the first two sentences that met our ears.
The course of this drama not only invited
by its attractions, but demanded by the
necessity of the case, our earnest and
undivided attention. There was so much
assassination, attempted, or actually carried into
effect, that we had to tick the murdered, or
supposed to be murdered characters off the
playbill as soon as they became deceased,
in order to avoid confusion! and if we
missed a sentence, we missed perhaps the
explanation of some appalling mystery, such
as our unassisted minds could never have
hoped to fathom; the terrific combats were
admirable, nor did the hero ever demean
himself by engaging with less than three
adversaries at once; and this I will, say for ,
the comic scene, that it was more effective
and better acted than anything which I have
witnessed for some time at theatres of much
greater pretension, and the Professor and I
laughed at it, in our dark rabbit-hutch,
dignified by the name of private box, until we
broke a chair. Angela has escaped (through;
a very small window), out of the pirate's
cabin, and Sambo, a black sailor, finding her
berth (a camp bedstead) unoccupied, proceeds
to ensconce himself therein from the love of
mischief inherent in the stage black's
character to him—well covered up—enters the
steward of the pirate vessel (entrusted with
the task of provisioning Angela), drunk, and
with brandy-bottle and glass. Perhaps, he
suggests, the delicate and high-minded young
woman may not refuse to take a sip of this
sovereign liquid; energetic movement of the
bed-clothes proclaims that she would be very
far from refusing it indeed; a hand,
carefully concealed, peeps forth and secures a
glassful, and returning the vessel empty
demands more by unmistakeable pantomime;
three quarterns having been thus disposed of
to the intense wonder of the mate, "You
would not take the bottle, would you, young
woman ? " observes he sarcastically; a
paroxysm of dumb ecstacy asserts that she
would, though, and with the greatest possible
pleasure; and the scene ends, of course, by
black man showing his visage above
counterpane, and frightening mate of pirate vessel
in to fits.

The strange omens and supernatural
visitations eluded, I am sorry to say, the observation
of both myself and friend; with the
exception of a very disagreeable noise,
something like the cough of a horse, which came;
from L C at irregular intervals, and always
provoked remorse in the bad characters,
and religious thankfulness in the good ones;
we never heard anything of the Yell of
Doom at all. Instead of the Martinesque
tableau, which we had looked for at the
termination of the piece, there was nothing but
the representation of an animal resembling
a rocking-horse, flying at an unknown person's
throat, and denominated in the playbill The
Howling Hound. The whole of the fearful
interest centfed in the principal murderer;
the magnificence of his attire, the extraordinary
length and curliness of his hair, and
the diabolical malignity which he exhibited
from first to last marked him out
unmistakeably as the object for our sympathy and
honour. He was shot (who was not?), it is
true, but, we were glad to see, survived his
death-wound a sufficient space to discover
that he was the father of Angela, and to
leave the few virtuous survivors plunged in
the deepest misery. When the green curtain
had fallen upon that lifeless but highly
decorated body, I think the Greek professor
was the sole person in the house who
remained unmoved, and expressed himself
as perfectly satisfied.

"You perceive," said he, " how powerful
the old Greek element still is. How the
consciousness of an inward, self-determining
power elevates the human being above the
unlimited dominion of impulse, of natural
instinct; in a word, absolves him from
nature's guardianship! and yet how the
Necessity which he is to recognise beside her,
can be no more Physical Necessity, but must
be beyond the world of sense in the
bottomless depths of the Infinite, consequently
must exhibit itself, therefore, as the
unfathomable might of Destiny."

"Jones," said I, " you clever fellow, now
I've found you out. You wrote this pantomime,
Hush-a-by Baby upon the Tree Top
(in this very playbill), or the Comet of
1.8. 5. 6. without his Tail. Now don't deny
it, for here are your very words, yours or
Alexander Von Schlegel's. I'll take my oath
of it—

A Grand, Spectacular, Oracular, and Perpendicular
Christmas Pantomime, proving the Aesthetical Identity
of the Unity of Everythingness with the Thousandfold
Subjectivity of Myriadfaced Projectiveness."

The Professor and myself, however,
without remaining for this performance—in what,
I am bound to add, was a very well-
conducted—theatre returned home in separate
cabs.

WEARINESS.

TO-DAY we are tired of pleasure;
We have sung and we have danced,
But have so mis-spent our leisure,
That joy again is disentranced.
     Though bird and though breeze be in tune,
      And the leaves be most merry in June.

To-day we are tired of labour;
We have worked with sordid aim,
And be it with spade or sabre,
Alike we've lost the right to fame.
    The bough and the brook both repine,
     If the sun should neglect but to shine.

To-day we are tired of loving;
Hearts have grown too old to feel,
All things sternly disapproving,
Changed by the world to stone or steel.
     The May we have pass'd was not May;
      Nature sad, may the soul yet be gay?