f the trade, make his tongue the medium
of publication? And yet, if speech be the crime, what say you to
Macready, and with what punishment are you prepared to visit him who
makes your heart-strings vibrate to the sorrows of _Virginius_, or
thrills your very blood with the malignant vengeance of _Iago_? Is
what is permissible in Covent Garden, criminal in the city? or,
stranger still, is there a punishment at the one place, and praise at
the other? Or is it the costume, the foot-lights, the orange-peel, and
the sawdust--are they the terms of the immunity? Alas, and alas! I
believe they are.

Burke said, "The age of chivalry is o'er;" and I believe the age of
poetry has gone with it; and if Homer himself were to chant an Iliad
down Fleet Street, I'd wager a crown that 964 would take him up for a
ballad-singer.

But a late case occurs to me. A countryman of mine, one Bernard
Cavanagh, doubtless, a gentleman of very good connections, announced
some time ago that he had adopted a new system of diet, which was
neither more nor less than going without any food. Now, Mr. Cavanagh
was a stout gentleman, comely and plump to look at, who conversed
pleasantly on the common topics of the day, and seemed, on the whole,
to enjoy life pretty much like other people. He was to be seen for a
shilling--children half-price; and although Englishmen have read of
our starving countrymen for the last century and a-half, yet their
curiosity to see one, to look at him, to prod him with their
umbrellas, punch him with their knuckles, and otherwise test his
vitality, was such, that they seemed just as much alive as though the
phenomenon was new to them. The consequence was, Mr. Cavanagh, whose
cook was on board wages, and whose establishment was of the least
expensive character, began to wax rich. Several large towns and
cities, in different parts of the empire, requested him to visit them;
and Joe Hume suggested that the corporation of London should offer him
ten thousand pounds for his secret, merely for the use of the livery.
In fact, Cavanagh was now the cry, and as Barney appeared to grow fat
on fasting, his popularity knew no bounds. Unfortunately, however,
ambition, the bane of so many other great men, numbered him also among
its victims. Had he been content with London as the sphere of his
triumphs and teetotalism, there is no saying how long he might have
gone on starving with satisfaction. Whether it is that the people are
less observ