of the street; but in vain for him. His fate is a relentless one. Were visions of Paradise suddenly opened upon his gaze as he crosses the end of an unpropitious turning, he dare not pause even to gaze, still less turn a letter's breadth out of his way. He must leave the uppermost epistle of the pack in the next street: he has no choice: he cannot comprehend what the voluntary principle means. Passive obedience is his doctrine; he

never dreams of having a will of his own. He seems to travel forward freely, and to cross the street as though he really deemed himself a native of a land of liberty; but he is a bondman. He walks through life with the gait of a willing agent; yet ever as he walks, wears fetters, clankless and invisible.

PORTRAITS OF NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS.

No. 1.-THE THEATRICAL LESSEE.

THE theatrical lessee is a practical logician. Being destitute of money, he enters into contracts, binding himself to pay some fifty thousand pounds per annum : being equally destitute of morals, he undertakes to provide rational entertainment for a "discerning public." Peculiarly innocent of all idea of the uses and objects of the stage, he resolves upon taking the drama under his special protection. In short, having nothing to lose, he determines to risk all he is worth; being Dogberry, he becomes constable of the watch, as the "most desartless man." He regards Shakspeare as an author properly honoured in having his statue erected outside the theatre: he confesses that if "Hamlet" were now to be offered him, an entirely new play, he would not produce it; unless, perhaps, the author undertook to appear as the

Ghost. As an indifferently bad actor, even Shakspeare would have a claim upon him. He evinces his understanding of the scope and principle of the drama, when he observes, "We don't want literature, we want pieces." He objects to all productions that have much “talk” in . them; they only tend to encourage the high-priced actors. First-rate performers he looks upon as necessary evils, and he engages them, one at a time, at short intervals : third-rates are his favourites, because they show by their acting that the "regular drama sends people to sleep ;" they prove that Shakspeare "don't draw!" That is the only point which he conscientiously struggles to establish that the public despises excellence: and upon the truth of his proposition his chance of being tolerated depends. He may, however, be brought to forgive an actor for being a genius, always providing that he is not likewise a gentleman: the actor who introduces gentlemanly habits into the theatre is supposed to offer a personal insult to the lessee. In like manner he resents, as becomingly as he can, the impertinent superiority of the few ladies of his company who obstinately maintain the singularity of unsullied virtue; purity of character he considers to be a disgrace to his establishment. His remonstrance is, "I may as well shut up my theatre at once, if common decency is to be observed." The interests of the stage require that every pretty actress should listen to honourable green-room proposals, and submit to a change of viscounts occasionally, at the suggestion, and for the accommodation, of the lessee. The qualifications of an actress are thought to depend upon the question, not "what she can do?" but, "whose cab brought her to the theatre?" The actor he engages on the strength of his lungs, the actress on the strength of her legs. If compelled, by perverse fortune, to come to terms with the first tragedian of the day, and to engage

him for the entire season, the lessee resorts to every imaginable expedient of personal and professional annoyance, of low insult and irritation, to drive him from the theatre in disgust, just at the moment when the example of his high name and the exercise of his fine genius are supposed to be no longer essentially requi-· site. He begins by "biting his thumb" to provoke, and ends by biting the finger of the irritated. If we take the portrait of the lessee in another attitude, we find him instructing counsel to prove him "a rogue and a vagabond according to Act of Parliament;" proclaiming himself a violator of the law, in having acted forbidden tragedies and comedies, and showing that the man who had lent him the purchase-money can have no partnership in the profits of illegality. The lessee closes the house for his own advantage and accommodation, and stops one-third of the company's salary; he replies to the general remonstrance, however, with the assurance that all who demand it shall be paid; and those who ask find him better than his word, for he not only discharges their claims, but them also. The lessee has one favourite plan; to reduce salaries when business falls off: he has another favourite plan; to forget to raise them again when business revives. His statesmanship consists in making his actors take share in his losses, and not in his gains. His idea of attraction is opposed to every law of physics: for, when his audiences are scanty, he thinks his company too numerous: the public will not come, and he proceeds to discharge some of his actors ; his treasury is low, and he takes decisive steps to diminish the receipts. A blank box-book suggests to him the propriety, not of adding to, but of lessening the attraction; when a forty-horse power is not enough, says the lessee, a thirty must be tried. The lessee's sayings and doings all tend consistently to one point;

all tend to lower public taste, to taint public morals, to lessen public amusement; to subvert the stage, to degrade the actor, to destroy the very profession; to dishonour the drama, to repress imagination, and dry up the springs of human sympathy; to make the existing generation scoff where their fathers admired and reverenced, and to render a noble and humanizing art a mere convenience for ignorant pretension, licentious intrigue, and sordid speculation.

THE "OLDEST INHABITANT."

THE Oldest Inhabitant's mind is a blank memorandum-book, his head is a wallet "wherein he puts alms for oblivion." His experience convinces him, more and more every day, that London is situate on the banks of Lethe. Ask him for the date of an event, and, if of modern occurrence, he has a distinct recollection of having forgotten it; if referable to a remoter period, he forgets whether he remembers it or not. He knows that he is of an ancient family, but cannot for his life tell what has become of his ancestors: he conjectures with much shrewdness that his forefathers must be dead. His father, who was a soldier, had been, he thinks, in the same regiment with the celebrated Captain Shandy, and knew him well. His crest is a fore-finger with a piece of thread fastened round it; his motto, "Non mi ricordo." He thinks he can recollect having seen his grandmother when she was a little girl, and is quite positive that his parents died without issue. He is puzzled to know when, where, and how he acquired possession of a daughter; and conceives that his son must now be quite old enough to be his own father. He, however, distinctly remembers the events of his boyhood: the name of the head master of Christ's

Hospital in those days was the Rev. Cornelius Nepos; one of his schoolfellows was called Alcibiades; he is not certain that Julius Cæsar was in the same class with himself, but he has a vague notion that they were a good deal in each other's company. He is confident that he passed a considerable portion of his time, when a lad, at a place called Troy; though he cannot now call to mind the county in which it is situate. Among the minor matters that perplex him is the circumstance, that one corner of his pocket-handkerchief is always tied in a knot, and he never can tell why. His memory belongs rather to the past century than to the present. Of all the days in the year yesterday perplexes him most; old events are newest in his mind, the past brightens as it grows remote, and, as he facetiously remarks, he can hardly get a glimpse of Time till he is out of sight. Thus, he cherishes a settled conviction that her Majesty Queen Anne has actually departed this life; although on the tenth of last November he was wholly at a loss to guess why the Lord Mayor's show (at which he was present) was put off the day before. Of all public characters of the past generation, he best remembers the person of Junius. Robinson Crusoe he never saw but once, and cannot speak as to the accuracy of his portraits. He has a lively sense of the excitement created by the shocking murder of Mrs. Brownrigg, who was hanged in a coalhole by her two infamous. apprentices; and tells you of the public sympathy which formerly existed in favour of a young man named Gregory Barnwell, who was inhumanly stabbed by his own uncle at Peckham. He is also quite clear in the matter of Warren Hastings, only he is not positive whether that gentleman was tried, or transported for seven years. The latest London event of any note which he unhesitatingly remembers, is the grand gathering