NIGHT CONFLAGRATION.

175

they began to moan and shake, so that 'it was piteous to see and eke to hear.' 'I have nothing less than this tendollar bill,' said our wag, handing the gate-keeper a banknote; but for heaven's sake change it just as quick as ever you can! I have three friends in the sleigh who are almost dead with the small-pox, and I'm in such an awful

'Drive on! drive on!' said the terrified gate-keeper, handing back the bill; 'drive on pay next time!' Above the whistling of the snow-laden wind which swept over that frozen lake, and the trampling of the horses' feet on the bridge that night, the gate-keeper heard the loud laugh of those wags, proclaiming that he had been 'taken in and done for!'

LOOKING down from the roof of a high dwelling at night upon a great city, partly revealed by a conflagration, is to us a sublime spectacle. In the semi-gloom, uprise the towers, steeples, domes and cupolas into the heavens, now brightening now fading in the rising and sinking flame. The far-off clanking of the engines; the subdued roar of human voices; the faint crackling of the flames, and that monotone of raging fire which rises solemnly into the empyrean, and the restless patter of a thousand feet; all these possess, to our conception, the element of

176

THE SILENT CITY.

sublimity. Looking up to the dark blue star-begemmed

dome above, one cannot help saying with BRYANT:

THY spirit is around,

Quickening the reckless mass that sweeps along;
And this eternal sound,

Voices and footfalls of the unnumbered throng,
Like the resounding sea,

Or like the rainy tempests, speaks of THEE!

'And when the hours of rest

Come like a calm upon the mid sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast,

The quiet of the moment too is THINE;
It breathes of HIM who keeps

The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.'

NUMBER EIGHT.

OUR FIRST PLAY ·

PER CAUGIIT

LONGFELLOW:

COUNTRY THEATRICALS: 'SHORT OF BIBLE': MAYOR HARA TEMPERENCE 'PLEDGE': WONDERFUL CURES OILY 'GAMMON": DR. COX IN A BOX': WORD PICTURES THE MACKINAW SEA-SERPENT: 'DESTINY' DOUBTED: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE KAATSKILLS: ACCIDENT '-AL ACQUAINTANCE: AN AMERICAN CITIZEN': AN IRREGULAR REVIVALIST': SCENES IN A CITY HOSPITAL: DUBIOUS DEFERENCE: A DUTCHMAN 'DONE': A 'BAD BARGAIN': VISIBLE PRESENCE' OF DEATH.

WE by late Enelis ir and dinner, among other

E perceive by late English journals, that DICKENS at the London Theatrical Fund dinner, among

things remarked: 'If any man were to tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him one question whether he remembered his first play. I would ask him to carry back his recollection to that great night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world which then opened to his view.' We thought of our first play, the other night at Binghamton. A company of perambulating actors, and some of them very good actors too, including the manager, a talented and gentleman-like person, were to perform at the court-house. So in the evening we went up with a few esteemed friends.

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OUR FIRST PLAY.

The stage was erected at one end, and the audience occupied the jury-box, witnesses' stand, and the side-seats for spectators. The orchestra was a single fiddle, played at intervals with great energy. Little boys were walking continually about in the open space before the stage, peddling candy and pea-nuts. The drop-curtain was a 'feature.' It had the picture of a bird that might have been intended for the Bird of Jove, but by Jove!' it was such an eagle as we never saw before nor since! The whole scene; the actors and the acting; the fresh-hearted little boys looking on in wonderment; the tinselled dresses and decorations; all brought vividly back to us the memory of our first play. It was at the long-room of the village inn, and Messrs. ARCHBOLD, TROWBRIDGE and GILBERT,' among other histrions, were the performers. How wistfully did we regard, that night, for the first time, the patched and faded mottled green curtain; the flashing of shoe-buckles, the gleaming of flesh-colored tights,' and the sparkling of spangled garments, caught in glimpses beneath it. And the play-oh, 'it was grand!' It was 'ZANGA, or the Revenge,' and Mr. ARCHBOLD, a mouthing old Stentor, 'did' the hero. We expected much of him, for we had heard him say in the morning: The pawt of ZEG-GAW, Saw, is me favorite pawt. I played ZEG-GAW at Kenendegwaw; and Mr. FRENCES GREG-GHAW, one of the most intelligent of its citizens, pronounced it supawb

COUNTRY THEATRICALS.

179

acting.' How the old mountebank did roar and rave! Then came 'The Village-Lawyer,' another favorite ‘pawt' of his; and at this moment we can hear him say, in his affected, piping voice, That's my signatur-TIMO'SY SN-A-A-RL!' There, too, we heard our first public singing, except at church. The curtain had descended upon the personages whose sorrows were our own, and 'musing in melancholy mood,' we were gazing vacantly at the long row of tallow-candles placed in auger-holes in the boards of the stage, and at the fiddler who composed the orchestra, and who was reconnoitring the house. Presently a small bell was rung with a jerk. There was a flourish or two from the orchestra.' Another tinkle of the bell, and up rose the faded drapery. An interval of a moment succeeded, during which half of a large mountain was removed from the scenery, and a piece of forest shoved up to the ambitious wood which had been aspiring to overtop the Alps. At length a young lady, whom we had just seen butchered in the most horrid manner by a black visaged villain, came from the side of the stage with a smile which, while it displayed her white teeth, wrought the rouge upon her face into very perceptible corrugations, and made a lowly obeisance to the audience. She walked with measured step three or four times across the stage, before the flaring candles, smiling again, and 'hemming,' to clear her voice. A perfect stillness at length prevailed: awed