1851.]

GENTLE reader, I take it for granted you are theatrical. That you love Shakspeare, Otway, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Knowles, and Bulwer; and that you repudiate Collier, Bedford, Styles* et id genus omne. That you consider a comic pantomime as the first of human inventions, and the humours of the Clown and Pantaloon as the climax of earthly ingenuity. That you invariably accompany your thirteen children on the juvenile night, and that until the recurring anniversary, your ears are tingling, and your heart glowing with the recollection of the unsophisticated shouts of ecstacy, proceeding from the thousand and one urchins congregated together on that memorable occasion. That you look back on it as a green oasis in your pilgrimage through life's desert, and that you compassionate, with gentle benignity,

those mistaken ascetics who hold it for a sin and a shame to laugh or be amused. These postulata being duly required and accorded, we shall understand each other perfectly, and travel merrily together through this article. Without them, all that follows will be unto you a sealed book, even as an original chapter from the "ShahNameh of the illustrious Ferdusi."

"Have you ever witnessed the rehearsal of a pantomime?" You answer, "No." "Would you like to be present (or in Anglo-Gallic, to assist) at this operation?" Undoubtedly you would. Well then, make interest with the manager (I will impart to you privately how this is to be effected), and the next time a full rehearsal occurs, having possessed yourself of an " open sesame," enter by the mysterious portal called the stage-door, which, being opened, discloses a dingy, darksome, cavernous-looking aperture, unconscious of paint or whitewash within the memory of that still more mysterious

personage, the oldest living inhabi

tant.

You will find this passage guarded by an official janitor or Cerberus, whose orders are to admit none but the duly qualified, and to reject all intruders firmly, but with the most per fect politeness. The last clause in his instructions he interprets much after the fashion of soldiers, when told to be particularly civil to suspicious looking gentlemen in red waistcoats, faded leathers, and shabby tops,† who are sometimes observed prowling about the barrack square. Look well before you

as you ascend a flight of time-worn, discoloured stairs, long innocent of soap or scrubbing brush. There are generally loose pieces of timber, with ragged ends and many protruding nails, scaffold poles, trestles, and stage boxes, with a barrel or two of whiting blocking up the way. They were placed there by nobody, but came of their own accord, or by vis inertiæ, or in the lapse of ages, or by some geological phenomenon, similar to that which transports boulders of granite from the fells of Cumberland to the alluvial flats of Yorkshire; or perhaps by magic, as (according to Geoffrey of Monmouth) Merlin whisked over the huge blocks of Stonehenge from Ireland to Salisbury plain.

But no matter through what agency, there are these gentle impediments to your onward progress, glowing with malice prepense, and ready to break your shins or your neck, for aught they know or care to the contrary. You will pass through several cross doors, constructed to exclude killing draughts, and peremptorily ordered to be kept shut under dismal penalties, for which reason they are always left open, more particularly in winter. If any of the self-acting springs should happen not to be broken, these doors

are held forcibly back by large stones, or the hinges are taken off, or some other diabolical contrivance is hit upon to save the carpenters time and trouble in bringing up heavy pieces of machinery from the lower tier or hold of the vessel. In passing up this perilous defile, you may chance to hear strange noises and see unwonted sights. Two or three savage looking dogs who bite nobody, a harmless cat or so, and some sleek, plumpish rats who creep lazily away. Your safest course is to follow the example of the Princess Parizade— stuff your ears with cotton, look neither to the right nor the left, but go steadily on till you have gained the top.

So far all is well, but now your dif ficulties and dangers seriously increase. In crossing the stage, be cautious lest you should disappear into the cellar, through a vampire, a scruto, a counterpoise, or an unclosing slider; or through the large grave-trap, which is wide open, and yawning for its prey.

Be

ware of passing under heavy weights suspended by imperceptible wires. Tread not on platforms, and other . deceptions made of treacherous hollow canvass, but painted to resemble solid rocks, substantial bridges, green banks, garden seats, and other seductive resting-places, with such unprincipled fidelity, that even Zeuxis himself would have been tempted to lay down on one of these back-breaking unsubstantialities. Every thing around, above, below, before, behind, and on each side of you, is as completely an optical delusion, as the mirage in the Arabian Wilderness, or the Fata Morgana, which Swinburne, Brydone, and others have described, but which no traveller ever saw, in the Straits of Messina. Take care not to tread on the tail of a dragon, the belly of a boa constrictor, or the legs of a bull. Each contains an experienced human artist, engaged expressly for the occasion, and who has been long celebrated for interpreting his role with singular ability. If you lame either of them inadvertently, the pantomime will halt along with the injured individual, and the authorities will bless your awkwardness in complimentary exclamations.

To escape safely from these and many other similar perils, you require the clue of Ariadne, which you cannot borrow; but you may remember and avail yourself of the injunction de

livered to Fitzjames in the Lady of the Lake:

"On Heaven and on your lady call,
And enter the enchanted hall."

Then pass on boldly, and when by good luck or dexterity you have steered through these quicksands without collision or casualty, ensconce yourself snugly in the corner of a private box, and watch the proceedings. You are as completely in a new world as Columbus and his companions were when they first set foot on the shore of Guanahani. In half an hour you will say to yourself, as Macbeth does :

"Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer cloud, Without our special wonder!"

