always new. They had fifteen sons and
daughters, whereof every son became a king,
and each daughter a queen.

Now have you heard the story through
Of Havelok and of Goldeboru.

MY LONG LOST CHEE-YLD!

IT is truly a crowning mercy that
sentimental comedy is no more: that it has been
waked, carried out, and it is to be hoped,
laid to rest for ever. Mr. Thomas Morton,
the tender-hearted, is no longer with us to
round off those fine moral speeches of his,
and distribute virtuous thoughts plentifully
from the mouths of repentant fathers of
families. In his room we have Mr. Thomas
Morton, the facetious, taking aim at flying
Folly and bringing her down upon the
stage with fluttering and flapping wings.
This neat cabinet work is infinitely more
relished than the sentimentalist's heavy
furniture. Our fathers used to go and listen to
the elder playwright at the Theatres Royal
Covent Garden and Drury Lane, crowding in
tumultuously on first nights of new pieces;
and ladies of distinction in the boxes
moistened many kerchiefs with their gentle tears.
He had the whole house with him: all weeping
copiously over the guilty husband who has
forged a document—say a will—and who
struggles through five long acts, felon like in
all his movements, striving to conceal his crime
from her who is legal moiety of his bosom,
and should be sharer of all his sorrows. Who
that had a spark of sensibility could restrain
his emotions when the wretched man came
on at the close, with hair streaming wildly;
and, in reply to his moiety's remonstrance
as to his demeanour, shrieks to her: "Hide
me from the world, from myself! I found
Cleveland's will—here it is. It placed me
beyond the reach of Fortune's malice; but a
paper fell from it, which blasted all. I
thought of home, of liberty, of you! Hope
died within me, and with it, fear, and with it
virtue! I—O look more mildly on me—I
concealed the fatal paper here, in this tortured
bosom." That man, we say, is not to be
envied, whose throat could remain free from
a certain huskiness, as all is made straight
at the close, and another gentleman coming
to the footlights, thus improves the occasion:

"While I view with transport this happy termination
of our sorrow, this domestic compact of increasing
love and amity, a sigh will force its way for the
distracted world. O be those days not far removed from
us, when mad ambition shall bow the neck to justice
and humanity, and the weary world repose again in
peace."

As the curtain comes down slowly, the
distracted world which sits in the pit and
boxes, and for whom the sigh forces its way,
can do no less than applaud handsomely.

To such melancholy pointers of morals be
all honour; also to such well-meaning clergymen
as the Reverend Reuben Glenroy, who
take the trouble of bearing their pulpits
about with them. Nay, let the tear of pity
fall for the woes of that gloomy baronet who
has done a deed of blood in early life; and
has laid by the knife and bloody cloth very
incautiously in a chamber in his castle;
where, curious to say, it is discovered by the
son of the murdered party, who has been
stolen in early youth by gipsies. Even for
this tedious and misguided man, let there be
indulgence and compassion; but none, not a
grain, for those low-life preachers,—those
canting agriculturalists, from Yorkshire
mostly—whom the late Mr. Morton has
created, and petted, and fattened up into
overbearing familiarity. Thank heaven,
we are done with him; with his uncouth
dialect, and his forward, overbearing ways.
Who could tolerate that race of gentlemen
with agricultural names,—Messrs. Ashfield,
Oatlands, Broadcast, and the rest, whose
habitual costume was (vide stage direction),
"Drab coat, scarlet waistcoat and
breeches, short smock-frock, and blue worsted
stockings," making their way into your drawing-
room and even more private apartments,
and there speaking his mind to you with
perfect freedom and familiarity. Life would
indeed become a burden, if one were to be
often subject to such visitors, thumping your
carpets with their heavy sticks, and striking
you vigorously on the chest, with notice that:
"Thee hasn't it here, I tell 'ee!" Vile
jargon! distracting excursionists from the
Ridings! Had they not died out with the
school of Sentimental Comedy, an act passing
through both houses, and receiving the royal
assent, must have been our only protection
from the nuisance. Mysterious dispensation
of Providence that our fathers did
not weary sooner of the breast thumpings,
the scarlet waistcoats, and smock-frocks; the
"feythers," and profane "dang its!" What
was the meaning? What was the fun of it?
Why should the tedious provincial have
been privileged with this licence,—this freedom
of danging persons and things? Why
should the rude clod-hopper, on occasions of
marriage in his family, or of wrong being
made right, or of his sister's being made an
honest woman of, generally burst into a tol-
de-rol-lol burden with hob-nail accompaniment?
What amusement was there in such
tricks? Was it not a lamentable trial of
patience to have to hearken to him responding
affirmatively to the tune of, "Ee zur,"
or addressing his sire in such weary fashion
as this: "Says I, 'Feyther, he bean't the
man will gi' thee a brass farden.'"

Who sympathises with the conflicting
emotions of the virtuous clown on finding
a purse, and being prompted by his
evil nature to appropriate it to his own uses?
Is there anything peculiarly affecting in the
following mental struggle?—(Takes it up
with caution, says stage direction.)