kind of affair embosomed among trees, and
which stands in front of the bridge leading
to the island of Yelaguine. In this theatrical
châlet, the French vaudeville company give
representations during the summer : the
islands at that season being crammed with
the élite of the aristocratic Petersburgian
society — at least of that numerous section
thereof who can't afford, or who can't obtain
the government permission to travel. There
was another and extensive theatre, likewise
built of timber, on Wassily-Ostrow ; but, it
was burnt down some years since, and being
a simply German theatre was allowed,
contemptuously, to sink into oblivion, and was
never rebuilt. There is but one, and the fifth
theatre, that remains to be noticed, and that
is the Tchirk, or Circus Theatre, and thither,
if you please, we will pay a visit this night.

This is not by any means the first
theatre I have visited since I have been
biting the dust of Petersburg. I have been
to the German house, at the pressing
recommendation of Barnabay, backed by Zacharay,
and have seen a German farce, of which I
have understood very little, if anything;
but from which I have come away screaming
with laughter. It was called Der Todte
Neffe (the Dead Nephew) and was from
the pen of that dramatic writer who has
made me have recourse to my knuckles (I was
ashamed to use my pocket-handkerchief) many
and many a time in that stupid, delightful,
unnatural, life-like, tedious, enthralling,
ridiculous, sublime, worthless, and priceless drama
of the Stranger. I mean Herr von Kotzebue.
Why is it, I wonder, that so many men who
know this play to be one of the worst that
ever was written, that it is as much an insult
to art as to common sense, yet in a secret,
furtive manner, love to see it, and had they
the privilege of a bespeak — as the mayor and
the regiment-colonel have in a garison town
—would command it for that night only! I
do not care one doit for the sorrows of Miss
Clarissa Harlowe: shamefully as Mr. Lovelace
behaved to her. I have not the slightest
sympathy with Miss Pamela Andrews'
virtue or its reward, and declare that on my
conscience I believe her to have been an
artful and designing jade, who had her eye
on Squire B — from the commencement,
and caught him at last with a hook. I think
that Mademoiselle Virginie lost her life
through a ridiculous piece of mock modesty,
and that she would have bored Paul awfully
had she been married to him. I am of
opinion that six months with hard labour in
the House of Correction would have done
Manon Lescaut all the good in the world. For
me, Werter may go on blowing out his
batterpudding brains, and Charlotte may continue
cutting butter-brods, and wiping the little noses
of her little brothers and sisters, to infinity. I
have no tears for any of these sentimentalities ;
but, for that bad English version
of a worse German Play — the Stranger —I
have always an abashed love and a shy
reverence, and an unwearied patience. I can
always bear with Peter, and his papa with
the cane, and the countess who comes off a
journey in a hat and feathers and a
green velvet pelisse, and Miss
Adelaide Haller the housekeeper, and that
melancholy dingy man in black who has
fixed upon Cassel for his abode. I don't tell
people that I am going to see the Stranger ;
but I go, and come home quite placid, and
for the time moral, and full of good thoughts
and quiet emotions. For who amongst us
has not done a wrong, but repents in secret
places where vanity is of no avail, and where
there are none to tell him that he is in the right,
and that he " oughtn't to stand it, my boy " ?
And who has not been wronged, that but seeks
solace in sowing forgiveness broadcast,
because he thinks the tares in that one place
where forgiveness is most needed are too
thick for any good seed to bear fruit there ?
And who has lost a lamb, and wandering
about seeking it, can refrain from pleasant
thinkings when he comes upon a flock, though
his firstling be not among them, and can stay
himself from interest and cheerful imaginings
in the joys and sorrows of little children ?
That Italian songstress who sings so
magnificently, in which is she greater : in the " Qual
cor tradisti," where she pours out the vials
of a woman's resentment and vindictiveness
upon that contemptible cur in the helmet,
Pollio : or in the duet with Adalgisa, where
the children are ? I saw the other night, in the
pit of the Haymarket Theatre, during the
performance of a pantomime, for which Mr.
Buckstone has provided the fun, and Mr. William
Calcott had painted the pictures ; the " Babes
in the Wood " — I saw a great, burly, red-faced
man in a shaggy great-coat and a wide-awake
hat, who looked very much like a commercial
traveller for a Bradford cloth house,
blubbering — that is simply the word — at a
superbly ridiculous part of the entertainment,
where the Robins (represented by
half-a-dozen stalwart " supers " in bird masks and
red waistcoats, like parish beadles) come
capering in, and after an absurd jig to the
scraping of some fiddles, cover up the babes
who have been abandoned by their cruel
uncle, with green leaves. And the Stranger
will be popular to the end of time — as popular
as the Norfolk tragedy, because it is
about forgiveness, and love, and mercy, and
children ; and here is the health of Herr von
Kotzebue, though he was a poor writer, and (I
have heard it whispered) a government spy.

The week I arrived in Petersburg was the
last of the season of the Grand Opera; and
I had the pleasure of enjoying some
toe-pointed stanzas of the poetry of motion as
rendered by the agile limbs of the renowned
Russian dancer, Mademoiselle Bagdanoff.
The Russians are deliriously proud of this
favoured child of Terpsichore. The government
will not allow her to dance, even out of