You

You shall see greater marvels than were seen by Astolfo, when, mounted on his Hippogriff, he fled up to the moon to search for the wits of Orlando, and came back again to tell of what he saw, with no one to contradict him. You shall behold a host of people dressed in the most fantastic habits, and performing the most unaccountable evolutions. You shall hear your own language so smothered up under incomprehensible technicalities, that you try in vain to recognise it. You shall listen to many jokes, good and bad, old and new, conventional and traditionary, studied and extemporaneous. You shall witness feats of activity, which cause your own eyes to turn round and look at you, and acts of stupidity which would have rendered the great patriarch impatient. shall see twelve supernumeraries with thirteen steps, a thing supposed hitherto to be physically impossible. You shall perceive much time lost in waiting for effects which are never produced, a vast expenditure of lungs which might have been spared, with some fearful explosions of passion, which do no good. Your ears may be occasionally shocked by an objurgatory expletive, and now and then relieved by a general burst of merriment, when the manager has said something which all are obliged to consider funny. Woe be to the subordinate, whether actor, musician, chorus-singer, supernumerary, or scene-shifter, who laughs not, as in duty bound, at the smart sayings of his employer. Finally, you will go away in a state of bewildered excitement, perhaps, as the poet says, “in

you won't give us the first?" This managerial joke also fails, from its close proximity to the more brilliant one of the master-carpenter, and from a dar maging resemblance to joke numbeone. At last the long invisible functionary emerges on the stage, not 'bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," as the Lords of Ross and Willoughby present themselves in Act 2, Scene 3, of Richard the Second, but begrimed with black lead, pale with perspiration, and dead hoarse with bawling for the last ten days.

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Well! is there any fear of your getting ready at last?" inquires the tolerably patient manager, who knows his man, and that the safest plan is to humour him a little. "In one minute

more, sir; they are setting the first scene, and then we shall go on without any stoppages.' "Are all your men here?" "No, not all." "6 Bad, bad, very bad, very bad, indeed! as King George the Third said of Claremont's acting. How many are deficient? "Four cellar-men so drunk that they can do nothing; two fly-men half drunk, and very mutinous, so I was obliged to kick them out; one flat-man absent, no cause assigned; and two wing-men, who fell through a slider without injury, but refuse to work because they think they have broken their ribs." "The deuce! with such a formidable list of killed, maimed, and missing, no good will be done at this rehearsal after all, and it's the last but one!" "Oh, never fear, sir, you'll see it will be all smooth to-morrow night.” “Ah, that's what bad, lazy, actors say, who won't take the trouble to rehearse in the morning. I'll do it at night!'" Here the manager indulges in an imitation. This joke being pointed exclusively at the actors, the fiddlers, dancers, and supernumeraries lead off the laugh this time, with much gusto, and the actors follow reluctantly, not because they participate, but to prevent its being supposed that any one takes it to himself.

"Well, it's too late now to lose any more time; we must get on as we may. Who flies the magician on the dragon? 'Gilmore.' Who raises the fountain?

Gilmore.' Who sends on the queen of the fairies, with the floating island?

Gilmore.' Who manages the large centre trap? Gilmore. Who looks after the dissolving cavern, and the sink and fly at the back? Gilmore.'

And the four small traps in the front? 'Gilmore.' And the two vampires at the third? 'Gilmore.' Bravo! He's as ubiquitous as a pair of boots in a bed-room; go where you will, you stumble on him. He beats Briareus himself with his hundred arms and fifty heads. I see we shall do."

Gilmore is in truth a wonderful unit. He has been twenty-five years in the theatre, and combines an entire staff in his own person. He can lay his hand on any given piece of machinery in the dark. He knows every scene in the building, not only by head mark, as Archy, the Duke of Roxburghe's man, knew the books, but he can call for them by name, as Hannibal boasted he could do for every Carthaginian in his army. He can drag out flats, drops, castles, cottages, bridges, and all sorts of nameless set pieces from remote corners, and distant repositories, whence they have not emerged these ten years. If the manager, the stage manager, and the prompter, were all at the Kingstown regatta, and couldn't come; if the two principal actors, the leader, and half the orchestra were at the races of Kilcock, and missed the train; let Gilmore be at his post, and the business of the evening would be carried through, somehow or other, and the public would not be disappointed. He is an artist, too, among his other qualifications. Unrivalled as an ostrich, a bear, a bull, a lion, or a tiger, and not even Daw himself, immortalized by Colman, could have held a candle to him in the fore or hind legs of an elephant. He and the theatre are Siamese brethren, joined together. He is as indispensable to it as Barry or Stapleton, and must inevitably be let or sold with the rest of the standing furniture.

The mechanist, or master-carpenter, has nearly all the responsibility of the pantomime on his shoulders, with this disadvantage, that with his utmost zeal and ingenuity, he cannot depend on himself, but lies at the mercy of others. The painters paint their scenes, see that they finished, and have no more anxiety. The wardrobe people make the dresses, according to order, and then have only to look at and admire them. The property man finishes his banners, trophies, animals, and banquet decorations, and there they are, requiring little more than to be refreshed occasionally, from the nightly wear and tear. But the master-car