and moustache, eye-glass—which is his stronghold
in life says nothing but "ah!" and
"paw-sitive-ly damme!" except words abounding
in the letter "r," which ne pronounces as
"w." Of the Drunken Character in Low Life
it is unnecessary to speak: a depressed eyelid,
a hiccuping voice and staggering legs, and
there is the "drunken character" complete.
The professional gentleman of versatile powers,
who places himself in communication with the
proprietor of the entertainment, will probably
find himself expected to purchase the manuscript,
dresses, and properties appertaining thereto, and
to start entirely on his own account. He is not
unlikely to agree to this. He has been for some
time out of employment, and when last engaged
at Stow-in-the-Wold, he had to play Horatio,
when every one knows that Laertes is his right
line of business. He thinks it a good
opportunity, too, to let the managers see what stuff
he has got in him. And then he has a wife—a
pale-faced consumptive—woman who can play
the piano and accompany his songs; and so,
finally, he invests the remnant of his savings,
or borrows money from his wife's family, who
are in the serious book-binding interest, and
who look upon him with horror, not unmixed
with fear, and commences his tour. Oh! on
what dreary journeys does the "Portfolio," or
the "Odds and Ends," or whatever the poor
little show is called, then go! To what museums
and literary institutes, where the green damp is
peeling off the stucco, where the green baize-
covering is fraying off the seats in the "lecture-
hall," where there are traces of the chemical
professor who held forth on Acids and Alkalis
last week, in pungent smelling phials and the
top of a spirit lamp; and where the pencil
memorandum on the whitewashed wall of the
ante-chamber, "coffee, baby, spurs, watch,
umbrella, rabbits," with a mark against each item,
is evidently attributable to the conjuror who
gave such satisfaction the week before last, and
was so particular as to his properties! In
dull gaunt "assembly-rooms" of country
old-fashioned inns, where the unaccustomed gas
winks and whistles in the heavy chandelier, and
where the proscenium is formed by an
oldfashioned leather screen, which has been dragged
from the coffee-room, where for countless years
it has veiled the cruet-mixings of the waiter
from vulgar eyes; where the clergyman who sits
in the front row feels uncomfortable about the
"modern fop," as tacitly reflecting upon the
eldest son of the lord of the manor; and where
the landlord and the tapster who keep the door
a few inches ajar, and are perpetually running
to look, when there is no one in the bar, declare
the "drunken character in low life" to be out-
and-out and no mistake. Poor little show,
whose yellow announce-bills are handed in with
such cringing courtesy at the shops of the
principal tradesmen, and are seen fluttering in damp
strips, weeks afterwards, on all available posts
and palings. Poor little show!

The Music Halls are only of recent introduction
among the amusements of London, but
their advertisements occupy at least one-half of
the front page of the journal. Here they are:
the Belshazzar Saloon and Music Hall, Hollins's
Magnificent New Music Hall, the Lord Somerset
Music Hall, and half a score of others: to
say nothing of the old-established house, Llewellyn's,
where there are suppers for gentlemen
after the theatres. Magnificent places are these
halls, radiant and gay as those in which the lady
dreamt she dwelt, miracles of gilding and plate-
glass and fresco-painting, doing a roaring trade—
which they deserve, for the entertainment given
in them is generally good, and always free from
offence. These are the homes of the renowned
tenors, the funny Irishmen, the real Irish boys,
the Tipperary lads (genuine), the delineators of
Scotch character, the illustrators of Robert
Burns, the Sisters Johnson, the world-celebrated
duologue duetists, the sentimental vocalists, the
talented soprani, the triumphant Rodger family
(three in number), and the serio-comic wonder,
who is at liberty to engage for one turn. It is
curious to observe how completely monopoly
has been overset at these places; no sooner
does a gentleman achieve success at one place
than he is instantly engaged at all the others,
rushing from one to the other as fast as his
brougham can take him, singing the same song
in different parts of the metropolis seven or
eight times during the evening, and making a
flourishing income.

Change of manners has done away with the
theatrical tavern which flourished twenty years
ago, with its portraits of theatrical notabilities
round its walls, and its theatrical notabilities
themselves sitting in its boxes; where leading
tragedians and comedians of intense comic power
would sit together discussing past and present
theatrical times, while theatrical patrons of the
humbler order looked on in silent delight, and
theatrical critics were penning their lucubrations
in neighbouring boxes. Famous wits and men
of learning clustered round the dark-stained
tables of the Rougepot in Playhouse-court, and
half the anecdotes and good sayings which have
saved many an otherwise dull book, and made
many a dull man's reputation, first saw gaslight
beneath its winking cressets. But we have
changed all that. The famous wits are dead,
and the men of the new generation know
not the Rougepot; the theatrical critics go
away to their newspaper-office to write, the
actors' broughams are in waiting after the
performance to bear away their owners to
suburban villas, and the old tavern is shut up.
Still, however, exists the theatrical coffee-house,
with its fly-blown playbills hanging over the
wire blind; its greasy coffee-stained lithograph
of Signor Polasco, the celebrated clown, with
his performing dogs; and its blue-stencilled
announcement of Mr. Trapman's Dramatic Agency
Office, up-stairs. Still do Mr. Trapman's clients
hang about his doors; old men in seedy camlet
cloaks, with red noses and bleared eyes; dark,
sunken-eyed young men, with cheeks so blue
from constant close shaving that they look as
though they were stained with woad; down