kicking, gesticulating, flying, tumbling, swimming, and leaping, for every character in turn, with the hope of imparting a faint shadow of his own animated conceptions; whether to male or female, mortal or deity, man or animal, biped or quadruped, bird, reptile, or fish. All this has produced infinite amusement, as well as infinite instruction; a judicious mingling of the utile cum dulci, which prevents the whole community from feeling either hungry or tired. There have been no accidents, but once there was a serious alarm. The ropes by which the cloud palace is suspended from the flies cracked, and two sliders looked as if they were going to open. The women screamed, the little children squalled, and all scudded out of the way. But nobody was hurt, though many were frightened, and much profitable terror was thrown away for nothing.

It is now six o'clock, the doors open at half-past six for the performance of the evening, and all concerned therein must run home to swallow a hasty morsel of refreshment, and look out their dresses. The stage has to be swept, the scenes for to-night got in, and the army of properties cleared away. All this must be effected within an hour. The last rehearsal is called for ten to-morrow, to begin with the comic scenes. Everybody is warned to be punctual in attendance, and in five minutes more the theatre is a solitude. During this long morning, the only person who has never evinced impatience, or lost his temper, is the clown. He is not concerned in the opening, and has been told the comic scenes will come on about one o'clock. He knows better than that; his fifteen years' experience have taught him to measure theatrical time by a very different standard from the post-office clock. He looks in at three, sees there is no chance for at least two hours more, and amuses himself till five. He is then told the opening is now quite smooth, and he will have the whole of tomorrow to himself. He does not believe much of this, and says to the prompter, "You may tell that to the marines." But he is a philosopher withal. It is not the first time he has had to put up with one or two mutilated rehearsals. If the worst comes to the worst, and he is cut short at the end of his third scene, to trust to chance and impromptu fun for the remainder, he knows that a

lobster clinging to his nether garments, a pair of stilts, a hot poker, and a pound of butter will carry him through.

I have always thought it a great mistake to put the pantomimists into the introduction. They are obliged to wear an additional dress which half suffocates them. They get jaded before their real work begins, and the reeking perspiration produced by a mask carries away the paint, which (in the Clown and Pantaloon especially) comprises half the humour and expression of the countenance. I speak of course with reference to pantomimes of the present day, in which the opening is aggravated into a gorgeous melo-dramatic spectacle, while the comic part or actual pantomime is curtailed of its fair proportion, and thrust back into secondary importance. The causes which have led to this are both curious and metaphysical, but it would be travelling too much into minutia to dwell on them at present. We must bring our rehearsal to a close.

Pantomimes and Clowns are entirely changed since the days of Grimaldi. The modern Clown no longer eats and pockets everything that comes in his way. Stealing and devouring were among the leading characteristics of the clowns of the old school. Vast was the mirth occasioned by the interminable strings of black-puddings, sausages, and pounds of candles, which disappeared down their throats; and the never-ending succession of quartern loaves, hams, rounds of beef, legs of mutton, live pigs, ducks, geese, and puppy dogs, which were deposited in the countless folds of their Batavian inexpressibles; and, yet they never appeared to be full, no matter what was stuffed into them. Instead of these feats, which are now pronounced vulgar and obsolete, they give us extraordinary gymnastic exhibitions, indescribable tours de force with the aid of Harlequin, Pantaloon, and juvenile sprites, polkas on stilts, minuets on single poles, and quadrilles on the tops of chairs and ladders; while they talk more than Hamlet does, whose part is the longest on the stage, amounting to thirty theatrical lengths; a length, rendered into ordinary English, meaning forty-two lines, including cues.

Whether these changes are for better or worse, is entirely a question of taste on which opinions may be equally numerous and opposed. But this much

may be relied on, a pantomine is a great event whenever it comes off; its production is a most scientific undertaking, requiring long experience and profound erudition. In the magnitude of its conception, it laughs at the unities of Aristotle, despises all the self-instituted trammels of the schools, defies chronology, confounds geography, distances time and place, and reconciles impossibilities. When Puck says, "he'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," he conveys a tolerable idea of rapid movement, but his high pressure speed sinks into a snail's pace when compared to the rate at which Harlequin and Columbine traverse the realms of space, and pass over distances which baffle calculation.

Getting up a pantomime is a physical effort, exceeding the ten labours of Hercules amalgamated into one.

