Rundell and Bridge kept better remedies than Savory and Moore: a box at the Opera was an infallible cure for a head-ache; and the air of Brighton was absolutely necessary when its salutary effects were increased by the breath of Royalty. Cards he looked upon as indispensable, to prevent ladies from taking laudanum; and a successful game of écarté was as effectual an opiate, as extract of lettuce,-one of his most favourite drugs. In this career of prosperity, a circumstance arose that for a time damped his ardour. Dulcet had attended an East-Indian widow, the wealthy relict of a civil servant of the Company. Her hand and fortune would have enabled the doctor to throw physic to the dogs, and all the nasty little brats whom he idolised after it. He had succeeded in becoming a great favourite. The disconsolate lady could not eat, drink, or sleep, without giving him his guinea. She scarcely knew at what end she was to break an egg, or how many grains of salt she could safely put in it, without his opinion; but, unfortunately, there was a certain colonel, an old friend of her former husband, who was a constant visitor, and who seemed to share with her medical attendant the lady's confidence. Though Dulcet ordered her not to receive visitors when in a nervous state, somehow or other the colonel had been admitted. On such occasions he would shake his head in the most sapient manner, and observe that the pulse was much agitated; but he did not dare forbid these (to him) dangerous visits, and therefore endeavoured to attain his ends by a more circuitous route, and gain time until the colonel's departure for Bengal afforded him the vantage-ground of absence. The widow would sometimes complain of her moping and lonely life. On these occasions Dulcet would delicately hint that at some future period a change of condition might be desirable, and the widow would then sigh deeply, and perchance shed a few tears, (whether from the recollection of her dear departed husband, or the idea of the future period' of this change of condition,-a futurity which was sine die,-I cannot pretend to say); but the doctor strove to impress upon her mind, that in her present delicate state, the cares of a family, the pangs of absence, the turmoil of society, would shake her too tender frame' to very atoms, while the slightest shadow of an unkind shade would break her sensitive heart; whereas a leetle tranquillity would soon restore her to that society of which she was considered the brightest ornament! And then the sigh would become still deeper, and the tears would trickle down her pallid cheek with increased rapidity, until Dulcet actually fancied that the Heaven-moving pearls' were not beaded in sorrow, but were 'shed from Nature like a kindly shower.' Still he knew the sex too well, to venture upon so delicate a subject as matrimonial consolation; and he, with no little reluctance, parted with a few fees to obtain some intelligence regarding the lady's toilet-thoughts and conversation with her favourite woman, a certain cunning abigail named Mercer. Mercer was of course subject to nervous affections, which she caught from her mistress; and Dulcet was as kind to the maid as to her lady, well knowing that as no hero is a great man in the eyes of his valet, no widow was crystalised with her waiting-maid. The visits of the colonel had not been as frequent as usual; nay, Dulcet fancied that he was received with some coolness, and on this important matter Mercer was prudently consulted. The result of the conference fully confirmed the doctor's fondest hopes; for he learnt from Mercer that her missus liked him above all things, and was never by no means half as fond of the colonel, as she knew for certain that those soldier-officers were not better than they ought to be, and there were red-rags on every bush.' This communication, although made with cockney vulgarity, had a more powerful effect upon the doctor than had he heard Demosthenes or Cicero; and he could have embraced the girl with delight and gratitude had he dared it, but she was handsomer than her mistress: he, moreover, fancied that such a condescension might tempt the girl's vanity to boast of the favour; but he gave her something more substantial than a kiss,—a diamond ring that graced his little finger, and which he always displayed to advantage when feeling a tender pulse. Dulcet now altered his plan of campaign, redoubled his assiduity, assured the widow that she was fast recovering her pristine strength and healthy glow, and recommended her to shorten the futurity of the period he had alluded to; assuring her that now the cares of a family would give her occupation, and society once more would hail her presence with delight. In her sweet smiles of satisfaction he read his future bliss and independence. The colonel never came to the house; and, one day, our doctor was on the point of declaring the purity and the warmth of his affection, when the widow rendered the avowal needless, informing him that she had resolved to follow his kind advice, and that the ensuing week she was to be married to THE COLONEL, who had gone down into the country to regulate his affairs. The blow fell upon Dulcet like an apoplexy. Prudence made him conceal the bitterness of his disappointment, and even induced him to be present at the wedding breakfast; though his appetite was doubly impaired when he found that Miss Mercer had married the colonel's valet, and he beheld his diamond guarding her wedding-ring, while an ironical smile showed him, what little faith was to be reposed in ladies' women. The report of this adventure entertained the town for nine days; but on the tenth, through the patronage of his protectresses, Dulcet was dubbed a knight, and soon after married a cheesemonger's daughter, ugly enough to have a hereditary claim to virtue; but who possessed an ample fortune, and was most anxious to become a lady. The librarian was proceeding to give me an account of the next personage, a Dr. Cleaver, when the bell rung for dinner, and we adjourned our illustrations until the following morning. V. THE SORROWS OF LIFE. Who would recal departed days and years SIGMA. BEFORE We plunge headlong into this paper, let us at once confess to a fondness for pantomimes-to a gentle sympathy with clowns and pantaloons-to an unqualified admiration of harlequins and columbines-to a chaste delight in every action of their brief existence, varied and many-coloured as those actions are, and inconsistent though they occasionally be with those rigid and formal rules of propriety which regulate the proceedings of meaner and less comprehensive minds. We revel in pantomimes-not because they dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they present to us, once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, and goggle eyes of our childhood; not even because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth-night, and Shrove Tuesday, and one's own birth-day, they come to us but once a-year;―our attachment is founded on a graver and a very different reason. A pantomime is to us, a mirror of life; nay more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it; and