stage_, 'and all the men and women merely players.' In 'As you Like It,'
at Drury-Lane, an attempt was made to imitate the notes of birds. 'Suppose
the imitation had been so close as to deceive the audience into the belief
that there were birds there singing; would not the contrast with trees of
painted canvass have been revolting? These were not the conceptions of
SHAKSPEARE, when he made his chorus say:

'CAN this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work:
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puisance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings--
Carry them here and there.'

Advice as necessary at the present day as then; for we may enlarge our
stages, increase our supernumeraries, and engage 'real horses;' but we can
never make any one believe the stage is other than the stage. The audience
can realize for themselves. This trust in the all-sufficiency of
imagination is precisely that acted on by children in their daily sports,
where from the boundless wealth of the imagination, the rudest materials
supply the place of the costliest. Whoever watches boys 'playing horse,'
making a pocket-handkerchief dangling behind to represent the tail, and
sees them stamping, snorting, prancing, and champing the imaginary bit,
witnesses the alchymy of the imagination, an alchymy out-stripping all the
wonders and out-weighing all the treasures of the prosaic positive
chemistry, so longed for by the present generation. The child 'supposes'
the handkerchief a tail, and it becomes a tail. He has but to say to his
companion: 'This shall be a whip and this shall be the harness,' and the
things are there; not as matters of literal fact, but of imaginative
truth. He plays for the enjoyment of the game and the exercise of his
imagination; and therefore the handkerchief serves every purpose. This is
the procedure of nature. But the modern parent, anxious to realize for the
child, and to instil a love of ac