with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a
contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns
away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a
toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to the life!

But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear to those of
every-day life is perfectly extraordinary. Some people talk with a sigh
of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal tones the name
of Grimaldi. We mean no disparagement to the worthy and excellent old
man when we say that this is downright nonsense. Clowns that beat
Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every day, and nobody patronizes
them--more's the pity!

'I know who you mean,' says some dirty-faced patron of Mr.
Osbaldistone's, laying down the Miscellany when he has got thus far, and
bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance; 'you mean C. J. Smith as
did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell at the Garden.' The dirty-faced
gentleman has hardly uttered the words, when he is interrupted by a young
gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat. 'No, no,' says the
young gentleman; 'he means Brown, King, and Gibson, at the 'Delphi.'
Now, with great deference both to the first-named gentleman with the
dirty face, and the last-named gentleman in the non-existing
shirt-collar, we do _not_ mean either the performer who so grotesquely
burlesqued the Popish conspirator, or the three unchangeables who have
been dancing the same dance under different imposing titles, and doing
the same thing under various high-sounding names for some five or six
years last past. We have no sooner made this avowal, than the public,
who have hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on
earth it is we _do_ mean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to tell
them.

It is very well known to all playgoers and pantomime-seers, that the
scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his glory are
those which are described in the play-bills as 'Cheesemonger's shop and
Crockery warehouse,' or 'Tailor's shop, and Mrs. Queertable's
boarding-house,' or places bearing some such title, where the great fun
of the thing consists in the hero's taking lodgings which he has not the
slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining goods under false
pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade of the respectable
shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse porters as they pass under his
window, or, to shorten the cata