saving to the treasury. We carried off the palm from all the rival shows at country fairs; and I assure you we have even drawn full houses, and been applauded by the critics of Bartlemy Fair itself, though we had Astley's troop, the Irish giant, and the death of Nelson' in waxwork, to contend against.

“I soon began to experience, however, the cares of command. I discovered that there were cabals breaking out in \the company, headed by the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly peevish, fractious fellow, and always in ill humour. I had a great mind to turn him off at once, but I could not do without him, for there was not a droller scoundrel on the stage. His very shape was comic, for he had but to turn his back upon the audience, and all the ladies were ready to die with laughing. He felt his importance, and took advantage of it. He would keep the audience in a continual roar, and then come behind the scenes, and fret and fume, and play the very devil. I excused a great deal in him, however, knowing that comic actors are a little prone to this infirmity of temper. "I had another trouble of a nearer and dearer nature to struggle with, which was the affection of my wife. As ill luck would have it, she took it into her head to be very fond of me, and became intolerably jealous. I could not keep a pretty girl in the company, and hardly dared embrace an ugly one, even when my part required it. I have known her reduce a fine lady to tatters, 'to very rags,' as Hamlet says, in an instant, and destroy one of the very best dresses in the wardrobe, merely because she saw me kiss her at the side scenes; though I give you my honour it was done merely by way of rehearsal.

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"This was doubly annoying, because I have a natural liking to pretty faces, and wish to have them about me; and because they are indispensable to the success of a company at a fair, where one has to vie with so many rival theatres. But when once a jealous wife gets a freak in her head, there's no use in talking of interest or any thing else. Egad, sir, I have more than once trembled when, during a fit of her tantrums, she was playing high tragedy, and flourishing her tin dagger on the stage, lest she should give way to her humour, and stab some fancied rival in good earnest.

"I went on better, however, than could be expected, considering the weakness of my flesh, and the violence of my rib. I had not a much worse time of it than old Jupiter, whose sponse was continually ferretting out some new intrigue, and

making the heavens almost too hot to hold him.

"At length, as luck would have it, we were performing at a country fair, when I understood the theatre of a neighbouring town to be vacant. I had always been desirous to be enrolled in a settled company, and the height of my desire was to get on a par with a brother-in-law, who was manager of a regular theatre, and who had looked down upon me. Here was an opportunity not to be neglected.. I concluded an agreement with the proprietors, and in a few days opened the theatre with great eclat.

Behold me now at the summit of my ambition, "the high top-gallant of my joy," as Romeo says. No longer a chieftain of a wandering tribe, but a monarch of a legitimate throne, and entitled even to call the great potentates of Covent-garden and Drury-lane cousins. You, no doubt, think my happiness complete. Alas, sirs! I was one of the most uncomfortable dogs living. No one knows, who has not tried, the miseries of a manager, but above all, of a country manager.

No one can conceive the contentions and quarrels within doors, the oppressions and vexations from without. I was pestered with the bloods and loungers of a country town, who infested my greenroom, and played the mischief among my actresses. But there was no shaking them off It would have been ruin to affront them; for though troublesome friends, they would have been dangerous enemies. Then there were the village critics and village amateurs, who were continually tormenting me with advice, and getting into a passion if I would not take it; especially the village doctor aud the village attorney, who had both been to London occassionally, and knew what acting should be.

I had also to manage as arrant a crew of scape-graces as ever were collected together within the walls of a theatre. I had been obliged to combine my original troop with some of the former troop of the theatre, who were favourites of the public. Here was a mixture that produced perpetual ferment. They were all the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely know which mode was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, every thing went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some prank upon each other or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good-natured fellowthe worst character that a manager can possess.

Their waggery at times drove me

almost crazy; for there is nothing so vexatious as the hackneyed tricks and hoaxes and pleasantries of a veteran band of theatrical vagabonds. I relished them well enough, it is true, while I was merely one of the company, but as a inanager I found them detestable. They were incessantly bringing some disgrace upon the theatre by their tavern frolics, and their pranks about the country town. All my lectures about the importance of keeping up the dignity of the profession and the respectability of the company were in vain. The villains could not sympathize with the delicate feelings of a man in station. They even trifled with the seriousness of the stage business. I have had the whole piece interrupted, and a crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind; and have known Hamlet to stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dishclout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a Imanager's getting a character for good

nature.

I was intolerably annoyed, too, by the great actors who came down starring, as it is called, from London. Of all baneful influences, keep me from that of a London star. A first rate actress, going the rounds of the country theatres, is as bad as a blazing comet whisking about the heavens, and shaking fire and plagues and discords from its tail.

The moment one of these "heavenly bodies" appeared in my horizon, I was sure to be in hot water. My theatre was overrun by provincial dandies, copperwashed counterfeits of Bond-street loungers, who are always proud to be in the train of an actress from town, and anxious to be thought on good terms with her. It was really a relief to me when some random young nobleman would come in pursuit of the bait, and awe all this small fry at a distance. I have always felt myself more at ease with a nobleman than with the dandy of a country town.

