"You Sir, you never buy a book,

Therefore in one you shall not look."

The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh
He wish'd he never had been taught to read,

Then of the old churl's books he should have had no
need.

Of sufferings the poor have many,
Which never can the rich annoy:

I soon perceived another boy,
Who look'd as if he had not any
Food, for that day at least-enjoy

The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder.

This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder,
Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny,
Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat :

No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat.

STAGE ILLUSION.

A PLAY is said to be well or ill acted, in | coward as we took him for? We saw all proportion to the scenical illusion produced. the common symptoms of the malady upon Whether such illusion can in any case be him; the quivering lip, the cowering knees, perfect, is not the question. The nearest the teeth chattering; and could have sworn approach to it, we are told, is, when the actor" that man was frightened." But we forgot appears wholly unconscious of the presence all the while-or kept it almost a secret to of spectators. In tragedy-in all which is ourselves that he never once lost his selfto affect the feelings-this undivided atten- possession; that he let out, by a thousand tion to his stage business seems indispens- droll looks and gestures-meant at us, and able. Yet it is, in fact, dispensed with every not at all supposed to be visible to his fellows day by our cleverest tragedians; and while in the scene, that his confidence in his own these references to an audience, in the shape resources had never once deserted him. Was of rant or sentiment, are not too frequent or this a genuine picture of a coward; or not palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion for rather a likeness, which the clever artist the purposes of dramatic interest may be said contrived to palm upon us instead of an to be produced in spite of them. But, tragedy original; while we secretly connived at the apart, it may be inquired whether, in certain delusion for the purpose of greater pleasure, characters in comedy, especially those which than a more genuine counterfeiting of the are a little extravagant, or which involve imbecility, helplessness, and utter self-desome notion repugnant to the moral sense, sertion, which we know to be concomitants it is not a proof of the highest skill in the of cowardice in real life, could have given us? comedian when, without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit understanding with them and makes them, unconsciously to themselves, a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession.

Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, but because the skilful actor, by a sort of sub-reference, rather than direct appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its odiousness, by seeming to engage our compassion for the insecure tenure by which he holds his moneybags and parchments? By this subtle vent half of the hatefulness of the character-the self-closeness with which in real life it coils itself up from the sympathies of menevaporates. The miser becomes sympathetic;

The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward done to the life upon a stage would produce anything but mirth. Yet we most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. i. e. is no genuine miser. Here again & Could anything be more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues. How was this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the shaking fit, that he was not half such a

diverting likeness is substituted for a very disagreeable reality.

Spleen, irritability-the pitiable infirmities of old men, which produce only pain to behold in the realities, counterfeited upon a stage, divert not altogether for the comic

appendages to them, but in part from an conscious words and looks express it, as inner conviction that they are being acted before us; that a likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They please by being done under the life, or beside it; not to the life. When Gattie acts an old man, is he angry indeed ? or only a pleasant counterfeit, just enough of a likeness to recognise, without pressing upon us the uneasy sense of a reality?

plainly as he can speak, to pit, box, and gallery. When an impertinent in tragedy, an Osric, for instance, breaks in upon the serious passions of the scene, we approve of the contempt with which he is treated. But when the pleasant impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, worries the studious man with taking up his leisure, or making his house his home, the same sort of contempt expressed (however natural) would destroy the balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion comic, the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature; he must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much dissatisfaction and peevishness as

Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too natural. It was the case with a late actor. Nothing could be more earnest or true than the manner of Mr. Emery; this told excellently in his Tyke, and characters of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion of everything before the curtain into is consistent with the pleasure of comedy. his comedy, it produced a harsh and dissonant In other words, his perplexity must seem effect. He was out of keeping with the rest half put on. If he repel the intruder with of the Persona Dramatis. There was as little the sober set face of a man in earnest, and link between him and them, as betwixt him- more especially if he deliver his expostulaself and the audience. He was a third estate, tions in a tone which in the world must dry, repulsive, and unsocial to all. In- necessarily provoke a duel; his real-life dividually considered, his execution was manner will destroy the whimsical and masterly. But comedy is not this unbending purely dramatic existence of the other chathing; for this reason, that the same degree racter (which to render it comic demands of credibility is not required of it as to an antagonist comicality on the part of the serious scenes. The degrees of credibility character opposed to it), and convert what demanded to the two things, may be illus- was meant for mirth, rather than belief, into trated by the different sort of truth which we a downright piece of impertinence indeed, expect when a man tells us a mournful or a which would raise no diversion in us, but merry story. If we suspect the former of rather stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest falsehood in any one tittle, we reject it alto- upon any unworthy person. A very judicious gether. Our tears refuse to flow at a actor (in most of his parts) seems to have suspected imposition. But the teller of a fallen into an error of this sort in his playing mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We with Mr. Wrench in the farce of Free and are content with less than absolute truth. Easy. "Tis the same with dramatic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see an audience naturalised behind the scenes, taken into the interest of the drama, welcomed as bystanders however. There is something ungracious in a comic actor holding himself aloof from all participation or concern with those who are come to be diverted by him. Macbeth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of it; but an old fool in farce may think he sees something, and by

Many instances would be tedious; these may suffice to show that comic acting at least does not always demand from the performer that strict abstraction from all reference to an audience which is exacted of it; but that in some cases a sort of compromise may take place, and all the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by a judicious understanding, not too openly announced, between the ladies and gentlemen-on both sides of the curtain.

TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON.

