must sting to the heart Mr. HILLIER ROGERSON,
lessee of the opposition theatre over the
way, who must intrigue, and grovel, and even
crawl up the back stair— if there be such a
thing— of the governor's little villa, until he
obtain the same favour of the " Immediate
Presence." But Hillier Rogerson's house cannot
compete with the regular house. It has the
shy, shirking, converted air of the assembly-
room or concert-hall, and the air seems charged
with the ghostly utterances of the gentleman
who described " Baily's Owyhee Panorama"
last year, or the more measured and less exhilarating
utterances of the Rev. Mr. McCorkup,
who appealed about the same time for the
British seamen. The stage is inconveniently
near the face of the front seats, yet the manager
earns popular support by exerting himself in a
particular direction, where, it must be confessed,
the regular drama breaks down. He has rested
entirely on what a noble lord, in a certain novel,
said would be the salvation of the stage— viz.
thoroughly good and substantial "leg pieces."
The show in this direction, assuming that the
theory of the old lord was right, must on this
night have saved the drama. The audience were
enraptured with this display, as, indeed, with
everything, and cheered to the echo. On
another night I see Othello— for I am an almost
nightly patron of the drama— and hear Mr.
Wilkins in person tear the Moor to tatters.
His yells, groans, and shrieks, as his own
infatuation and the villany of lago were more and
more established, were terrific, and, I could see,
inconvenienced the audience. He was over six
feet high, and his lungs were formed in proportion.
He introduced a " business" into his own
"death," which, though taking a long time,
seemed new. In his agonies he caught hold of
Desdemona's bed-curtain, seemed to reel over
her inanimate form, then reeled back and hung
in the air, still supported by the loved one's
curtain, which, no doubt, the property-man had
been instructed to secure firmly for the purpose.
It held wonderfully, though the canvas
bed-posts behind were seen to sway a good deal.
But finally he let it go, and fell dead, splendidly
true and flat, on the ground. The crash was
terrific.

V. OUR PORT.

Our port is very satisfactory, and, what with
the market that runs in on it, and the old
church that sticks its yellow shoulders
forward, like an old crone for a gossip, and the
crowd of sailors who lounge with their hands in
their pockets, and women who sell fish, and
cars and carriages, which appear suddenly
among these objects, to the music of loud
cracking whips, has quite a Boulogne air. There
is a short stumpy little red pier, with a
lighthouse at the end, where, about five o'clock,
when a packet comes in, there is an affectation
of a genteel promenade. Much more stirring
and gay is the scene at the top and bottom of
the pier stairs, where there are some forty or
fifty of the gaudily painted pleasure-boats
coming in or going out— a crowd of Fannies,
Teazers, Foams, Flirts, and such-like. The
great stairs are crowded with the British
tourist, going out or coming in, and who
makes a grand display when he takes his
women on the water. When four gentlemen
insist on rowing, there are some curious specimens
in that direction; the oars splashing up
and down unevenly. He must, of course, sing,
"Cheer, Boys," or " Slap Bang," as he rows;
and, as he comes back, the bottom of the stairs
is a regular crush, from the bows of boats
returning. Every moment we are startled by the
report of a cannon for every vessel is bound
in honour to salute as she enters the port and
we all rush to the edge to see who it is.

VI. OUR. POLITICS.

It will be seen from all this that our island—
"our sea-girt island," adds the guide, almost
unnecessarily— has no very wonderful physical
attractions. Morally, however, it is highly
interesting, and very amusing. We have arrived
on the eve of a great political convulsion. A
change in the constitution is being meditated
by an unscrupulous governor and a set of
suborned and degenerate Manxmen, who are
his tools. We are in one of what the guide-
book calls " gaily painted pleasure-boats,"
when a remark of the boatman lets us into the
secret of this state of things. How did he like
the governor? With a sardonic grin and
savage pull at the oar, he would like hugely to
have " the fixin' of him!" He had laid taxes
on everything— on drink and tobacco— which
before could be drunk and smoked without
expense. He had even tried to lay something on
the boats, but he was "fixed" in that attempt.
From this Masaniello we hear plenty of
disclosures.

This queer little country is ruled by a
governor, who has " His Excellency" showered on
him with the obsequiousness common to all
dependencies, and has every single utterance
reported to the letter and form of word by
ambuscade reporters. He lives in a little villa.
His two familiars, the aiders and abettors, no
doubt, in these nefarious changes, are two
officers called Deempsters, who are paid
magistrates— "pampered," no doubt, the Manx
Gazette and Mona Sun call them. These, with
the bishop and another officer, constitute the
Upper House. No wonder the Manx Gazette
hints at the iniquity of a system which allows
of our lives and liberties being " tampered
with" under such a rule. The Lower House
is the House of Keys, constituted, I believe, by
nomination also, and supposed to be corrupted
by the governor's smiles, and, perhaps, lunches
at the villa. For every one, even the editor of
the radical Manx Gazette, worships these great
"swells;" and if the governor only knew his
interest and his proper " cue," he might, by " a
lunch" or two, and giving him the bishop's
lady to "take in," soothe this most rabid of
patriots.