And then the injuries I suffered in my personal dignity and my managerial authority from the visits of these great London actors! 'Sblood, sir, I was no longer master of myself on my throne. I was hectored and lectured in my own green-room, and made an absolute nincompoop on my own stage. There is no tyrant so absolute and capricious as a London star at a country theatre. I dreaded the sight of all of them, and yet if I did not engage them, I was sure of having the public clamorous against me. They drew full houses, and appeared to be making my fortune; but

they swallowed up all the profits by their insatiable demands. They were absolute tape-worms to my little theatre;__the more it took in, the poorer it grew. They were sure to leave me with an exhausted public, empty benches, and a score or two of affronts to settle among the town's folk, in consequence of misunderstandings about the taking of places.

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But the worst thing I had to undergo in my managerial career was patronage. Oh, sir! of all the things deliver me from the patronage of the great people of a country town. It was my ruin. must know that this town, though small, was filled with feuds, and parties, and great folks; being a busy little trading and manufacturing town. The mischief was, that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference to the court calendar, or college of heraldry; it was therefore the most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier feuds which take place in these "debatable lands" of gentility. The most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life was one which occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between the ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles.

At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of the kind. The head manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers-drawings with the head shopkeeper's, and both were too rich and had two many friends to be treated lightly. The doctor's and lawyer's ladies held their heads still higher; but they in their turn were kept in check by the wife of a country banker, who kept her own carriage; while a masculine widow of cracked character and secondhand fashion, who lived in a large house, and claimed to be in some way related to nobility, looked down upon them all. To be sure, her manners were not over elegant, nor her fortune over large; but then, sir, her blood-oh, her blood carried it all hollow; there was no withstanding a woman with such blood in her veins.

After all, her claims to high connexion were questioned, and she had frequent battles for precedence at balls and assemblies with some of the sturdy dames of the neighbourhood, who stood upon their wealth and their virtue; but then she had two dashing daughters, who dressed as fine as dragons, had as high blood as their mother, and seconded her in every thing: so they carried their point with high heads, and every body hated, abused, and stood in awe of the Fantadius.

Such was the state of the fashionable world in this self-important little town. Unluckily, I was not as well acquainted with its politics as I should have been. I had found myself a stranger and in great perplexities during my first season; I determined, therefore, to put myself under the patronage of some powerful name, and thus to take the field with the prejudices of the public in my favour. I cast round my thoughts for the purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs. Fantadlin. No one seemed to me to have a more absolute sway in the world of fsshion. I had always noticed that her party slammed the box door the loudest at the theatre; that her daughters entered like a tempest with a flutter of red shawls and feathers; had most beaux attending on them; talked and laughed during the performance, and used quizzing glasses incessantly. The first evening of my theatre's re-opening, therefore, was announced in staring capitals on the play-bills, as under the patronage of "the Honourable Mrs. Fantadlin."

Sir, the whole community flew to arms! Presume to patronize the theatre! Insufferable! And then for me to dare to term her The Honourable!" What claim had she to the title, forsooth! The fashionable world had long groaned under the tyranny of the Fantadlins, and were glad to make a common cause against this new instance of assumption. All minor feuds were forgotten. The doctor's lady and the lawyer's lady met together, and the manufacturer's lady and the shopkeeper's lady kissed each other; and all, headed by the banker's lady, voted the theatre a bore, and determined to en courage nothing but the Indian Jugglers, and Mr. Walker's Eidouranion.

Such was the rock on which I split. I never got over the patronage of the Fantadlin family. My house was deserted; my actors grew discontented, because they were ill paid; my door became a hammering place for every bailiff in the country; and my wife became more and more shrewish and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort.

I tried for a time the usual consolation of a harrassed and henpecked man; I took to the bottle, and tried to tipple away my cares, but in vain. I don't mean to decry the bottle; it is no doubt an excellent remedy in many cases, but it did not answer in mine. It cracked my voice, coppered my nose, but neither improved my wife nor my affairs. My establishment became a scene of confusion and peculation. I was considered a ruined man, and of course fair game for every one to pluck at, as every one

plunders a sinking ship. Day after day some of the troop deserted, and like deserting soldiers carried off their arms and accoutrements with them. In this manner my wardrobe took legs and walked away, my finery strolled all over the country, my swords and daggers glittered in every barn, until, at last, iny tailor made "one fell swoop," and carried off three dress coats, half a dozen doublets, and nineteen pair of fleshcoloured pantaloons. This was the "be all and the end all" of my fortune. I no longer hesitated what to do. Egad, thought I, since stealing is the order of the day, I'll steal too; so I secretly gathered together the jewels of my wardrobe, packed up a hero's dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night, "the bell then beating one," leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes the bum-bailiffs.

