is needless to describe the play--a
witless performance enough, of which the joke was Macaire's exaggerated
style of conversation, a farrago of all sorts of high-flown sentiments
such as the French love to indulge in--contrasted with his actions,
which were philosophically unscrupulous, and his appearance, which was
most picturesquely sordid. The play had been acted, we believe, and
forgotten, when a very clever actor, M. Frederick Lemaitre, took upon
himself the performance of the character of Robert Macaire, and looked,
spoke, and acted it to such admirable perfection, that the whole town
rung with applauses of the performance, and the caricaturists delighted
to copy his singular figure and costume. M. Robert Macaire appears in a
most picturesque green coat, with a variety of rents and patches, a pair
of crimson pantaloons ornamented in the same way, enormous whiskers
and ringlets, an enormous stock and shirt-frill, as dirty and ragged as
stock and shirt-frill can be, the relic of a hat very gayly cocked over
one eye, and a patch to take away somewhat from the brightness of the
other--these are the principal pieces of his costume--a snuff-box like a
creaking warming-pan, a handkerchief hanging together by a miracle, and
a switch of about the thickness of a man's thigh, formed the ornaments
of this exquisite personage. He is a compound of Fielding's "Blueskin"
and Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." He has the dirt and dandyism of the one,
with the ferocity of the other: sometimes he is made to swindle,
but where he can get a shilling more, M. Macaire will murder without
scruple: he performs one and the other act (or any in the scale between
them) with a similar bland imperturbability, and accompanies his actions
with such philosophical remarks as may be expected from a person of his
talents, his energies, his amiable life and character.

Bertrand is the simple recipient of Macaire's jokes, and makes vicarious
atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part which pantaloon
performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the fatal influence of
clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that gentleman, but he has not
his genius and courage. So, in pantomimes, (it may, doubtless, have been
remarked by the reader,) clown always leaps first, pantaloon following
after, more clumsily and timidly than his bold and accomplished friend
and guide. Whatever blows are destined for clown, fall, by some means
of ill-luck, upon the pate of pant