of the establishment—fancy ourselves going out
for a ride, with one of these retainers to hold our
barb!—and Brown stood up on it as a candidate
on the hustings to ask the suffrages of the
audience, and grew gradually so passionately
earnest and animated as to become purposely
unintelligible, his words sputtering out one on
top of the other, and sometimes no words at
all, and swung his arms and wagged his head,
I confess it was a laughter-moving exhibition.
His enigmas and bons-mots were not, strictly
speaking, of the first order. As, for instance,
when the lady in the richness of her classic
beauty was resting on her horse, Brown would
address the gentleman with the whip and
with the gold band down his trousers: "I
say, sir! Mr. Coleman, sir!" "Well, sir, Mr.
Brown, what can I do for you?" "Yes, sir."
"I say, what can I do for you?" "I was thinking,
Mr. Coleman." "Oh, you were thinking! Indeed,
Mr. Brown; you had better take a chair, and
rest yourself after that exertion." "I was
thinking, Mr. Coleman, why it was that you
were such a favourite with the ladies." "Why
I am such a favourite with the ladies of the
audience?" "Yes, of the audience. Because—
because you have such a command over the ring."
In a second, Mr. Coleman gives him a severe
"cut" on the leg, which causes Brown to leap
into the air with a cry of assumed agony. The
mottled charger begins to get into motion, the
band strikes up, the paper hoops are brought,
Mr. Brown walks round diligently behind Mr.
Coleman, as eager not to lose sight of the horse
for a moment.

I recollect poor Brown turning up later, in a
great city, at a great circus, which was
Mammoth, or Monster, or Excelsior or perhaps all
three. After delighting us night after night
for a season of at least three months, the last
night came, when Brown was to have his
benefit. I recal the invitations:

"Come early! The side-splitting Joe
Brown! Recollect Thursday."

On this occasion Joe was to throw his
"far-famed double summersault" from the top
gallery to the stage. Joe, always provident
and thrifty, brought about with him a set of
stencil plates, with which an emissary went
round privily during the night, and, aided by a
pot of red paint, covered the bridges and smooth
walls with fiery impressions of

         GO AND SEE JOE BROWN.

I was very near going myself and seeing
Joe Brown in this his last appearance—for so it
proved. He had a bumper. Some were
uncharitable enough to say he had had another
bumper first. Others who attended him to
the gallery before he started said he was
nervous. But he was an Englishman, and
resolved to go through with what he had promised.
He'd like, he said, to see "Froggy" put to
a thing of that sort; for to the end he
cherished a fine and healthy animosity towards that
alien. The poor wretch, as we learned next
morning, had miscalculated, and performed but
a summersault and three-quarters, or had made
some such mistake, and came with a terrible
crash on his neck or head, which he fractured,
dying in an hour or so. That was years and
years ago; but to this hour, not quite effaced,
we can read the red letters on the bridge, like
a fatal handwriting on the wall, "GO AND SEE
JOE BROWN."

The approach of the benefit does somehow
seem to betray our British clown into
extravagance. On these festivals he is
privileged to go through any sort of saturnalia.
Was it Joe Brown who used to give away "a
splendid pig" on this favoured night? It
was not Joe Brown, but a "brother of
Momus," far before his time, who consecrated
the day by appearing on the river of the
great city, where the show was going on,
in a washing-tub drawn by six geese—a most
singular spectacle, which, I well remember,
drew the whole town, obstructing thoroughfares,
lining the river, &c. It was to me
the most bitter disappointment that I could
not see the exciting pageant; for the strong
men, the coalmen, bargemen, and so forth,
blocked up all the good points of view. But,
by the roars of laughter, I knew that the
procession was paddling down the river. One
greater roar, and a sound of distant flopping
and splashing, told the attentive world that an
accident had occurred —that the tub, whose
delicate balance a breath would disturb, had
turned over, and that the brother of Momus
was entangled among his geese.

See now the swing doors or gates of the
circus flung dashingly open by a gaudy groom,
who leaps out of the way, and a fiery steed
comes plunging in! After the fiery steed, an
officer in the uniform of the French service.
He is welcomed with applause, and deserves
it. He leaps on the steed's back, and sets
him in motion with a "Hup! hup!" and an up
and down dancing movement. This is the
sort of thing / like, and I know what is to
come—pretty nearly, at least. An assistant
in the middle of the arena, with a heap
of clothes at his feet, aids the spectacle.
He tosses his friend the great tricolor flag and
a sword. See what graceful gestures! Now
he is on one knee, letting the folds of the flag
droop over him; now he is doing cut and
thrust, and sorely pressed. (This is Ridley
Ryder, whose spécialité is equestrian delineation.)
Have we not wits, and does not the
meanest-wilted among us recognise THE HERO
OF LODI? In short, we are assisting at stages
of the immortal conqueror of the world, and
this is the first stage. More riding round.
The man tosses up more clothes—rich
gorgeous velvet and ermine, and a wreath of laurel.
It must be very difficult to dress on horse
back, but perhaps more difficult to dress when
in the usual riding attitude of common life.
Ridley Ryder is quite at home. There he is as
he appeared crowned at Notre-Dame. Nothing
can be more dexterous than the way in which
the imperial sceptre, ball, and other paraphernalia;