yew and holly hedges, still trimmed and clipped by the old
grey-headed gardener, upon those principles which a Dutchman thought
worthy of commemorating in a didactic poem upon the _Ars Topiaria_.

A little wilderness, surrounding a beautiful piece of the smoothest
turf, and itself bounded by such high hedges as we have described, had
been selected as the stage most proper for the exhibition of the
intended dramatic picture. It afforded many facilities; for a rising
bank exactly in front was accommodated with seats for the spectators,
who had a complete view of the silvan theatre, the bushes and shrubs
having been cleared away, and the place supplied with a temporary
screen, which, being withdrawn by the domestics appointed for that
purpose, was to serve for the rising of the curtain. A covered trellis,
which passed through another part of the garden, and terminated with a
private door opening from the right wing of the building, seemed as if
it had been planted on purpose for the proposed exhibition, as it served
to give the personages of the drama a convenient and secret access from
the green-room to the place of representation. Indeed, the dramatis
personae, at least those who adopted the management of the matter, were
induced, by so much convenience, to extend, in some measure, their
original plan; and, instead of one group, as had been at first proposed,
they now found themselves able to exhibit to the good company a
succession of three or four, selected and arranged from different parts
of the drama; thus giving some duration, as well as some variety, to the
entertainment, besides the advantage of separating and contrasting the
tragic and the comic scenes.

After wandering about amongst the gardens, which contained little to
interest any one, and endeavouring to recognise some characters, who,
accommodating themselves to the humours of the day, had ventured to
appear in the various disguises of ballad-singers, pedlars, shepherds,
Highlanders, and so forth, the company began to draw together towards
the spot where the seats prepared for them, and the screen drawn in
front of the bosky stage, induced them to assemble, and excited
expectation, especially as a scroll in front of the esplanade set forth,
in the words of the play, "This green plot shall be our stage, this
hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we will do it in action." A delay
of about ten minutes began to excite some suppressed murmurs of
impatience amo