To draw water in a sieve, to weave a rope out of sand, or to produce an exact quadrature of the circle, are achievements which have hitherto defeated mortal ingenuity; but either of these will be accomplished before a pantomime is carried through on the first night without a single mistake. I once witnessed a case in which everything went wrong, and not a solitary effect succeeded. I gave it up as a lamentable failure, and yet that very pantomime righted itself on the third evening, and proved to be the most successful I had ever produced. It had the longest run, was the most generally approved of, and realised the largest profit. On St. Stephen's night, as if by prescriptive understanding, no one listens to a word of the play. It is treated as a necessary evil, a thing to be endured, and got rid of as rapidly as possible. The adventures of George Barnwell, the starving agonies of Jane Shore, even with the episode of the baker and the twopenny loaf, the sublime mysteries of

the Castle Spectre; none of these interesting novelties can command either silence or attention. The audience are not disposed to listen, and the clamorous note of preparation behind the scenes, would prevent their hearing if they were so inclined. In these days

of sobriety, the gods still claim free indulgence on that particular festival. They endure the most tantalising delays with imperturbable good humour, filling up the long intervals with jokes upon each other. They are there to be amused, to see the pantomime, and not to criticise; they find out no mistakes, but sit in a perfect delirium of enjoyment, while the manager is tearing his hair, and practising a voluntary on the tread-mill which he has set up himself for his own especial recreation.

The leading performers are seldom or never employed in the pantomime. They consider it infra dig., and secure exemption by a clause in their letters of engagement. The business is discharged by the second rates and utility men. The latter are worked like galley slaves; I have often marvelled how they get through the duties which belong to their position. They represent, on the average, four characters in the opening, with treble that number in the comic sequel, and a change of dress for each. Young aspirants for honours histrionic, who are tired of their indentures, and have souls for poetry, figure to themselves the stage as a nice, jolly, easy, idle kind of life. I would advise them to begin at the beginning, and enlist as utilitarians for the run of a pantomime. There is nothing like experience for cooling down enthusiasm. Long before their term of service has expired they will petition for dismissal, or use interest for an immediate exchange into the comparative comfort and indulgence of the House of Correction.

AND now, Lector Benevole! having inducted you into the penetralia of our temple, and disclosed the Eleusinian mysteries of a rehearsal, let me recommend you, for your additional amusement and instruction, to become acquainted with the box-office, and examine closely another interesting scene of our theatrical cosmorama. You have often been there before to take

places, but you never thought of remaining when your business was concluded. If you are speculative or curious in human character, and desire to read man ("ay, and woman, too") in a Polyglot copy, here is the place for your observations. Here you will find a greater variety of subjects, with more original ones, than in any other school or college, in which you may

have gone through classes, or taken degree. I dare say you are acquainted with Mr. Richard Barry, who will, perhaps, introduce you (the more readily if you happen to be a Cork man) into a corner of the darkish recess, within which he entrenches himself, and whence, through a barred railing of flimsy construction, he administers, with inflexible impartiality, tickets and security for seats to the nobility, gentry, and public in general, who are disposed to pay for the same.

Idiosyncracies are powerfuly developed in the box-office, and all the different phases of temper and disposition exhibited in full detail. You will meet many strange beings, and hear much variegated conversation. But you must take care to time your coming happily. Let it be on a crowded, busy morning-one of those rare exceptions, "like angel visits, few and far between," which once or twice astonish us during a season-such, for instance, as the resurrection of a Command Night, or the appearance of a Jenny Lind, a Grisi, a Catherine Hayes, or an Elssler. One of those engagements which the enterprising manager has effected with the utmost difficulty, at an unprecedented expense, for six nights only; a term not to be prolonged or renewed, even though earthquakes and inundations should announce that a sequel was expected. When such an episode as this occurs, you will perceive a continuous stream of humanity, either pedestrian, equestrian, or vehicular, pouring along in the direction of the box-office, from eleven to four. The tide is generally at the full during the two last hours. On all ordinary occasions, the place and circumjacent avenues are a dreary solitude. box-keeper sits at the receipt of no custom, dozing over the memory of departed shillings. Ever and anon, he starts up, and perambulates the arcade to keep his blood in circulation, listening to the echo of his own steps. This monotony is now and then relieved by the shouts and execrations of his yard porter, chasing out whole battalions of misbegotten, mischief-making young invaders, who as fast as he expels them by one gate, rush in again at the other, with an agility that defies capture, and would baffle the tactics of the entire B. division. When all these resources are exhausted, he wanders up stairs,

