"I know the worth and honour of the Vice Chamberlain, but not being so well known to him as to your Lordship I have humbly begg'd of you to be my patron and advocate to him, and I am well assured he has ever had a just and true regard for your Lordship.

"I must beg leave to tell your Lordship that you are an honour and an ornament to dramatic poetry in particular; the knowledge of that naturally inclined me to believe your Lordship would readily endeavour to help an oppressed actor, who has had the good fortune to please the town, and sometimes your Lordship, whose judgment I would willingly stand or fall by. I never could hope to be forgiven the freedom I have taken, were not your Lordship one of the best temper'd noblemen living.

"I humbly beg that my necessity, and the justice of my cause, may prevail upon your Lordship to pardon my presumption of writing to you.

"I am, my Lord,

"Your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant,

"To the Right Honourable the Lord Lansdowne." Booth wrote twice again before he obtained his wish. The Queen added his name to the licence, which Doggett opposed in every way he possibly could, by menaces, threats, protest upon protest, &c. &c. He never would appear upon the stage after. Amongst other curious documents relative to Doggett's opposition to Booth's participation in the proprietorship are the following letters addressed to the Vice Chamberlain Coke :

"Sir,-It is now seven or eight weeks since I deliverd to you, in wrighting, as you commanded me, such proposals as I did hope you would think so reasonable, that I should have had your immediate order for my share, which I have been kept out of ever since the new license; the managers say by your direction; and Mr. Cibber has told me I must sue for it if I will have it.

A "Sir, my Lord Chamberlain did tell me my property would not be touch'd, and I had your own word for it too; and, if after that I am forcd into Westminster Hall to try whether it is or not, and shall be obligd to engage such persons in the dispute, and to provide such papers as I am very well assured are not proper to be brought there from the office, I hope it will not be imputed my fault, if I can cum at my right no other way, though I had much rather, Sir, receive it from your justice instead, that I might have greater obligations to subscribe,

"Your most obedient humble servant,

"THO. DOGGETT.

"London, Jan. 6th, 1714." "Sir, I am sorre that I am forcet upon giving you this trouble so soon as you are come to toune; while I had the power of a manager I always tooke what care I could to prevent your receiving any from the play-house, but I have been excluded from having any vote there above this twelvemonth past; and, in Nov'. last, the cash that was always loged in my hands till the end of the year, to defray such debts as should be forgott and left unpaid, was taken from me, and part of my share in the cloathes and scenes, &c., sold to Mr. Booth by the direction of Mr. Vice Chamberlain, and the rest, as I am informd, is divided between Mr. Wilks and Mr. Cibber. Upon my complaining of these injuries, Mr. Vice Chamberlain was pleased to send for me, and to promise me, if I would give an account what money I had then in my hands, and perform such other conditions as he then proposd to me, the other managers should do the like, and I should have my share. I did as he requird of me, and have since obeyd all his commands, but have not been able to obtain any manor of redress.

"Sir, I would petition his Grace the Duke of Shrewsbury, but, when I had the honour to wait upon him last, I found I had the misfortune to have fallen under his displeasure, I cannot tell for what, but could not have be

lieved I should have found such effects of it. If it is his Grace's pleasure that I should quit my business, I hope he will be pleased that I should receive a reasonable satisfaction for it without apealeing from his Grace. Sir, I hope before Fryday you will please to lett me know what I am to expect, for that I understand is the last day of acting this season, and the managers will be goe out of town to the end that they may give as much trouble and delay as they can to,

Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

"THOS. DOGGETT.

Subsequent to this Doggett, whose literary attainments appear to have been by no means extensive, filed a bill in Chancery. After two years' litigation, he was given fourteen days for deciding whether he would return to the stage to act as before, which he declined. It was then decreed that he should receive 600l. for his share of the property (Booth had previously offered him 1000/.). He took the money, and absented himself entirely from the stage.

Booth was born in Lancashire, 1681. At nine years old he went to Westminster School, where he displayed talents for Latin poetry. Was intended for the church; but, at seventeen, when about to be sent to the university, as he states in his letter to the Marquis of Lansdowne, he went to Ireland, and commenced actor. He appeared in London in 1701, and died May the 10th, 1733, of a complication of disorders, which had prevented him performing for some years.

He married a second wife, Miss Santlowe, in 1719, a pleasing actress and excellent dancer, who quitted the stage at his death. She lived till the year 1773.

YOUTH.

"O gioventù primavera della vita!”

