Memory refuses to explicit from her tablet—
till my landlady stooped and touched me.

"Don't give way, Mr. Theodore. We must
have a doctor to see it, and then look after the
laying out."

"She spoke gruff, having a perpetuous relaxted
throat; but she is not as hard a woman as she
speaks, and my blessings watch over her for the
way as how she helped me during the tempest
of calamety as benumbed every universial
power. Gentle reader, let us hide the vail over
further saddening particulars.

PANTOMIMES.

THE name of RICH should be dear to all
pantomime-goers; and the rows of little lips
that line the front rows at Christmas should be
taught who their benefactor was. There were
pantomimes, indeed, before his day—so early as
the year 1700; but it was Rich, both as player
and writer, that made that sort of piece respectable.
It was in 1717 that we find his name
conspicuously associated with a Féerie called "Harlequin
Executed!" He was a strange being, an
eccentric manager; but, beyond question, the
most original and vivacious of harlequins.

A harlequinade then consisted of two
portions—one serious and the other comic, the
serious portion being a story selected from, say,
Ovid's Metamorphoses, and set off with all
magnificence of scenery, rich dresses, pretty music,
and grand dances. At intervals during the
progress of the fable, Harlequin and his
company came on, and with their diverting tricks
and changes varied the story; they carried on
a sort of underplot. The whole was more
symmetrical than the modern rather disjointed
plan of tacking the harlequinade to the opening
spectacle.

Rich, from some affectation, would not
appear under his own name, but was always set
down in the bills as "Mr. Lun." He was a
little eccentric, and had a dialect of his own,
with an odd, blunt, "Abernethy" manner.
When Miss Bellamy was congratulating herself
on the success of her Juliet, he coolly took snuff,
and told her she must set that all down to his
procession, and that her acting had nothing to
do with it. Rich had a provincial dialect,
and twisted names into special shape for
himself. Wilkinson asked him to give a
part to Ned Shuter. In reply, the manager
took snuff, and stroked his cat. "If I give it to
Muster Shuttleworth, he will not let me teach
him; but I will larn you, Muster Williamskin——"
Suddenly Younger, the prompter,
entered hastily, and interrupted them. The
manager turned on him in a rage. "Get away
Muster Youngmore; I am teaching Muster
Whttington." Then trying to get the actor to sign
articles, he warned him against Barry, whom
he called "Muster Barleymore," and told him he
had no chance from Muster Griskin, which was
his name for Garrick.

The tone of these pieces about a century ago
was purely rustic. The characters were
farmers and village maidens; the scenes and
changes were all taken from the country and
farm-yard. There were louts and countrymen.
Harlequin, in all sorts of disguises, "courting
Columbine," was always pursued by the
"village constables," whom he eluded with
endless tricks and devices, so that the
introduction of modern policemen is founded on
strict tradition.

An odd feature about these old pantomimes
was that they were not confined to Christmas.
Harlequin Ranger, one of Garrick's great
"hits," came out at Drury Lane early in the
November of 1754. "Queen Mab," a féerie
of the same pattern, was brought out in the
same month. But on the "boxing night," the
same year, appeared "The Genii," which,
provoked by a rivalry then going on between the two
great theatres, seems to have quite dazzled the
critics; for the reporter of a journal bearing
the odd name of "THE SCOURGE" must say that,
"for propriety of musick, beauty of scenery,
elegance of dress, it exceeds all the boasted
grandeur of Harlequin Sorcerer or of any I
have seen, separate or collective. The last
scene beggars all description. The most
romantic Eastern account of sumptuous palaces
are but faint to this display of beauty, this glow
of light, this profusion of glittering gems."

A pantomime that was "running" against
Drury Lane turned on these pranks of Harlequin.
A great effect was a scene of a house
being built—the scaffolding up, the bricklayers
busy, the hodmen ascending ladders, when
suddenly Harlequin appears among them, with
a touch pulls scaffolding, bricklayers, all down,
and is discovered to have escaped in the confusion.
One of the prettiest of modern pantomime
effects, that of a house being slowly built
before our eyes, was not, therefore, wholly new.
Another "trick," that "made the whole house
ring with applause,"was Harlequin's coming on
disguised as an ostrich, pecking at every one,
biting the servants slyly, "kissing Columbine,"
and then finally "morricing off" the stage.
The changes and transformations, too, were all
after the modern pattern; for at a touch of the
wand palaces changed into huts. But more
remarkable metamorphoses were the sudden
change of men and women into "stools and
wheelbarrows," of long colonnades into beds of
tulips, and of shops into serpents. This might
be worthy the notice of modern managers.

Ladies and gentlemen were allowed to
crowd behind the scenes on benefit nights;
but on pantomime nights this privilege was
suspended, as might be seen from a notice at
the bottom of the bill: "As any obstruction
in the movements of the machinery will greatly
prejudice the performance of the entertainment,
it is hoped that no gentleman will take
it amiss the being refused admittance behind
the scenes. Ladies are requested to send
their servants by three o'clock."

In 1747, the year of the opening of Drury Lane
under Garrick, Rich revived his pantomime of the
Merlin's Cave, or Harlequin Skeleton; for this,
too, was very fashionable, reviving a defunct