that this very circumstance is the secret cause of their amusement and delight. Let us take a slight example. The scene is a street: an elderly gentleman, with a large face, and strongly marked fea tures, appears. His countenance beams with a sunny smile, and a perpetual dimple is on his broad red cheek. He is evidently an opulent elderly gentleman, comfortable in circumstances, and well to do in the world. He is not unmindful of the adornment of his person, for he is richly, not to say gaudily dressed; and that he indulges to a reasonable extent in the pleasures of the table, may be inferred from the joyous and oily manner in which he rubs his stomach, by way of informing the audience that he is going home to dinner. In the fullness of his heart, in the fancied security of wealth, in the possession and enjoyment of all the good things of life, the elderly gentleman suddenly loses his footing, and stumbles. How the audience roar ! He is set upon by a noisy and officious crowd, who buffet and cuff him unmercifully. They scream with delight! Every time the elderly gentleman struggles to get up, his relentless persecutors knock him down again. The spectators are convulsed with merriment! And when at last the elderly gentleman does get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat, wig, and clothing, himself battered to pieces, and his watch and money gone, they are exhausted with laughter, and express their merriment and admiration in rounds of applause. Is this like life? Change the scene to any real street ;-to the Stock Exchange, or the City banker's; the merchant's counting-house, or even the tradesman's shop. See any one of these men fall,-the more suddenly, and the nearer the zenith of his pride and riches, the better. What a wild hallo is raised over his prostrate carcase by the shouting mob; how they whoop and yell as he lies humbled beneath them! Mark how eagerly they set upon him when he is down; and how they mock and deride him as he slinks away. Why, it is the pantomime to the very letter. Of all the pantomimic dramatis persona, we consider the pantaloon the most worthless and debauched. Independent of the dislike, one naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in pursuits highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous worldly-minded old villain, constantly enticing his younger companion, the clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and generally standing aside to watch the result of the enterprise: if it be successful, he never forgets to return for his share of the spoil; but if it turn out a failure, he generally retires with remarkable caution and expedition, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair has blown over. His amorous propensities, too, are eminently disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in the open street at noon-day is downright improper, being usually neither more nor less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed (as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing, nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very unpleasant and immoral manner. Is there any man who cannot count a dozen pantaloons in his own social circle? Is there any man who has not seen them swarming at the west end of the town on a sunshiny day or a summer's evening, going through the last-named pantomimic feats with as much liquorish energy, and as total an absence of reserve, as if they were on the very stage itself? We can tell upon our fingers a dozen pantaloons of our acquaintance at this moment capital pantaloons, who have been performing all kinds of strange freaks, to the great amusement of their friends and acquaintance, for years past; and who to this day are making such comical and ineffectual attempts to be young and dissolute, that all beholders are like to die with laughter. Take that old gentleman who has just emerged from the Café de l'Europe in the Haymarket, where he has been dining at the expense of the young man upon town with whom he shakes hands as they part at the door of the tavern. The affected warmth of that shake of the hand, the courteous nod, the obvious recollection of the dinner, the savoury flavour of which, still hangs upon his lips, are all characteristics of his great prototype. He hobbles away humming an opera tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with affected carelessness. He peeps Suddenly he stops-'tis at the milliner's window. through one of the large panes of glass; and, his view of the ladies within being obstructed by the India shawls, directs his attentions to the young girl with the bandbox in her hand, who is gazing in at the window also. See! he draws beside her. He coughs; she turns away from him. He draws near her again; she disregards him. He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to the life! But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear to those of every-day life, is perfectly extraordinary. Some people talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal tones the name of Grimaldi. We mean no disparagement to the worthy and excellent old man when we say, that this is downright nonsense. Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every day, and nobody patronises them-more's the pity! 66 "I know who you mean," says some dirty-faced patron of Mr. Osbaldistone's, laying down the Miscellany when he has got thus far; and bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance: "you mean C. J. Smith as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell, at the Garden." The dirty-faced gentleman has hardly uttered the words when he is interrupted by a young gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat. "No, no, says the young gentleman; "he means Brown, King, and Gibson, at the 'Delphi." Now, with great deference both to the first-named gentleman with the dirty face, and the lastnamed gentleman in the non-existing shirt-collar, we do not mean, either the performer who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish conspirator, or the three unchangeables who have been dancing the same dance under different imposing titles, and doing the same thing under various high-sounding names, for some five or six years last past. We have no sooner made this avowal than the public, who have hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on earth it is we do mean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to tell them. It is very well known to all play-goers and pantomime-seers, that the scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his glory are those which are described in the play-bills as "Cheesemonger's shop, and Crockery warehouse," or "Tailor's shop, and Mrs. Queertable's boarding-house," or places bearing some such title, where the great fun of the thing consists in the hero's taking lodgings which he has not the slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining goods under false pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade of the respectable shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse-porters as they pass under his win |