Such, sir, was the "end of all my greatness. I was heartily cured ofall passion for governing, and returned once more into the ranks. I had for some time the usual run of an actor's life; I played in various country theatres, at fairs, and in barns; sometimes hard pushed, sometimes flush, until, on one occasion, I came within an ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of the wouders of the age.

My

was playing the part of Richard the Third in a country barn, and in my best style, for, to tell you the truth, I was a little in liquor, and the critics of the company always observed that I played with most effect when I had a glass too much. There was a thunder of applause when I came to that part where Richard cries for "a horse! a horse!" cracked voice had always a wonderful effect here; it was like two voices run into one; you would have thought two men had been calling for a horse, or that Richard had called for two horses. And when I flung the taunt at Richmond, "Richard is hoarse with calling thee to arms," I thought the barn would have come down about my ears with the raptures of the audience.

The very next morning a person waited upon me at my lodgings: I saw at once he was a gentleman by his dress, for he had a large brooch in his bosom, thick rings on his fingers, and used a quizzing-glass. And a gentleman he proved to be, for I soon ascertained that he was a kept author, or kind of literary tailor to one of the great London the atres; one who worked under the mana ger's directions, and cut up and cut

down plays, and patched and pieced, and new faced, and turued them inside out; in short, he was one of the readiest and greatest writess of the day.

He was now on a foraging excursion in quest of something that might be got up for a prodigy. The theatre, it seeins, was in desperate condition-nothing but a miracle could save it. He had seen me act Richard the night before, and had pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait; I certainly differed from all other heroes of the barn; so the thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder, as the restorer of natural and legitimate acting, as the only one who could understand and act Shakspeare rightly.

When he opened his plan shrunk from it with becoming inedesty; for, well as I thought of myself, I doubted my competency to such an undertaking. I hinted at my imperfect knowledge of Shakspeare, having played his characters only after mutilated copies, interHarded with a great deal of my own talk by way of helping memory or heightening the effect.

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"So much the better," cried the gen. tleman with rings on his fingers; much the better. New readings, sir! new readings! Don't study a line-let us have Shakspeare after your own fashion."

"But then my voice was cracked; it could not fill a London theatre."

"So much the better; so much the better! The public is tired of intonation-the ore rotundo has had its day. No, sir, your cracked voice is the very thing-spit and splutter, and snap and snarl, and play the very dog' about the stage, and you'll be the inaking of us."

"But then," I could not help blushing to the end of any very nose as I said it, but I was determined to be candid;"but then," added I," there is one awkward circumstance; I have an unlucky habit-my misfortunes, and the exposures to which one is subjected in country barus, have obliged me now and then to-to-take a drop of something comfortable-and so and so

"What! you drink?" cried the agent

eagerly.

I bowed my head in blushing acknow. ledgment.

"So much the better! so much the better! the irregularities of genius! A sober fellow is common-place. The public like an actor that drinks.-Give me your hand, sir. You're the very man to make a dash with."

I still hung back with lingering diffi

dence, declaring myself unworthy of such praise.

“'Sblood, man," cried he, "no praise at all. You don't imagine I think you a wonder; I only want the public to think so. Nothing is so easy as to gull the public, if you only set up a prodigy. Common talent any body can measure by common rule; but a prodigy sets all rule and measurement at defiance."

These words opened my eyes in an instant. we now came to a proper understanding, less flattering, it is true, to my vanity, but much more satisfactory to my judgment.

It was agreed that I should make my appearance before a London audience, as a dramatic sun just bursting from behind the clouds: one that was to banish all the lesser lights and false fires of the stage. Every precaution was to be taken to possess the public mind at every avenue. The pit was to be packed with sturdy clappers; the newspapers secured by vehement puffers; every theatrical resort to be haunted by hireling talkers. In a word, every engine of theatrical humbug was to be put in action. Wherever I differed from former actors, it was to be maintained that I was right and they were wrong. If I ranted, it was to be pure passion; if I were vulgar, it was to be pronounced a familiar touch of nature; if I made any queer blunder it was to be a new reading. If my voice cracked, or I got out in my part, I was only to bounce, and grin, and suarl at the audience, and make any horrible grimace that came into my head, and my admirers were to call it "a great point," and to fall back and shout and yell with rapture.

"In short," said the gentleman with the quizzing glass, "strike out boldly and bravely: no matter how or what you do, so that it be but odd and strange. If you do but escape pelting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the theatre is made."

I set off for London, therefore, in company with the kept author, full of new plans and new hopes. I was to be the restorer of Shakspeare and Nature, and the legitimate drama; my very swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of elocution. Alas, sir, my usual luck attended me: before I arrived at the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared, a woman who could dance the slack rope, and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery with fire-works all round her. She was seized on by the manager with avidity. She was the saving of the great national theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of but