ais apropos de le drame, Monsieur L'Espion_, what is your report of
our theatres? Have you seen the monkeys? Are they not, for a classic
stage, grand,

----Those happiest smiles
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence
As pearls from diamonds dropt. In brief,
Her room would be a rarity most beloved,
If all could so become it."

Shakespeare, a little altered.

I would just say here, that if any disapprove of my picture of the lady,
they may take Bernard Blackmantle's ~278~~_magnifique, et admirable_?
Do they not awake in you visions of rapturous delight, as you contrast
their antics and mimicry, their grotesque and beautiful grimaces, their
cunning leers, with the eye of Garrick, the stately action of Kemble,
the sarcasm of Cooke, the study of Henderson, the commanding port of
Siddons, the fire of Kean, the voice of Young, the tones of O'Neill?
When you see them, as the traveller Dampier has it, "dancing from
tree to tree over your head," and hear them "chattering, and making a
terrible noise," do you not think of Lord Chesterfield, and exclaim, "A
well-governed stage is an ornament to society, an encouragement to wit
and learning, and a school of virtue, modesty, and good manners?" Do you
not feel, when you behold the flesh and blood punch and man-monkey of
Covent Garden Theatre "twist his body into all manner of shapes," or
"Monsieur Gouffe," of the Surrey, "hang himself for the benefit of Mr.
Bradley," that we may pay our money, and "see, and see, and see again,
and still glean something new, something to please, and something to
instruct;" and, lastly, in a fit of enthusiasm, exclaim,

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;"
For this great Jocko's self first leap'd the stage;
For this was puffd in ev'ry well-bribed page,
From evening "Courier" down to Sunday "Age!"{13}

13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of
praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the
original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is
ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original.
That the beings who banish legitimate performers sho