unnery
in Liverpool, or somewhere, where he was brought up as a Catholic
priest; and here he comes, with his Latin and Lancashire dialect,
to lick the manager's great toe, and be hanged to him, and gets
all the business; while men of talent, and nerve, and personal
appearance,' shifting his hands from his coat-pockets to those of
his tights, 'who have drudged in the profession for years, are
kept in the back-ground; 'tis enough to make a fellow swear!'

''You, then, Sir, are an actor?' said I, calmly.

''An actor! yes, Sir, I am an _actor_, and have been ever since I
was an infant in arms; played the child that cries in the third
act of the comedy of 'The Chances,' when it was got up with
splendor by Old Gerald, at Sheerness, when I was only nine weeks
old; and I recollect, that is, my mother told me, that I cried
louder, and more naturally, than any child they'd ever had.
_That's me_,' said he, pointing to the play-bill--_Horatio, Mr.
Howard_. 'I _used to make_ a great part of Horatio _once_; and I
can now send any Hamlet to h-ll in that character, when I give it
energy and pathos; but this nine-tailed bashaw of a manager
insists upon my keeping my 'madness in the back-ground,' as he
calls it, and so I just walk through it, speak the words, and make
it a poor, spooney, preaching son of a how-came-ye-so, and do no
more for it than the author has.'

Mr. COWELL subsequently enlists under the same manager, and is received
with great apparent cordiality by the members of his _corps dramatique_:
'The loan of 'properties,' or any thing I have, is perfectly at your
service,' was iterated by all. Howard said: 'My boy, by heavens, I'll lend
you my blue tights; oh, you're perfectly welcome; I don't wear them till
the farce; Banquo's one of my _flesh parts_; nothing like the naked truth;
I'm h--l for nature. By-the-by, you'll often have to wear black smalls and
stockings; I'll put you up to something; save your buying silks, darning,
stitch-dropping, louse-ladders, and all that; grease your legs and
burnt-cork 'em; it looks d----d well 'from the front.'' Mr. COWELL, it
appears, was an artist of no mean pretensions; and while engaged on one
occasion in sketching a picturesque view of Stoke Church, he was
interrupted in rather a novel manner by a brother actor named REYMES,
somewhat akin, we fancy, to his friend HOWARD, albeit 'excellent compan