the Pantheon, among them lot of—well, if I
said they was daubs, the magority, it would
be no label. But distances figures by
comparison. Them pictures as I took for foils as
going in, on issuing out assumed a importience
raly wonderful to relate; and to warn other
candidatial readers, I can make a terra firma
affidavat that "the Great Picture," save for the
treatise in the papers, which had beguiled my
hopes, was not worth threepence or the new
nectie I had startied—as due to the occasion.

To begin with the simfony, as we say at the
opera. "In order," says the program, "to
combine classic beauty, pictorially, with those
passions that deeply stir the human heart, the
artist elected to take the Marble Arch for the
centre of the Picture, reserving a large
foreground for the ample display of the main
incidents of that extraordinary scene, including all
kinds of combats—the removal of the wounded
—picking pockets, nigger minstrels fighting the
police, and various comic incidents. In the
middle distance the mass of people rush into
the Park with banners, breaking down the
railings from Park-lane, after forcing one of the
gates with a lamp-post. Sir Richard Mayne in
the centre, on a white horse, accompanied by the
Hon. Mr. Walpole and Captain Harris, points
with his finger, and the police charge vigorously
both in solid column and irregular bodies,
occasionally dealing a side blow on some straggler
with a brickbat in his hand. The crowd receive
them with a terrific shower of bricks, stones,
bottles," &c.

Sir, I looked my eyes out of my head, like
CÅ“lebs in search of the pictoral classic beauty,
to which Truth fell a victim. Now was
the central gate of the Marble Arch forced?
correspondents may enquire. And did Sir
Richard pint with his finger in. Mr. Walpole's
society on horseback? And as the bill later
asevered, was Lord Shaftsbery, and other
popalous benefacters of the aristoxracy a-riding
that way, to inspirit the Roughs by enjoying the
turbalent scene? There was a precious lot of
comedy — so be out-of-the-way drawing is such.
And if the police in the picture was not
figures of fun—hoping, croping, droping, stoping
(see, valued sir, how I dividges natural into
rime), tumbling upside down—and assuming
other dramatical pripensities, mostly like the
letter Q in a child's copy-book gone mad, I
never see a simptom of drollery, even in Punch.
I am fimilar with well-disposed men as cuts
horses, and Bengal tigers, and other specimens
of animal humanity, and Shems with partnors,
gratis, for Noah's Arks; so yet that their
quadrapeds, though not paradoed for the Times,
by Mr. Sprat and Mr. Cremer, and other
propritors of juvenile sports, have sufficed the
living models in this great picture, I am
prepared to deposit in any court of justice.

Then as how to continue the quotatious
self-praise, and description of matters as hardly never
occured or transpirated, follows underwise:

"The Duke of Sutherland leads a policeman
into the porter's lodge, who has received a
fearful wound on the head."

But, lord, sir, his Grace, in place of being
postrate or profil, or even his beloved public
back, is a mere white coat on the rear, and, if
so be the cheapest of raps as is ready made, in
point of apparel, I would have declined it as a
misfit, in the days of the golden past.

Lastly, we was promised "with his arm round
the identical chimney, taking notes, the clever
'correspondent' of the Times."

Sir, I may have valeted that gentleman or the
reverse, and I may know his tricks and manners,
as Sir Cristopher Wren's granddaughter has
exprest herself elsewhere in fictious parlance; but
I will deposit, as a loyal subject, that I neither
was aware of correspondient, still less chimney,
on the occasion of viewing the Great Picture.

    A NEW VIEW OF AN OLD RIOT.

I HAVE a few remarks to make on a very old
event, which I believe are entirely new, and
which, though the event is of anything but
world-wide importance, will not, I trust, be
found wholly without interest.

The event is the attack made by the London
'Prentices on the Cockpit Theatre in the years
1616-17; the remarks will be on the motive of
that attack, which have never, in my opinion,
been exactly hit upon, though the signs of its
existence lie on the very surface of the story.

As everybody does not read Mr. Payne
Collier's Annals of the Stage, and works of that
description, I must briefly describe the event,
at the risk of fatiguing the more erudite reader.

On Shrove Tuesday, then, in the year before
mentioned, a mob, headed by apprentices, made
an attack on the Cockpit Theatre, in Drury-lane,
which had been either recently built, or
recently converted from a cockpit into a
playhouse, and which was occupied by a company of
actors who had previously played at the Red
Bull, and were called, in reference to Queen
Anne (of Denmark), the "Queen's servants."
According to Camden, they pulled the house
down and destroyed the "apparatus"—that is
to say, the wardrobe and properties; and,
although the venerable historian seems rather to
have mistaken the will for the deed, as far as
the demolition of the house is concerned, there
is no doubt that they did considerable damage,
and, at all events, destroyed doors, windows,
dresses, and play-books.

The details of the exploit are described in a
contemporary ballad written in praise of the
apprentices, especially Thomas Brent and John
Cory, who were evidently leaders on the
occasion. Of this ballad, which was first brought
to light by Mr. Payne Collier, I give an
expurgated edition, without apology, as it will
prove more amusing than my lucubrations:

       The 'Prentices of London long
           Have famous been in story,
        But now they are exceeding all
           Their chronicles of glory:
        Look back, some say, to other day,
          But I say look before ye,
        And see the deed they now have done,
           Tom Brent and Johnny Cory.