n, you are superannuated." John Billet did not
survive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survived
long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I
remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the
place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint
(Anno 1781) where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable
independence; and with five pounds, fourteen shillings, and a penny,
which were found in his escrutoire after his decease, left the world,
blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had never
been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was--a Poor Relation.

STAGE ILLUSION

A play is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the scenical
illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect,
is not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is, when
the actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators.
In tragedy--in all which is to affect the feelings--this undivided
attention to his stage business, seems indispensable. Yet it is, in
fact, dispensed with every day by our cleverest tragedians; and while
these references to an audience, in the shape of rant or sentiment,
are not too frequent or palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion
for the purposes of dramatic interest may be said to be produced in
spite of them. But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in
certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little
extravagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral
sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when,
without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit
understanding with them; and makes them, unconsciously to themselves,
a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of
doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession.

The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves,
or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward
_done to the life_ upon a stage would produce anything but mirth.
Yet we most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could any thing
be more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues. How was
this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual
sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the
shaking fit, that he was not half such a coward as we took him for? We
saw all