friend John, who gallanted off the chairs and tables in the most dignified and circumspect manner. Indeed, I have had frequent occasion to applaud the correctness with which this gentleman fulfils the parts allotted him, and consider him as one of the best general performers in the company. My friend, the cockney, found considerable fault with the manner in which John shoved a huge rock from behind the scenes; maintaining that he should have put his left foot forward, and pushed it with his right hand, that being the method practiced by his contemporaries of the royal theatres, and universally approved by their best critics. also took exception to John's coat, which he pronounced too short by a foot at least, particularly when he turned his back to the company. But I look upon these objections in the same light as new readings, and insist that John shall be allowed to manoeuvre his chairs and tables, shove his rocks, and wear his skirts in that style which his genius best affects. My hopes in the rising merits of this favorite actor daily increase; and I would hint to the manager the propriety of giving him a benefit, advertising in the usual style of playbills, as a "springe to catch woodcocks," that between the play and farce, John will make a bow-for that night only.

I am told that no pains have been spared to make the exhibitions of this season as splendid as possible. Several expert rat-catchers have been sent into different parts of the country to catch white mice for the grand pantomime of

Cinderella." A nest full of little squab Cupids has been taken in the neighborhood of Communipaw; they are as yet but halffledged, of the true Holland breed, and it is hoped will be able to fly about by the middle of October; otherwise they will be suspended about the stage by the waistband, like little alligators in an apothecary's shop, as the pantomime must positively be performed by that time. Great pains and expense have been incurrred in the importation of one of the most portly pumpkins in New England; and the public may be assured there is now one on board a vessel from New Haven which will contain Cinderella's coach and six with perfect ease, were the white mice even ten times as large.

Also several barrels of hail, rain, brimstone, and gunpowder are in store for melodramas, of which a number are to be played off this winter. It is furthermore whispered me that the great thunder drum has been new braced, and an expert performer on that instrument engaged, who will thunder in plain English, so

as to be understood by the most illiterate hearer. This will be infinitely preferable to the miserable Italian thunderer employed last winter by Mr. Ciceri, who performed in such an unnatural and outlandish tongue, that none but the scholars of Signor Da Ponte could understand him. It will be a further gratification to the patriotic audience to know that the present thunderer is a fellow-countryman, born at Dunderberg, among the echoes of the Highlands, and that he thunders with peculiar emphasis and pompous enunciation, in the true style of a Fourth of July orator.

In addition to all these additions, the manager has provided an entire new snow-storm, the very sight of which will be quite sufficient to draw a shawl over every naked bosom in the theatre; the snow is perfectly fresh, having been manufactured last August.

N.B. The outside of the theatre has been ornamented with a new chimney!!

No. XV.-Thursday, October 1, 1807.

T

SKETCHES FROM NATURE.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

HE brisk northwesters which prevailed not long since had a powerful effect in

arresting the progress of belles, beaux,

and wild pigeons in their fashionable. northern tour, and turning them back to the more balmy region of the south. Among the rest, I was encountered, full butt, by a blast which set my teeth chattering, just as I doubled one of the frowning bluffs of the Mohawk Mountains, in my route to Niagara, and facing about incontinently, I forthwith scudded before the wind, and a few days since arrived at my old quarters in New York. My first care, on returning from so long an absence, was to visit the worthy family of the Cocklofts, whom I found safe burrowed in their country mansion. On inquiring for my highly respected coadjutor,

Langstaff, I learned, with great concern, that he had relapsed into one of his eccentric fits of the spleen, ever since the era of a turtle dinner given by old Cockloft to some of the neighboring squires, wherein the old gentleman had achieved a glorious victory in laying honest Launcelot fairly under the table. Langstaff, although fond of the social board and cheerful glass, yet abominates any excess, and has an invincible aversion to getting mellow, considering it a wilful outrage on the sanctity of the imperial mind, a senseless abuse of the body, and an unpardonable, because a voluntary, prostration of both mental and personal dignity. I have heard him moralize on the subject, in a style that would do honor to Michael Cassio himself; but I believe, if the truth were known, this antipathy rather rises from his having, as the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves so extremely sensitive that he is sure to suffer severely from a frolic, and will groan and make resolutions against it for a week afterward. He therefore took this waggish exploit of old Christopher's, and the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon; had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mischievous old crony. He had, however, for the last day or two,