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the crowd, who, satisfied with her being in the custody of the Earl, and anticipating her final condemnation, suffered her to pass without further molestation, save what was offered in the opprobrious epithets bestowed upon her by the rabble.

The players, who had been lookers-on from the time of the old woman's first appearance, now prepared to finish the representation. The Lion once more became a four-footed beast, and Moonshine resumed his lantern. But their majesties signified their pleasure of withdrawing from the field, and immediately all was in motion. The gallant throng of nobles and ladies, with nodding plumes and floating veils, surrounded their majesties, and moved forward, till they disappeared within the gates of the palace, from whence they had issued.

THEODORE HOOK.*

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CONSIDERING that the English stage has of late years been indebted to France for not a few of its most successful novelties, it is somewhat surprising that none of those pieces composed with a view to illustrate the truth of proverbial sayings, have ever been brought forward in our theatres. That, however, which might little please a mixed audience in a dramatic form, has furnished the groundwork of certain performances in another department of fiction; and the alleged popularity of SAYINGS AND DOINGS seems to prove that the exemplification of a wise saw may become a source of amusement to the reading public.' After devouring with praiseworthy complacency the numberless tales illustrative of the customs of ancient times or of the rudeness still prevalent on this side the Tweed, the thinking portion of the community just mentioned would have welcomed an author who deals-not with ancient Egypt or ancient Rome, neither with chivalrous knights nor lawless mountaineers, but with the manners of the times in which we live, and actors graced with all the polish of fashionable life, had he possessed that share of judgment and depth of thought requisite for rendering his work instructive as well as pleasing. But we pause not to estimate the extent of our

* After distinguishing himself from 1806 to 1811, by several musical farces, dramatic sketches, &c., THEODORE EDWARD HOOK was, in 1813, appointed to the lucrative offices of Accomptant-General and Treasurer of the Island of Mauritius. For certain doings in his official capacity, Mr H. is at present confined within the rules of King's Bench prison; and as Editor of the John Bull newspaper has acquired a notoriety seldom the reward of honourable literary exertion.

author's popularity in the quarter alluded to; neither do we venture to expatiate on the staleness of what is intended for wit, on the inconsistency of his characters, on the cant of his sentiments, on the feebleness of his style, &c. Proceed we rather to observe that, however interesting the representation of the habits, modes of thinking, and tones of sentiment peculiar to the higher classes, may be to those who gaze at respectful distance, the humble reader will seldom, from the pictures given in these pages, be led to deplore the comparative obscurity of his lot. Their author may have had very different intentions, but the general impression derived from these performances renders it unnecessary for him to illustrate the ancient saying omne ignotum est pro magnifico. For, those whom we might be apt to regard as placed above the petty cares and vexations of less exalted life, are, with trifling exceptions, here exhibited, by him who speaks as one of the initiated, in no very enviable light. The heartlessness and calculating selfishness with which most of his characters perform their parts in the drama of life are sufficient to make the reader ashamed of ever having contemplated with longing eyes a sphere, which would seem to be occupied by beings as undeserving of our respect as they are incapable of turning to proper use the means put into their hands for promoting the happiness of those around them. But, believing that such a representation is far from being true to nature, we are under the necessity of concluding, that the author either looks on society through a strangely distorting medium or is wofully deficient in that species of knowledge on which he is so much disposed to plume himself. It were unfair, however, to conceal that a different judgment has been passed by others on these volumes. Some do not hesitate to say that, while the liveliness with which they portray existing manners deservedly entitles them to present favour, their faithfulness of delineation must render them permanently valuable :-on the

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accuracy of which opinion our reader may in some degree be qualified to decide after perusing the following specimen.

DANVERS.

DANVERS was in an exceedingly good humour, and having himself been mightily pleased with the compliments which had been paid to his talents after dinner at his grace's, felt a sort of complacent disposition to dispense compliments in his turn, for, if his wife had been flattered at the marchioness's by the civilities and attentions of one half of the cabinet, the other half had been sedulously employed in winning the affections of her happy husband at the duke's. It was amusing to me, speculating as I do on the manners and ways of this world, to mark the various little by-paths which these noble and learned men took to assail the vanity and procure the esteem of this once neglected genius. Danvers, when simply Thomas Burton, Esq. Member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, had written, of course merely for his amusement, and published at the earnest desire of his partial friends, extremely against his own inclination,'-a collection of Poetical Trifles,'' a Sonnet to half a Rose-leaf,' Lines to Maria's Canary-bird,' Albert and Adeline,' Elegy on the Loss of a Dear Cousin,'' Ode on Shooter's Hill,' The Parson and the Lawyer,' a Comic Tale, sundry Epigrams, a Song adapted to a Babylonish melody, and introduced by Miss Stephens. into Guy Mannering, The Death-bed of Peter the Great,' 'Lines to Liberty,' and an Ode to the Spring';' which were printed at his own proper charge, on wove paper, displaying in the title-page a wood-cut vignette of a shepherd boy playing a pipe under a tree, with the hinder parts of two fat sheep in a corner, by way of background; over whose heads, or at least over the place where, by its relative position to their tails, their heads ought to have been, stood a little pert parish-church spire, like an extinguisher in the distance, and for motto,

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-Tenet insanabile multos

Scribendi cacoethes.

Juv.

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Of these poetical trifles,' as may easily be imagined, nobody heard at the time, except indeed an obscure reviewer,

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who, anxious at once to make a fame for himself, and break a butterfly on the wheel, ripped them up in his unread 'periodical,' and the whole sale of the work amounted to perhaps fifty. Danvers was particularly sore about the neglect of his poetical genius-the nipping in the bud which he had experienced-and always felt that he was capable of great things in the literary world; this (whether he had betrayed himself, or whether some of his friends had betrayed him, I know not) one of the very great' men certainly knew, and the masterly manner in which his Lordship, after an elaborate discussion on the beauties of SCOTT, BYRON, and CAMPBELL, dropped down gently and unsuspectedly upon the Poetical Trifles' of Mr Thomas Burton, far excelled any thing I ever beheld in the art of making the amiable. Nothing, in short, could exceed the skill of the angler, except the avidity of the victim,-his Lordship had committed to memory two or three lines of one of the effusions, and when he repeated them with a kind of singsong twang, expressive of a rapturous approbation, the victory was complete, and, long before the party broke up, Danvers had consented to oppose the Whig candidate in his own county, at the then rapidly approaching election.

Danvers was proposed, and as was expected, an Opposition Candidate started in the person of Sir Oliver Freeman, whose barouche was left far behind himself, and who was literally carried into the Town-Hall upon the shoulders of the PEOPLE.

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Sir Oliver was a patriot; and after Mr. Danvers had been nominated and seconded amidst the most violent hootings and hissings, the worthy Baronet's name was received with cheers, only equalled by those which had followed Danvers's health the night before, under his own roof. Sir Oliver Freeman was, as I have just said, a patriot-an emancipator of Roman Catholics, and a Slave-Trade Abolitionist. had disinherited his eldest son for marrying a Papist, and separated from his wife on account of the over-bearing violence of his temper. He deprecated the return to Cash-payments, and, while the gold was scarce, refused to receive any thing but guineas in payment of his rents. He advocated the cause of the Christian Greeks, and subscribed to Hone; he wept at agricultural distress, and never lowered his rents. He cried for the repeal of the Six Acts, and

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