errors at an age when his strength is fresh to commence a new career!"
In such terms did Wilhelm congratulate the denizens of the higher regions, and not them only, but all who were privileged to approach their circle and to draw comfort from their fountain of refreshment. And he thanked his destiny for the prospect he saw before him of ascending to those spheres.
In the mean time Melina had taken much trouble to arrange the company according to the talents of each actor, that each might produce his proper effect. But when in pursuance of his own views and of the Count's commands, he had made many exertions for this purpose, he was obliged to feel satisfied when he came to execute his plans, with permitting the actors to take those parts for which they deemed themselves best adapted. In general therefore Laertes played the lover, Philina the attendant, whilst the two young ladies divided between them the characters of artless tender maidens - but the boisterous old man played his part the best. Melina considered himself competent to act the cavalier, whilst his wife to her great disappointment was forced to content herself with the character of a young wife or an affectionate mother; and as the modern plays rarely introduce the poet or the pedant in a ridiculous point of view, the Count's favorite usually personated a president or a minister of state, and they were generally represented as knaves and severely handled in the fifth act. Melina also as chamberlain or chamberlain's assistant took pleasure in repeating the absurdities which some worthy German authors introduce into certain plays-he was partial to these characters, because they afforded him an opportunity for assuming a fashionable dress, and practicing the airs of a courtier, which he fancied he could play with great perfection.
The company was soon joined by some other actors who arrived from different parts of the neighborhood, and who were engaged without undergoing a very strict examination, and without having to submit to very burdensome conditions.
Wilhelm, who had been more than once vainly entreated by Melina to perform as an amateur, evinced the greatest interest for the success of the enterprise, without however receiving the slightest recognition of his services from the new director. The latter indeed seemed to imagine that the assumption of his new office imparted to him the necessary qualities for filling it properly. The task of abbreviating the performances seemed
one of his most agreeable pursuits, and his skill herein enabled him to reduce any piece to the regular measure of time, without regarding any other consideration. He was warmly supported, the public seemed delighted, and the most refined classes in the town maintained that even the court theater was not so well managed as theirs.
[For biographical sketch, see page 4496.]
DRAWN by the annual call, we now behold
Our Troop Dramatic, heroes known of old,
And those, since last they marched, enlisted and enrolled:
Mounted on hacks or borne in wagons some,
The rest on foot (the humbler brethren) come.
Three favored places, an unequal time,
Join to support this company sublime:
Ours for the longer period-see how light
Yon parties move, their former friends in sight,
Whose claims are all allowed, and friendship glads the night.
Now public rooms shall sound with words divine,
And private lodgings hear how heroes shine;
No talk of pay shall yet on pleasure steal,
But kindest welcome bless the friendly meal;
While o'er the social jug and decent cheer,
Shall be described the fortunes of the year.
Peruse these bills, and see what each can do, –
Behold! the prince, the slave, the monk, the Jew;
Change but the garment, and they'll all engage
To take each part, and act in every age:
Culled from all houses, what a house are they!
Swept from all barns, our Borough critics say;
But with some portion of a critic's ire,
We all endure them; there are some admire;
They might have praise confined to farce alone;
Full well they grin, they should not try to groan;
But then our servants' and our seamen's wives
Love all that rant and rapture as their lives:
He who Squire Richard's part could well sustain,
Finds as King Richard he must roar amain-
"My horse! my horse!"-Lo! now to their abodes,
Come lords and lovers, empresses and gods.
The master mover of these scenes has made
No trifling gain in this adventurous trade;
Trade we may term it, for he duly buys
Arms out of use and undirected eyes;
These he instructs, and guides them as he can,
And vends each night the manufactured man:
Long as our custom lasts they gladly stay,
Then strike their tents, like Tartars! and away!
The place grows bare where they too long remain,
But grass will rise ere they return again.
Children of Thespes, welcome! knights and queens!
Counts! barons! beauties! when before your scenes,
And mighty monarchs thund'ring from your throne;
Then step behind, and all your glory's gone:
Of crown and palace, throne and guards bereft,
The pomp is vanished and the care is left.
Yet strong and lively is the joy they feel,
When the full house secures the plenteous meal;
Flatt'ring and flattered, each attempts to raise
A brother's merits for a brother's praise:
For never hero shows a prouder heart,
Than he who proudly acts a hero's part;
Nor without cause; the boards, we know, can yield
Place for fierce contest, like the tented field.
