cask of a snuff-box to each of their noses, to bring them to; and while they are sneezing and tearing their souls out, jogs off at his leisure.

Ah-here he is again on his road, Harlequin with his lass, fifty miles advanced in an hour, and caring nothing for his pursuers, though they have taken the steam-coach. Now the lovers dine indeed; and having had no motion to signify, join in a dance. Here Columbine shines as she ought to do. The little slender, but plump rogue! How she winds it hither and thither with her trim waist, and her waxen arms! now with a hand against her side, tripping it with no immodest insolence in a hornpipe; now undulating it in a waltz; or "caracoling" it, as Sir Thomas Urquhart would say, in the saltatory style of the opera; but always Columbine; always the little dove who is to be protected; something less than the opera-dancer, and greater; more unconscious, yet not so; and ready to stretch her gauze wings for a flight, the moment Riches would tear her from Love.

But these introductions to the characters by themselves do not give a sufficient idea of the great pervading spirit of the pantomime, which is motion; motion for ever, and motion all at once. Mr. Jacob Bryant, who saw everything in anything, and needed nothing but the taking a word to pieces to prove that his boots and the constellation Boötes were the same thing, would have recognized in the word Pantomime the Anglo-antediluvian compound, a Pant-o'-mimes! that is to say, a set of Mimes or Mimics, all panting together. Or he would have detected the obvious Anglo-Greek meaning of a set of Mimes, expressing Pan, or Everything, by means of the Toe,-Pan-Toe-Mime. Be this as it may, Pantomime is certainly a representation of the vital principle of all things, from the dance of the planets down to that of Damon and Phillis. Everything in it keeps moving; there is no more cessation than there is in nature; and though we may endeavor to fix our attention upon one mover or set of movers at a time, we are conscious that all are going on. The Clown, though we do not see him, is jogging somewhere;— Pantaloon and his servant, like Saturn and his ring, are still careering it behind their Mercury and Venus; and when Har

lequin and Columbine come in, do we fancy they have been resting behind the scenes? The notion! Look at them: they are evidently in full career: they have been, as well as are, dancing; and the music, which never ceases whether they are visible or not, tells us as much.

Let readers, of a solemn turn of mistake, disagree with us if they please, provided they are ill-humored. The erroneous, of a better nature, we are interested in; having known what it is to err like them. These are apt to be mistaken out of modesty (sometimes out of a pardonable vanity in wishing to be esteemed); and in the case before us, they will sin against the natural candor of their hearts by condemning an entertainment which they enjoy, because they think it a mark of sense to do so. Let them know themselves to be wiser than those who are really of that opinion. There is nothing wiser than a cheerful pulse, and all innocent things which tend to keep it so. crabbedest philosopher that ever lived (if he was a philosopher, and crabbed against his will) would have given thousands to feel as they do; and he would have known, that it redounded to his honor and not to his disgrace, to own it.

The

CHAPTER XI.

Cruelty to Children.

READERS of newspapers are constantly being shocked with the unnatural conduct of parents towards their children. Some are detected in locking them up and half-starving them; others tax them beyond their strength, and scourge them dreadfully for not bearing it; others take horrible dislikes to their children, and vex and torture them in every way they can think of, short of subjecting themselves to the gallows. In most cases the tyranny is of long duration before it is exposed. A whole neighborhood are saddened by the cries of the poor victim, till they are obliged to rise up in self-defence and bring the criminal to justice. By this we may judge how many miseries are taking place of which people have no suspicion; how many wretches have crimes of this sort, to account for the evil in their looks; and how many others, more criminal because more lying, go about in decent repute, while some oppressed and feeble relative, awfully patient, is awaiting in solitude the horror of the returning knock at the door.