THOU art a glorious, yet a fearful thing!
Thy worth unknown till thou art vanishing!
For when we once begin to count the store
Of days still left, thy first fresh bloom is o'er,
Whilst every hour the shrinking heart then feels
The leaden hand of time that o'er it steals,
And seeks with eagerness the faintest ray
That marks we yet pursue thy radiant way.

The earth is still the same-the sky-the sea;
But, oh! they are not as they used to be!

It was thine incense breath that made all bright,
And shed around a dew of glittering light!
E'en, like the enamell'd insect of the skies,
Whate'er approach'd thee, bore off thy rich dyes
Until of all the glittering down bereft,
Nought of thy colouring, O Youth, is left!
Too late we feel on shadows we have thrown
Freshness and truth, till quench'd is all our own
Too late we find like spendthrifts we have given,
To idle air, this precious boon of Heaven!

PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF TRISTRAM DUMPS, ESQ.

CHAP. III.

On the afternoon of the second day after my arrival in Paris, I sauntered towards the Tuilerie Gardens. As I passed through the streets teeming with bustle and animation, the Boulevards, the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendôme, I felt the full force of the poet's dictum cælum non animum, &c. I was come for diversion, but what was all this giddy crowd to me? Not one of them even cast a look upon the plain, ordinary, middle-aged gentleman before them; with not one of them had he any single object of common interest. The isolated situation in which I stand at home-if my poor sister Kitty had been more discreet and lived, how different would have been my fate!-the isolated situation in which I stand-without even a dog or cat about which I care muchthe little interest I take in the affairs of the world in general-all this often presses upon me as I perambulate the busy throng of Piccadilly or the Strand; but what is my sense of isolation, my unit feel of oneness there, compared with what assails me now, where the trackless ocean of foreign features seems widening around me on every side? At home, even the common routine of physical life-the mere mechanism of existence-creates some approximation of cases or feelings between natives of the same clime and country-but here, I am cut off from sympathy in the very necessaries of life. I hate their little bits of "rosbif de mouton," and have no other title to give their wine than that which was bestowed upon it by an oriental patriarch in the phraseology of his country and the bitterness of his heart: he called it" the brother of vinegar." Is it better in the affairs of public than of domestic life? No. I loath the flash and dash of the national spirit in politics, their fanfaronnade in the useful arts, their frippery in the ornamental-but, above all, that eternal craving for agitation and change which has produced so many political commotions-that, when I mention revolution-and I detest even the word the volatile wretches gaily ask, "laquelle ?"

Even their most serious moods have no attractions for me-the solid gloom of a coal-heaver's face, when porter rises a penny a-pot, is more congenial with my feelings than the mixture of grief and grimace which the unhappy here assume, and the desperate resource of a secret plunge over Westminster Bridge in a November fog seems less abhorrent from right and reason than an ostentatious display of "dissolving into space," as they here call suicide-or writing rhapsodies and rhodomontade over pans of charcoal.

I reached the Gardens in this frame of mind. How different are all places of public morning resort at the close of the day! The busy throng is succeeded by a few forlorn and listless loiterers-the light and tripping foot of those who resort there for pleasure has retired to the haven of a happy home, or to some other cheerful scene; there remains the languid tread of those who wander about they scarce know why-the empty chairs the lonely length of the unoccupied benches-even the remnants of the crowd, the very orange-peel and scraps of winter nosegays which lie scattered about, give an air of melancholy to the place so lately fervent with the crowd of those who are gone. Gone! What is there in

* Continued from No. ccxiv. p. 207.

that word, whose saddening import can extend itself to persons indifferent to us, if not unknown?

After wandering about for some time by myself, I perceived in a retired alley some one whose figure seemed familiar to me; he was pacing to and fro with his hat drawn partly over his eyes, and his whole air moody and forlorn. A minute or two after I first saw him he chose that unusual place and time to change his shoes for a pair he had in his pocket, carefully wrapping those he had taken off in an old newspaper, and returning them into the place of the others. It was poor DownSolomon Upsyde Down, my late companion in the malle de poste. After a mutual recognition, and some serious conversation which 'naturally fell upon the insipidity of life—of all life—but more especially of our own-he made a dead stop before the Palace, as we were strolling backwards and forwards, and exclaimed-" What a pile of building for one man and his family!"

