DIALOGUE THE FIFTH.

MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES OF ENTERTAINMENT",

TESTY, SENIOR AND JUNIOR.-SENSITIVE. TESTY'S HOUSE AT HIGHGATE, TO WHICH HE HAD REMOVED AFTER HIS LATE SUDDEN DEPARTURE FROM LONDON.

Testy.

GIVE you joy, friend Sensitive, of having come out alive from all the holes of happiness in which you have been stiving for the last two or three months! One comfort, however, attending our pursuits, is that they must pay, either in plague or profit.

Sen. Ah, Sir! you would not have allowed much weight to plague in the scale of advantage, had you gone through it in the manner I have done:-in plain truth, I can now almost forgive you for having taken flight so suddenly. In short, Mr. Testy, I have paid down half my income, for the privilege of being able to assert, that the only period of ease which is to be felt in theatres, concert rooms, &c. is that in which you are returning to the door-and even this is subject to the drawback of being obliged to labour through a mass of human flesh in your way

to it-unless you prefer perishing with cold, by remaining to the last.-Yes, Sir, I accept your congratulations on having escaped with life from this perilous course of evening experiments, and am now ready to instruct you in their horrible results: rouse your courage, then, while I proceed to open Pandora's box upon you-and this without even an outline of Hope traced at the bottom.

GROAN 1. (S.)

On going to the play to see a favourite performer-to be told, at the drawing up of the curtain, (as you had augured from the rueful bow of the speaker,) that he, or she, is suddenly taken ill, or dead, and that Mr. -or Miss

(the hacks of the house) has kindly undertaken to try to read the part at five minutes notice.

In the pit, at the opera—a broad shouldered fellow, seven feet high, seated immediately before you, during the whole of the ballet.

3. (S.)

While sitting in a front row of the front boxes, during the deepest part of the tragedy-yourself and friends suddenly required to stand up, and crowd back upon each other, while you hold up the seat for a large party in procession, who take up twenty minutes in getting down to their places, in one of which you had seated yourself by mistake, and consequently are now turned out, and have to tread back your way into the lobby, over the laps of ladies, without a chance for another seat.

4. (S.)

At a concert as you are preparing to listen to one of Bartleman's best songs, being suddenly environed by a crew of savages, whose laughter and gabble are all that you are allowed to hear.

1

After the play, on a raw wet night, with a party of ladiesfretting and freezing in the outer lobbies, and at the street doors of the theatre, among chairmen, barrowwomen, yelling linkboys, and other human refuse, in endless attempts to find out your servant, or carriage, which, when found at last, cannot be drawn up nearer than a furlong from the door.

6. (S.)

Pushing in with an immense crowd at a narrow door, through which such another crowd is pushing out:-thermometer at 95, or 6.

7. (S.)\

After the play-to be detained with your party in the house, on a frosty night, till the last of the company, as well as of the candles, are gone out ;-the latter withdrawing their light, and then fobbing you off with their fumes.

8. (S.)

Your feelings put to the rack throughout the most moving scenes of a deep tragedy, by a riotous rascal in the upper gallery, who will not, for a moment, suffer his neighbours to cry in peace-while you are perpetually tantalized with neglected proposals from the tender hearted part of the audience, to "throw him over."

9. (S.)

Your opera glass, (which had been perfectly clear, while there was nothing in the house worth spying at) becoming obstinately dim at the moment when you have pointed it towards an enchanting creature who has just entered.

10. (S.)

Sitting on the last row, and close to the partition, of an upper box, at a pantomime, and hearing all the house laughing around you, while you strain your wrists, neck, and back, with stretching forward-in vain.

11. (S.)

In the pit, at the opera-turning briskly round, on hearing a box door open close by you, in hopes of feasting your eyes on some young angel whom you expect to appear, and beholding, instead of her, that sort of hideous old crabbed looking Crone of fashion, whose face is as full of wrinkles, as her head is of diamonds.

Ned Tes.

Who, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears, yet, a precious jewel in her head."-Shak.

12. (S.)

Going to Vauxhall alone-(without having previously consulted the barometer)-for the purpose of joining a delightful party, whom you had appointed to meet; your only apprehension being that you may possible fail to find them out in the immense crowd;-then, on entering the gardens, and eagerly throwing around your eyes, espying only six or seven scattered solitary outcasts, standing as stiff as pokers, and as grave as judges, under shelter from the coming storm; one poor singer, quavering, like Orpheus of old, to the trees, and two or three savages, from an almost empty orchestra-the cascade locked up safe from the rain; the fire works put entirely out of countenance by the water works; and, of the few lamps that were originally lighted on so unpromising an evening, the far greater part shattered, or extinguished, by the wind and wet.

13. (S.)

Those parts of the entertainment at Astley's, or the Circus, which do not consist of pranks, or horsemanship.

14. (S.)

Sitting with an excruciating headach, to see a vile play, acted by viler performers, for the eighth or tenth time, in a crowded back row of the Little Theatre, with a dull party, in August!

15. (S.)

The endless interval which, sometimes passes between the play and farce-and this while you are sitting by a lady, whom you consider it as your duty to entertain, but who does not consider it as her duty to be entertained; and, still less, to requite your attempts in kind.

16. (S.)

At the play-the sickening scraps of naval loyalty which are crammed down your throat faster than you can gulp them, in such Afterpieces as are called " England's Glory"-"The Brit' ish_Tars," &c.—with the additional nausea of hearing them boisterously applauded.

17. (S.).

Wading through those gossiping scenes of a play, in which the lacqueys and waiting maids lay their heads together about the plans, and characters, of their Masters, and Mistresses;— or, that part of the opera, in which Signo...........and Signora .........(we all know who) fill up the void, while Billington, Viganoni, &c. are refreshing themselves behind the scenes.

18. (S.)

Prolonging your stay in London, for the express purpose of going to the Panorama, on the report of a late change in the spectacle; then, after toiling and puffing up to the very top of the building, seeing at your entrance-what you saw yesterday! 19. (S.),

Arriving at the Masquerade, long before the rooms have begun to fill; with the awful farce of lifeless buffoonery which presents itself at your entrance ;-till, at length you have the average allowance of lethargic Harlequins, drunken Hermits, buckish Magicians,sneaking Emperors, august Pedlars, dejected Merryandrews, hoydenning Abbesses, drivelling Minervas, lusty Ghosts, &c. &c.—what little character there is, lying, exclusively, among the Dominos.