It is alleged by offenders of this description, that the children are vicious and provoking; that their conduct is very aggravating," as the phrase is; and that "nothing can mend them but blows," which never do. But whence come the faults of children? and how were they suffered to grow to such a height? Really, setting aside these monsters of unpaternity,—parents are apt to demand a great many virtues in their children, which they do not themselves possess. The child, on the mere strength of their will, and without any of their experience, is expected to have good sense, good temper, and Heaven knows how many other good qualities; while the parents perhaps, notwithstanding all the lessons they have received from time and trouble, have

little or nothing of any of them. Above all, they forget that, in originating the bodies of their children, they originate their minds and temperaments; that a child is but a continuation of his father and mother, or their fathers and mothers, and kindred; that it is further modified and made what it is by education and bringing up; and that on all these accounts the parents have no excuse for abusing and tormenting it; unless with equal wisdom and a glorious impartiality they should abuse and torment themselves in like manner,-scourge their own flesh, and condemn themselves to a crust and a black hole. If a father were to give his own sore legs a good flogging for inheriting illhumors from his ancestors, he might with some show of reason proceed to punish the continuation of them in those of his child. If a cruel mother got into a handsome tub of cold water of a winter morning, and edified the neighbors with the just and retributive shrieks which she thence poured forth for a couple of hours, crying out to her deceased "mammy" that she would be a good elderly woman in future, and not a scold and a reprobate, then she might like a proper mad woman (for she is but an improper one now) put her child into the tub after her, and make it shriek out "mammy" in its turn.

But let us do justice to all one's fellow-creatures, not forgetting these very "aggravating" parents. To regard them as something infernal, and forget that they, as well as their children, have become what they are from circumstances over which they had no control, is to fall into their own error, and forget our common humanity. We believe that the very worst of these domestic tyrants (and it is an awful lesson for the best of them) would have been shocked in early life, if they could have been shown, in the magic glass, what sort of beings they would become. Suppose one of them a young man, blooming with health, and not ill-natured, but subject to fits of sulkiness or passion, and not very wise; and suppose that in this glass he sees an old ill-looking fellow, scowling, violent, outrageous, tormenting with a bloody scourge his own child, who is meagre, squalid, and half-starved,—" Good God!" he would cry, that be myself? Can that be my arm, and my face? And that my own poor little child? There are devils then and I am

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doomed to be one of them." And the tears would pour into his eyes. No: not so, poor wretch: thou art no devil-there is no such thing as devilishness or pure malice for its own sake; the very cruellest actions are committed to relieve the cravings of the perpetrator's want of excitement, more than to hurt another. But though no devil, you are very ignorant, and are not aware of your ignorance. The energies of the universe, being on a great scale, are liable, in their progress from worse to better, to great roughness in the working, and appalling sounds of discord. The wiser you become, the more you diminish this jarring, and tend to produce that amelioration. Learn this, and be neither appalled nor appalling; or if your reflections do not travel so far, and you are in no danger of continuing your evil course by the subtle desperations of superstition, be content to know, that nobody ill-treats another, who is satisfied with his own conduct. If the case were otherwise, it would be worse; for you would not have the excuse even of a necessity for relieving your own sensations. But it never is so, sophisticate about it as you may. The very pains you take to reconcile yourself to yourself, may show you how much need you have of doing so. It is nothing else which makes the silliest little child sulky; and the same folly makes the grown man a tyrant. When you begin to illtreat your child, you begin to punish in him your own faults; and you most likely do nothing but beat them in upon him with every stroke of the scourge: for why should he be wiser than you? Why should he be able to throw off the ill-humors of which your greater energies cannot get rid ?

These thoughts we address to those who are worthy of them; and who not being tyrants, may yet become such, for want of reflection. Vulgar offenders can be mended only with the whole progress of society, and the advancement of education. There is one thing we must not omit to say, which is, that the best parents are apt to expect too much of their children, and to forget how much error they may have committed in the course of bringing them up. Nobody is in fault, in a criminal sense. Children have their excuses, and parents have their excuses; but the wiser any of us become, the less we exact from others, and the more we do to deserve their regard. The great art of