es which lay hidden in the track before him? Is
there not rather just cause for wonder that he did not speedily sink to
the bottom, but that, on the contrary, he kept afloat, advanced to
conspicuity and fame, and would, in all probability, have ultimately
come with flying colours to a mooring in the port of honour and
happiness, if Death had not unexpectedly arrested him in his progress.

It was a little after the time when Hodgkinson had entered his fifteenth
year, that the retreating place of our little company of players and
musicians was discovered. They were all lads not only of lively genius
but of high mettle, and of vigorous animal spirits. Like master Dick, in
Murphy's farce of the Apprentice, they had their heads stuffed with
scraps of plays, with which they interlarded their discourse, cracked
their jests, praised their favourites, and satirized their enemies,
among which last the very worst, in their opinions, were their parents,
guardians, and masters. "The character of Dick," said Hodgkinson more
than once to this writer, "is not overcharged." Our youngsters were
quite pat at stage gabble, and

Fathers have flinty hearts, no tears can move them,

with effusions of a similar tendency, every day resounded from their
theatrical cellar, followed by bursts of thoughtless merriment and
laughter.

One day our little cellar company were engaged in rehearsing Dibdin's
comic opera of the Padlock. Being the best singer, Hodgkinson had the
part of Leander allotted to him, sore against his will, Mungo being at
that time his favourite character. As he played the first fiddle he was
employed in scratching away an accompaniment to the Mungo of the day, in
the song of

Dear heart, dear heart, what a terrible life am I led,

when a noise was heard at the door of a passage that led to the cellar,
as if it were a person pushing against it. Interrupted thus
unseasonably, master Mungo, in apparent panic, suddenly ceased to sing.
"What do you stop for?" said John. "Didst thou not hear a noise?" said
the other, assuming the tone, and perhaps feeling the alarm too, of
Macbeth, in the dagger-scene. "Bravo, bravo!" cried Hodgkinson,
"excellent! You can't do Mungo half so well. It is I, sir, I that can do
Mungo to the very life. Now I say, boys, with what feeling could I pour
out from my heart and soul, "Oh cussa heart of my old massa--him damn
impudence and his cuss assurance." This he followed with a spirited
twang of "D