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MY FIRST PLAY. From "Essays of Elia." Condensed by the Editor. By CHARLES LAMB.

AT

T 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.

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 doornot 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 playhouse 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 prô chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed,-the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's

Shakspeare, the tent scene with Diomede,--and 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 pit; and 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 sugar-candy,-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!

I had dabbled a little in the Universal History,-the ancient part of it, and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import,-but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted 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. Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates 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."' 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.

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 followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in the story. The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe I no more laughed at them than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old Round Church (my church) of the Templars.

I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected 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 lost! At

the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered

all

"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 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. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.

ON DOGS AND CATS.

derson Brewer.

Translated by Jessie Hen

By ALEXANDER DUMAS.

T is admitted that the dog has intelligence, a heart

cat is a traitor, deceiver, thief, an egotist, an ingrate. How many have we not heard say: "Oh, I cannot abide a cat! it is an animal that loves not its master; it is attached only to the house; one must keep it under lock and key. I had one once, for I was in the country and there were mice. The cook had the imprudence to leave upon the table a poulet that she had just purchased; the cat carried it off, no morsel of it was ever seen after. Since that day I have said: 'I will have no cat.'" Its reputation is detestable, the fact cannot be disguised, and one must acknowledge that the cat does nothing to modify the opinion in which it is held. It is entirely unpopular, but it cares as little about this as it does about the Grand Turk. Must I confess it to you? It is for this that I love it, for in this world one can remain indifferent to things the most serious-if there are serious things, and this, one knows only at the end of his life; but he cannot evade the question of dogs and cats. There is always a moment when he must declare himself. Well, then! I love cats! Ah! the times they have said to me: "What, you love cats?"

"Yes!"

"Do you not like dogs better?"
"No, I love cats much more.'
"That is extraordinary."

I prefer certainly to have neither cat nor dog, but were I forced to live with one of these two individuals, I would choose the cat. It has for me the manners

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