"The high veneration which I entertain for subjects relating to antiquity could not let me pass unnoticed so glaring an impropriety in title as the 'Banquet Gallery.' I have the honour to be, etc."

Colman soon satisfied him, I fancy, on this point of antiquity, for the whole piece was filled with anachronism, and gunpowder itself is the loudest he has employed. As to the "Gallery" (the antiquary was right), witness the picture galleries in some of the Tudor buildings, which are extremely narrow, and have the windows always on one side, and the portraits of the family possessing the mansion on the other, which thus, fortunately for the painters, you in vain endeavour to catch more than a glimpse of.

But at night, with the curtain up, our antiquary was yet more astonished. "My God! a commander of an armed force blowing his own trumpet! Gracious Heaven! why, that is a Roman habit, and that a Grecian helmet!- There goes James the First's ruff and Charles the First's armour! - Shields of all shapes, crossbows like pickaxes; and (for the love of God, let me go!) a modern parade drum-major!"

The next novelty at this theatre was a very fair

comedy written by Morris, the barrister, called the "Secret," which made its first appearance on the 2d of March, 1799. The "Secret" is the cheating a young lady of her fortune by the Torrids and the Lizards, who appear to have cultivated their amiable propensity to plunder in India. On the arrival of Rosa in England with the Torrids, Lizard puts the "Secret" in action to obtain young Torrid for his daughter-the young gentleman is already in love with Rosa. The usual persecution ensues, and Rosa bethinks herself of a letter written by her mother to a Lady Esther Dorville, whose husband was actually the father of Rosa by another lady, whom parental cruelty had torn from his arms and conveyed out to India. All this, as Mrs. Jordan remarked, was "quite usual on the stage, whatever the world might say to it," and we laughed at Munden's criticism on such occasions, who would sit out a greenroom reading of two hours with a few contortions, as if his seat was uneasy to him, and then, with a face of astonishment, extinguish the poor author's vanity with, "My precious eyes, sir, but where's the comedy?"

The comedy here was in Miss Lizard, head teacher at Mrs. Monsoon's seminary for young

ladies destined to the India market. There was comedy in such an establishment. Rosa was but the weaker half of Mrs. Jordan, the young lady; but "where was the comedy?" Colman wrote an epilogue for her; one of those colloquies held from the stage with pit, box, and gallery, where particular persons are pointed at, whom the discerning Mr. Bull always turns himself about to discover. She rattled through it so very agreeably that she was obliged to repeat it, a compliment quite singular. It was about this piece, I remember, we had been speaking, when she told me she had another "East Indian" offered at her shrine, which she would trouble me to read. I did so, and we talked the piece over at her town residence in Somerset Street, Portman Square. She had not told me who was the author of the play. But there was that in it which merited consideration. I gave her my opinion frankly, and pointed out the indecorum of the interest. However, though not a moral play, it was written, evidently, I said, by a man of talent, and, as a benefit piece, preferable to an old one. Mrs. Jordan here in confidence informed me that the duke had taken the trouble to read it at her desire also, and that we agreed most decisively in

our opinions. She was in charming spirits, I remember, that morning, and occasionally ran over the strings of her guitar. Her young family were playing about us, and the present Colonel George Fitzclarence, then a child, amused me much with his spirit and strength; he attacked me as, his mother told me, his fine-tempered father was accustomed to permit him to do himself. He certainly was an infant Hercules. The reader will judge of the pleasure with which I have since viewed his career as a soldier, and I owe him my thanks for his instructive and amusing journey across India, through Egypt, to England, in the winter of 1817-18, which he dedicated to his late Majesty George the Fourth when prince regent. I shall here merely say that his fourth chapter in this work is written with great skill, and possesses that interest which arises from actual facts at critical periods; from difficulties surmounted by patience or exertion; abounding in the terrible and destructive, unexaggerated and minutely detailed. As a moving picture, this division of his work may, with advantage, stand a comparison with the best passages of those who travel to seek effects.

To return to the stage. Though I can but

rarely visit the other theatre in my present course, yet I will notice the first appearance of the

Birthday," on the 8th of April, and leave my feeble testimony to the exquisite acting of Munden and Fawcett, in Captain Bertram and Junk. It is the naval pendant to the military Toby and Trim, and one of the best delineations of human nature coloured by profession. We owe this, it appears, to the admirable Kotzebue, whom the lecturers affect to slight, when compared with the sound poets of the German theatre. It is a pity they do not name the plays that produce equal interest. But this we are in no danger of seeing done by any modern author, of whatever nation.

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But the "Birthday" is not the only tribute paid by Kotzebue to the genius of Sterne. In his play of the "Peevish Man," we have Mr. Shandy himself, and his brother Toby, with even the name preserved. The use made of Sterne by dramatic authors, and the powerful scenes either of pathos or humour to be found in his "Tristram " and his "Journey," excite a curiosity as to what rank he might have attained had he cultivated the drama.

On the 22d of April, followed by the "Romp," Mrs. Jordan acted the "East Indian" for her benefit; it was a production of Lewis's, probably