ishingly beautiful daughter.
Fair LYDIA, I come to lay my heart at your feet. 'Tis the wish of my
uncle and your honored father that we should unite our respective
houses. Let me touch that exquisite hand. Unseal those ruby lips and
tell me that I am the happiest of men."

Here the UNCLE and OLDBOY enter. They chuckle, and poke one another in
the ribs, remarking "Gad" and "Zounds" at intervals. They bless the
young couple, and order up some of the old Madeira. The curtain falls as
OLDBOY gives the health of the young people, with the wish that they may
have a dozen children, and a cellar never without plenty of this
splendid old Madeira,--"that your father, bottled, Miss LYDIA, the year
our gracious sovereign came to the throne."

This is a fair sample of the old comedy. The oaths are of course
omitted, out of deference to the tender susceptibilities of the editor
of PUNCHINELLO. So are the indecencies, which are the spice of the old
comedy, but which cannot be written in a respectable journal, and are
almost too gross and brutal for the _Sun_. Take from an old comedy its
oaths and its grossness, and nothing is left but a residuum of
boisterous inanity. The condensed old comedy which has just been laid
before the readers of PUNCHINELLO, is as inane and vapid as anything
that WALLACK'S theatre has shown us in the past month. Do you find it
dull? For my part, I don't hesitate to say that the "Essence of Old
Virginny," as furnished by the venerable poet, Mr. DANIEL BRYANT, is
vastly more amusing than the Essence of Old Comedy.

All of which I say, in my most impressive manner, to MARGARET as we
struggle through the crowded lobby. But she irreverently disputes my
assertions, and asks, "How is it that everybody admires these comedies
if they are so wretched as you say they are? Is your judgment better
than that of anybody else?"

There being nothing to say, if I mean to maintain my ground, except that
my judgment is the only infallible critical judgment in this city or
elsewhere, I promptly and unblushingly say so. But MARGARET tells me I
am "a goose"--(I think I have mentioned that she is my aunt, and hence
allows herself these pleasing freedoms of speech)--and says that I shall
take her to see the old comedies every night, until I am willing to say
that I like them.

Who is there that, in view of this threat, will not drop the tear of
sensibility, so neatly alluded to by Mr. STERNE, in sympathy with the
prospective s