py-looking mother in the two-shilling
gallery! Yes, brave 'prentice-boys in the tier above, the cat-call by
all means! And you, "most potent, grave, and reverend signiors" in the
front row of the pit, practised critics and steady old playgoers, who
shake your heads at new actors and playwrights, and, true to the creed
of your youth (for the which all honor to you!), firmly believe that we
are shorter by the head than those giants our grandfathers,--laugh or
scold as you will, while the drop-scene still shuts out the stage. It is
just that you should all amuse yourselves in your own way, O spectators!
for the interval is long. All the actors have to change their dresses;
all the scene-shifters are at work sliding the "sides" of a new world
into their grooves; and in high disdain of all unity of time, as of
place, you will see in the play-bills that there is a great demand on
your belief. You are called upon to suppose that we are older by five
years than when you last saw us "fret our hour upon the stage." Five
years! the author tells us especially to humor the belief by letting the
drop-scene linger longer than usual between the lamps and the stage.

Play up, O ye fiddles and kettle-drums! the time is elapsed. Stop that
cat-call, young gentleman; heads down in the pit there! Now the flourish
is over, the scene draws up: look before.

A bright, clear, transparent atmosphere,--bright as that of the East,
but vigorous and bracing as the air of the North; a broad and fair
river, rolling through wide grassy plains; yonder, far in the distance,
stretch away vast forests of evergreen, and gentle slopes break the
line of the cloudless horizon. See the pastures, Arcadian with sheep in
hundreds and thousands,--Thyrsis and Menalcas would have had hard labor
to count them, and small time, I fear, for singing songs about Daphne.
But, alas! Daphnes are rare; no nymphs with garlands and crooks trip
over those pastures.

Turn your eyes to the right, nearer the river; just parted by a low
fence from the thirty acres or so that are farmed for amusement or
convenience, not for profit,--that comes from the sheep,--you catch
a glimpse of a garden. Look not so scornfully at the primitive
horticulture: such gardens are rare in the Bush. I doubt if the stately
King of the Peak ever more rejoiced in the famous conservatory, through
which you may drive in your carriage, than do the sons of the Bush in
the herbs and blossoms which taste and bre