The

round the lobbies and back again, not searching like the surly philosopher of Sinope for a respectable individual, but too happy could he stumble on a customer of any description. This idea is not original, but plagiarised from a practical joke of Sowerby, a very mad actor, who once had a benefit in Birmingham, which was miserably attended. He was acting Rolla, and when called for the last scene, no where to be found. The play came to a stand still. "Mr. Sowerby! Mr. Sowerby!" screamed out the call boy, with many iterations. At last, the voice of Rolla, emanating from the back of the gallery, replied in hollow tones, "I am here, like Diogenes, lantern in hand, but with this distinction; he was looking for an honest man, but I for a man of any kind at all!" When a rush to the box-office does occur, it comes all at once, when you least expect it, without notice or warning like an avalanche, a tropical hurricane, a tornado, an eastern typhoon, or a legacy. The official is taken by surprise, beset, bewildered, bothered; but patience, perspiration, and constitutional good humour carry him through. He is several times tempted to give up in despair, and desert, as Frederick the Great intended to do if he had lost the battle of Torgau; but his good genius stands by and extricates him. His great dif ficulty is the unlimited demand for front rows near the stage, of which there are not above ten, with several hundred candidates. These are sometimes pertinaciously insisted on, after a star of the first magnitude has been advertised and placarded for more than a fortnight, and the sheet is entirely full for every evening. We once heard a dogged John Bull demand front seats as a right, and threaten legal proceedings when told it was impossible to indulge him, as he was too late in his application. "I could not accommodate you, sir, with the places you want," said the passive box-keeper, "if you paid me ten pounds a ticket, I have nothing better than a fourth row left." "It's a hinfamous swindle," retorted the angry Saxon, "no wonder Hireland doesn't prosper, when such himpositions are practised; but I'll hexpose it all in Saunders to-morrow." In a minute after, a gentle native, better tempered than the exotic John, jumped eagerly at the rejected seats,

exclaiming, I am delighted to hear you are so full; I wish, for the manager's sake, it was so all the year round." On such occasions as these, a theatre entirely consisting of front rows would be an invaluable invention. As we live in an age of almost daily miracles, and astounding discoveries in mechanical science, perhaps some method may be hit on before long of constructing the audience part of the house, of caoutchouc, gutta-percha, flexible tube, or some other elastic substance, capable of expanding or contracting according to the exigencies of the moment.

The

I may here take the opportunity of stating, as a sort of parenthetical advertisement, and for the information of distant citizens, who are not much in the habit of visiting our neighbourhood, that the arcade of the Theatre Royal, Hawkins-street, has peculiar local advantages, disconnected from its being the high road to the box-office. architecture is light and elegant, and would be more so if the original plan had been carried out. We have heard it whispered that want of funds was the obstacle, but this appears to be a mere conjecture, founded in malice and unsupported by proof. There are commodious apartments to let, and entire houses, with modern improvements. Also, in summer, the arcade is the coolest, and in winter the driest promenade in the city. As the immortal George Robins would have said, "the air is salubrious, the situation central, the neighbourhood unexceptionable, and the prospects diversified."

A box-keeper, although gifted with rare endowments, has weak points, in common with the rest of his species, and sometimes makes mistakes. He delivers the tickets without the docket, or the docket minus the tickets. If people pronounce their names indistinctly (a very reprehensible practice), he is apt to err in spelling them. Indeed his orthography is at all times considerably influenced by the state of his pen. He has been known to give a five pound note in change for one, but this happens rarely, as he is seldom conscious of the circulating medium to so large an extent. He is most likely to become confused when twenty or thirty applicants, in close column, are speaking at the same time, and each vociferously demanding to be attended to and served first. He entreats their forbearance, reminds them of the great

VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. CCXXIII.

Cornelius de Witt, who only got through his prodigious doings by doing one thing at a time; and of Sir Boyle Roche, who said a man could not be in two places at once, barring he was a bird. But the greater portions of his audience are neither historical, philosophical, nor humorous. They want front seats, they are determined to have them if possible, and are in a hurry to go away. In the midst of the confusion the porter runs in, roaring out, "Here's my Lady O'Flanagan at the gate in her carriage, sir; she won't get out, but you must come to her directly." "Let me pass, boys, if you love me, let me pass," cries the boxkeeper, in an agony of despair, and pushing his way through, regardless of the quality, quantity, or impatience of the expectant crowd. "I must attend her ladyship; place aux dames you know; besides she's one of my best customers, and always takes three boxes at my benefit. I'll be among you again in a minute." And so saying he tears out, leaving the unceremoniously treated public to grumble, wait, and wonder. By the time he returns the number is trebled, the impatience at fever heat, and threatenings of impeachment in every mouth. But he applies the soothing system, and between good tact and good temper, with some whimsical apologies, he contrives ultimately to assuage the furious, to please the moderate, and to satisfy all.