There, by the neighbouring moon (by the old Thracian Harper, Charon, it is some not improperly supposed thy Regent to be believed, hath shown small taste for Planet upon earth), mayst thou not still be theatricals. acting thy managerial pranks, great disembodied Lessee? but Lessee still, and still

So shall we all look-kings and keysars (though, substantially, scarcely less a vapour stripped for the last voyage. than thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury,) as but of so many echoes, natural re-percussions, and results to be expected from the assumed extravagancies of thy

But the murky rogue pushes off. Adieu, pleasant, and thrice pleasant shade! with my parting thanks for many a heavy hour of life lightened by thy harmless extravaganzas, secondary or mock life, nightly upon a stage public or domestic.

Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below, leaving to his two brethren the heavy calendars-honest Rhadamanth, always partial to players, weighing their parti-coloured existence here upon earth, making account of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy real life, as we call it,

-after a lenient castigation, with rods lighter than of those Medusean ringlets, but just enough to "whip the offending Adam out of thee," shall courteously dismiss thee at the right hand gate-the o. P. side of Hadesthat conducts to masques and merry-makings in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine. PLAUDITO, ET VALETO.

ELLISTONIANA.

My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we all deplore, was but slight.

My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into an acquaintance a little on this side of intimacy, was over a counter in the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered upon by a branch of his family. E., whom nothing misbecame-to auspicate, I suppose, the filial concern, and set it a-going with a lustre was serving in person two damsels fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to inquire for some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of the illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an air did he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his opinion of the worth of the work in question, and launching out into a dissertation on its comparative merits with those of certain publications of a similar stamp, its rivals! his enchanted customers fairly hanging on his lips, subdued to their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a gentleman in comedy acting the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he contrived to carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from the occupation he had so generously submitted to; and from that hour I judged him, with no after repentance, to be a person with whom it would be a felicity to be more acquainted.

would be superfluous. With his blended private and professional habits alone I have to do; that harmonious fusion of the manners of the player into those of every-day life, which brought the stage boards into streets, and dining-parlours, and kept up the play when the play was ended.—" I like Wrench," a friend was saying to him one day, "because he is the same, natural, easy creature, on the stage, that he is off." "My case exactly," retorted Elliston-with a charming forgetfulness, that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same conclusion-"I am the same person off the stage that I am on." The inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the other always, acting.

And in truth this was the charm of Elliston's private deportment. You had spirited performance always going on before your eyes, with nothing to pay. As where a monarch takes up his casual abode for a night, the poorest hovel which he honours by his sleeping in it, becomes ipso facto for that time a palace; so wherever Elliston walked, sate, or stood still, there was the theatre. He carried about with him his pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his portable playhouse at corners of streets, and in the marketplaces. Upon flintiest pavements he trod To descant upon his merits as a Comedian the boards still; and if his theme chanced to

"My conceit of his person,”—it is Ben Jonson speaking of Lord Bacon,-"was never increased towards him by his place or honours. But I have, and do reverence him for the greatness, that was only proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever one of the greatest men, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that Heaven would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.”

be passionate, the green baize carpet of own Foppington, with almost as much wit as tragedy spontaneously rose beneath his feet. Vanbrugh could add to it. Now this was hearty, and showed a love for his art. So Apelles always painted-in thought. So G. D. always poetises. I hate a lukewarm artist. I have known actorsand some of them of Elliston's own stamp who shall have agreeably been amusing you in the part of a rake or a coxcomb, through the two or three hours of their dramatic existence; but no sooner does the curtain fall with its leaden clatter, but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their faculties. They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding your heart with generous deeds and sentiments, till it even beats with yearnings of universal sympathy; you absolutely long to go home and do some good action. The play seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of the house, and realise your laudable intentions. At length the final bell rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable in human breasts steps forth-a miser. Elliston was more of a piece. Did he play Ranger? and did Ranger fill the general bosom of the town with satisfaction? why should he not be Ranger, and diffuse the same cordial satisfaction among his private circles? with his temperament, his animal spirits, his goodnature, his follies perchance, could he do better than identify himself with his impersonation? Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical character, presented to us in actual life? or what would the performer have gained by divesting himself of the impersonation? Could the man Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the airy briskness, the forwardness, and 'scape-goat trickeries of his prototype?

"But there is something not natural in this everlasting acting; we want the real man."

Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom you cannot, or will not see, under some adventitious trappings, which, nevertheless, sit not at all inconsistently upon him? What if it is the nature of some men to be highly artificial? The fault is least reprehensible in players. Cibber was his

The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicuous in the subject of these idle reminiscences than in my Lord Verulam. Those who have imagined that an unexpected elevation to the direction of a great London Theatre affected the consequence of Elliston, or at all changed his nature, knew not the essential greatness of the man whom they disparage. It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan's Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more than dust and a shadow), on the morning of his election to that high office. Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,-"Have you heard the news?"— then, with another look following up the blow, he subjoined, "I am the future Manager of Drury Lane Theatre."-Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his newblown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could be said to it. Expressive silence alone could muse his praise. This was in his great style.

But was he less great, (be witness, O ye Powers of Equanimity, that supported in the ruins of Carthage the consular exile, and more recently transmuted, for a more illustrious exile, the barren constableship of Elba into an image of Imperial France), when, in melancholy after-years, again, much near the same spot, I met him, when that sceptre had been wrested from his hand, and his dominion was curtailed to the petty managership, and part proprietorship, of the small Olympic, his Elba? He still played nightly upon the boards of Drury, but in parts, alas! allotted to him, not magnificently distributed by him. Waiving his great loss as nothing, and magnificently sinking the sense of fallen material grandeur in the more liberal resentment of