I must here observe that, our conversation having been hitherto entirely personal, I had never considered what his ideas about "things in general" might be; nor am I usually either curious to know, or at all particular respecting the opinions of those with whom I associate, having lived too long not to be aware that every subject is enveloped in so much obscurity, either as regards its own nature, or its subsequent combinations, that we may well make every allowance for the mistakes or doubts of each other.

"What a pile of building for one man and his family!" said he ; standing with his face a little inclined upwards to survey the whole mass, and his hands folded behind him-" Thus are the kings of the earth lodged! What an immense outlay of the public money!"

66

I began to think that he was a Rad. Well, Sir," said I, willing to humour his fancy-" let us consider what might be made of it; if you and I were to accomplish a revolution, to what purpose of public utility should we put it? What a famous 'local' it would afford for some of the new schemes of education!" He here began to twitch his left elbow, and to be otherwise agitated.

"What a grand Polygnostomousathlesitechnic University it would make! there would be room not only for all the sciences, arts, trades, &c. &c., but for professors of all the languages of the known world, from the little nucleus of fourteen 'tongues' between Vienna and Constantinople, to those which lie scattered nearest the North and South Poles. The students might enjoy a few minutes of each amongst these various advantages in one day, and have time besides to see a short chemical experiment, take a glance of the anatomy of a human great toe,another with the geologist of the vertebræ of a megalo, plesio, or ichthiosaurus-enjoy a mental dive with the mineralogist into the crater of a volcano-a peep at the stars from yonder cupola-and walk through the arts in the gallery of the Louvre, which, I presume we should not destroy."

"I perceive, Sir," said he, "that you are inclined to be merry." "You are the first person who ever told me so," I replied.

"But," continued he, "I loath the modern quackery about education, and your' Penny Magazines' with their elephants and Laocoons,

Note by the friend of Mr. Dumps.-This name is compounded of five Greek words, signifying-Everything.

apes and Apollos, Rossinis and road-makers, Chesterfields and commerce, to make a chaos of the brains of every London apprentice; or, what is, perhaps, worse, their philosophy and politics, menageries and manufactures, their spiders and spinning-jennies, their bears and Bacon, to frighten or puzzle the domestic circle of a cotter's fire-side. In regard to the latter, indeed, I quite agree with a late eminent writer, and friend of the agricultural poor, that it would be much better if we could teach them how to procure and to eat bacon' than to read him."

"He is certainly a Conservative," thought I; and the last desideratum about the pig almost made me set him down as a Hampshire squire.

"No, Sir," continued he, "I hope never to see the Tuileries turned into such a miscellaneous menagerie, such a zoological or wild-beastclub as that. Hay and straw are good enough for them. Silks and satins, bronzes and marbles, crystals and velvet, enamel and or-molu, are made for those who understand the world and the people a little better."

"That," thought I, " is like a Whig."

"Conceive, Sir," he continued, stopping again in front of the magnificent pile," conceive the splendour of those galleries and saloons, when the brown Holland covers are taken off the furniture, and a flood of light is poured down from a profusion of chandeliers, glancing from mirror to mirror, and shooting a ray from every gilt or polished angle upon the favoured few who are admitted within the royal precincts. There gleams the diamond in the tiara of the fair-the star upon the noble's breast-the gaudy trappings of the warrior's form-the many-coloured beauties of the courtly throng,-these, Sir, are the persons for whom such things were made."

The unction with which he thus expatiated upon the glories of the palace seemed to light up a new fire within him.

"He is an avowed aristocrat, at all events," thought I.

"What a scene must the twelfth of August have been in Ninety-two!" he continued; "and how lucky it was that matters were so quietly managed on the glorious three days! I wonder what the whole would fetch at Christie's?"

There are moments in conversation as when, with a tight shoe, and a corn on every toe, the foot comes in contact with a projecting stone-an ejaculation, internal or expressed-a pull-up, a limp, and then a fresh start with an altered gait.

I looked in his face to see whether he had hitherto been imposing upon me, or whether I could descry indications of the "out-and-outer," the least sign of a "go the whole," or of anything in short (for which I should have been truly thankful) that would throw light upon the current of his ideas; but all was calm, single-purposed as the face of a child, and an interrogative "umph?" calling upon me for an answer, extracted only" Upon my-I don't know."

"That is what my brother-in-law, Sir George, always says when I ask him similar questions about the timber and live stock upon the two estates of Wyvercliffe and Dugdale," replied Down, quietly.

The conversation then took another turn, but nothing ensued which at all helped to enlighten me; on the contrary, his affairs puzzled me as much as his principle. He talked of his residence in Portland Place,