Sometimes, but not often, a sensible, experienced play-goer, prefers the back row of No. 8 or 9, to any situation in the house."More power to you, sir," says Barry," you are the man for my money, I wish all the world was of the same way of thinking." The eccentric is a philosopher, and gives his reasons for his preference. "I wouldn't sit in a front row," says he, "on a crowded night, for five guineas a minute. The back is cooler, you can get in or out when you like without trouble, and youv'e a more comfortable place to lean against. Then, as to seeing and hearing, the theatre is so well built it matters not where you sit." This is a fact which reflects great credit on the skill of my worthy friend Beazley, the accomplished architect who planned the edifice.

Occasionally a party goes away, after balancing for twenty minutes, when they find there are no front seats to be had. They will not come on any other

E

conditions. It is clear they are not enthusiasts; they have no curiosity to see the performance, whatever it may be, and wish principally to show them. selves. Idlers saunter in, merely to ask questions, to get rid of time, and appear important. This genus is numerous. The box-keeper knows them by instinct, and groans inwardly when he sees one coming. 66 What do you give us to-night?" "No performance to-night, sir." "Well, to-morrow ?" "To-morrow is Sunday, sir." "So it is, I declare; I forgot that. Well, what's for Monday?" 66 Lucrezia Bor

gia. "And Tuesday?" "Norma." "Ah! Any places taken ?" "A great many, sir." Any good seats to be

66

had?" "Plenty, sir!" "Oh!" "Which night do you prefer?" "I don't know." "Can I do anything for you?" "No." And so he saunters out again. The tormenting, irrelevant questions sometimes asked are highly amusing to the by-stander, while they agonise the boxkeeper. He must reply courteously to all, impatience on his part being solemnly interdicted. These querists have no intention of transacting business, and exclude profitable customers who must wait till they are disposed of. Next comes a wholesale dealer, a stranger, who wants eighteen places each night, but is perfectly thunderstruck when told he is expected to take and pay for the tickets at the same time. He has left his purse at home, but will return in a quarter of an hour. "He parts, like Ajut, never to return."* A party has come in from Kingstown by the rail-road, and when told they can get the exact places on the particular night they wish, appear quite taken by surprise, and say they must go home again and consult. An individual rushes in as if he scarcely expected to live till he arrived, and then stands speechless. He is a ghost, and must be spoken to first. What can I do for you, sir?" No reply. "It will not answer; speak again, Horatio." The box-keeper repeats his question; the individual still remains silent, and in a minute or two rushes out again, and is beheld no more. I once saw this actually occur, and just as I have related it. Elderly ladies commonly consume a great deal of time, repeat many questions, and vibrate long between the centre and the

side of the house before they finally invest their money. Professional men, particularly lawyers and doctors, are easily satisfied and despatched in a moment. They are in earnest, delight in the theatre, care little where they sit, take the best places they can get, and have no time to waste in superfluous conversation. Officers, who have less to do, lounge and gossip a little, ask if there's any admission behind the scenes, or in the front to listen to a rehearsal; if that is Grisi who is singing now; and generally end by taking private boxes. The country contingent are soon convinced, by the blandishments of Barry, that they should have come sooner to have had a better choice, that he is really most anxious to make them comfortable, and that fourth and fifth rows are far preferable to front ones. Children of a ripe age and comely stature are often represented as under ten, to bring them within the clause which admits juveniles of that maturity at half price. This enactment is loosely enforced, and is allowed a very wide construction, especially during the run of a pantomime. Vast confusion arises when a particular performance or night announced is changed or postponed from illness, not being ready, caprice of a leading artist, or some other casualty, which the luckless authorities of the theatre cannot control. Then the boxoffice becomes a Babel of uproar and discontent, followed by changing, shifting, apologising, explaining, retaining, and winding up with that most painful of all commercial operations, refunding. Some are satisfied from easiness of temper, some because they are used to it, and some because it cannot be helped; others submit with a kind of half conviction, while the angry section proclaims the whole to be a preconcerted imposition, contrived on purpose to annoy the public. This is clearly unreasonable. Let ample latitude be allowed for the obliquity, the iniquity, and the insincerity, of man or manager; but who ever heard of any one voluntarily placing himself under the necessity of returning money once paid, if, by any effort of his own will or intellect, he could lawfully retain the possession ?

It has long been a time-sanctioned custom of the office to levy a fee of one shilling, as a sort of capitation, or poll