Graceful to tread the stage, to be in turn
The prince we honor, and the knave we spurn;
Bravely to bear the tumult of the crowd,
The hiss tremendous, and the censure loud:
These are their parts, and he who these sustains
Deserves some praise and profit for his pains.
Heroes at least of gentler kind are they,
Against whose swords no weeping widows pray,
No blood their fury sheds, nor havoc marks their way.
Sad happy race! soon raised and soon depressed,
Your days all passed in jeopardy and jest;
Poor without prudence, with afflictions vain,
Not warned by misery, not enriched by gain:
Whom Justice, pitying, chides from place to place,
A wandering, careless, wretched, merry race,
Who cheerful looks assume, and play the parts
Of happy rovers with repining hearts;
Then cast off care, and in the mimic pain
Of tragic woe feel spirits light and vain,
Distress and hope- the mind's the body's wear,
The man's affliction, and the actor's tear:
Alternate times of fasting and excess
Are yours, ye smiling children of distress.
Slaves though ye be, your wand'ring freedom seems, And with your varying views and restless schemes, Your griefs are transient, as your joys are dreams.
Yet keen those griefs-ah! what avail thy charms,
Fair Juliet! with that infant in thine arms;
What those heroic lines thy patience learns,
What all the aid thy present Romeo earns,
Whilst thou art crowded in that lumbering wain
With all thy plaintive sisters to complain?
Nor is their lack of labor-To rehearse,
Day after day, poor scraps of prose and verse;
To bear each other's spirit, pride, and spite;
To hide in rant the heartache of the night;
To dress in gaudy patchwork, and to force
The mind to think on the appointed course;
This is laborious, and may be defined
The bootless labor of the thriftless mind.
There is a veteran dame: I see her stand
Intent and pensive with her book in hand;
Awhile her thoughts she forces on her part,
Then dwells on objects nearer to the heart;
Across the room she paces, gets her tone,
And fits her features for the Danish throne;
To-night a queen I mark her motion slow,
I hear her speech, and Hamlet's mother know.
Methinks 'tis pitiful to see her try
For strength of arms and energy of eye;
With vigor lost, and spirits worn away,
Her pomp and pride she labors to display;
And when awhile she's tried her part to act,
To find her thoughts arrested by some fact;
When struggles more and more severe are seen,
In the plain actress than the Danish queen,
At length she feels her part, she finds delight,
And fancies all the plaudits of the night;
Old as she is, she smiles at every speech,
And thinks no youthful part beyond her reach.
But as the mist of vanity again
Is blown away, by press of present pain,
Sad and in doubt she to her purse applies
For cause of comfort, where no comfort lies:
Then to her task she sighing turns again
"Oh! Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!"
And who that poor, consumptive, withered thing,
Who strains her slender throat and strives to sing?
Panting for breath, and forced her voice to drop,
And far unlike the inmate of the shop,
Where she, in youth and health, alert and gay,
Laughed off at night the labors of the day;
With novels, verses, fancy's fertile powers,
And sister converse passed the evening hours;
But Cynthia's soul was soft, her wishes strong,
Her judgment weak, and her conclusions wrong:
The morning call and counter were her dread,
And her contempt the needle and the thread;
But when she read a gentle damsel's part,
Her woe, her wish! she had them all by heart.
At length the hero of the boards drew nigh,
Who spake of love till sigh reëchoed sigh;
He told in honeyed words his deathless flame,
And she his own by tender vows became;
Nor ring nor license needed souls so fond,
Alfonso's passion was his Cynthia's bond:
And thus the simple girl, to shame betrayed,
Sinks to the grave forsaken and dismayed.
Sick without pity, sorrowing without hope,
See her the grief and scandal of the troop;
A wretched martyr to a childish pride,
Her woe insulted, and her praise denied ;
Her humble talents, though derided, used;
Her prospects lost, her confidence abused;
All that remains for she not long can brave
Increase of evils-is an early grave.
Ye gentle Cynthias of the shop, take heed
What dreams ye cherish, and what books ye read!
SKETCHES OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LIFE.
(From the "Waverley Novels.")
[SIR WALTER SCOTT: The great Scotch novelist and poet; born August 15, 1771, in Edinburgh, where he attended the university. He practiced as an advocate for a while, then withdrew from the bar and devoted his attention largely to literature. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel " (1805) brought him into prominence as an author; and in 1814 he published anonymously "Waverley," the
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