boys, there goes another guy!" At this point, a
friend came round to congratulate me.

"It's going capitally," he said; " the
audience have taken it from the first, and you will
see it will be all right;" and he patted me on
the shoulder encouragingly. My face was like
a burning coal. I could have wished the
dress-circle to open and let me quietly into the
earth.  My own pet jokes and neatly-turned
witticisms scarcely excited a smile, except from
some undemonstrative people in the stalls, who
were too genteel to applaud. My friend
evidently took the redness of my face for the flush
of triumph: it was the crimson of shame. But
what could I say? Was not the piece, as he
said, going capitally? When the Giant said,
"How's your poor feet!" a yell of delight burst
from the audience. As for the "Cure," it was
encored twice, and the applause continued for
several minutes, and was perfectly deafening. My
friend came round again to slap me decisively
on the shoulder, and say I was a made man.

My success was too much for me; and, amid a
storm of applause caused by Jack (entirely on
his own responsibility) asking the Giant " where
he was going on Sunday?" I fled from the
intoxicating scene, and went forth to cool my
fevered brain. Presently I found myself behind
the scenes, the storm of applause raging more
fiercely than ever. It was the end of the opening,
and the transformation scene was on. There
was a call. It was for the manager, in
acknowledgment of the amount of gold-leaf he had
lavished upon the Dell of Delight. There was
another call. It was for the artist who had
designed the Dell of Delight, and spread the gold-leaf
which the manager had paid for. There was
a third call. It was for the author, and I plainly
heard the voice of my friend above all the others,
and leading them.

I muttered to myself " Never!" but the
manager came up at that moment, and, pushing
me towards the curtain, said, " Go on! go on!"

I had no time to resist. The prompter pulled
back the curtain, told me sharply to take off my
hat, the manager gave me a shove, and there I
was on the stage bowing to the public.

Ah, little did I dream then that I was bowing
my neck in the dust to be trampled upon and
degraded! Next morning the critics were loud
in their praises of my Pantomime. It "sparkled
with puns and parodies and smart allusions to
the topics of the day, and kept the audience in
a roar of laughter from beginning to end." As
for the author, he was congratulated on the
circumstance that he would wake that morning and
find himself famous as a writer of Pantomime.
Other writers in the same department were
warned to look to their laurels.

I must confess that it was with a sense of
triumph that I read this. Not that I was proud
of my Pantomime. But I was now a dramatic
author, and the market was open to me. Now
for my tragedy!

I took the earliest opportunity of trying the
market with that commodity. I offered it right
and left. No one would have it. Not that the
article was not in demand; but no one would buy
of me, "My dear sir, tragedy is not in your line;
stick to pantomime, that is your forte."

"Tragedy! My dear fellow, oh, nonsense; if
you have got a good short, smart, rattling farce
now—"

Such was the invariable reply; and such has
been the reply to this hour, whenever I have
proposed to do any work of a higher order than
a Pantomime, a farce, or a comic sketch. Yet
I am a poet. I could prove it to you by a few
stanzas; only I feel convinced that the
Conductor of this Journal would not insert them.
What did he reply the other day when I proposed
a paper on the Sublimation of Thought as
exemplified in the Philoctétes of Sophocles? This:
"I am rather afraid of that subject; suppose you
write something about the Pantomime—which is
more in your line." Well; here it is.

COCKS AND HENS.

COCKS and hens! The theme is humble. But
there is not a department of animal life so humble
as not to reward attention. Always provided
that he who attends, does not bring his own
preconceived notions to the task, neither regards
all God's lower creatures as so many machines
made to order.

The moment for writing about poultry is
propitious. Poultry-shows abound at home and
abroad; and, though country squires do not (as
a mythical great-uncle of mine did) keep
fighting-cocks in their bedrooms, most landed
proprietors have their parks of poultry, and are
fashionably stimulated by fabulous prices to the
purchase of wondrous breeds. The other day,
I was at an agricultural exhibition. The
tremendous turnips and apples, big as children's
heads, failed to draw. All the world, anxious
for a view, were squeezing, scrambling, fighting
round the cages which contained the gigantic
Cochins, the jetty lustrous Crève-cœurs, the
cotton bantams, and the horned diabolical Poules
de la Flèche. The fact is, living entities have
an interest which does not belong to unorganised
matter. A poultry-yard! The very name has
a household sound. And then, what infinite
associations man has with cocks and hens!
From the village cock that wakes the peasant,
to the historic cock that warned Peter, Poetry,
Remembrance, and Imagery, crowd around the
bird. The first effort at art of the schoolboy is
to make paper cocks and hens (by the same
token, I was wickedly whipped for it at school),
nor could the old pathetic poet, who wished to
save the Robin and Wren from violence, find
anything better to say for their protection than
that they are

God Almighty's cock and hen.

And eggs! What a mystery are eggs! No
wonder that the Hindoos think all creation
sprung from an egg—that the Greeks thought
certain twin-stars were egg-born.
And yet, though many and excellent are the