younger and he was the finest gentleman of his time. handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle of their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess

He had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that