spouted and "strutted my little hour;" creating incidents, inventing speeches, and personating characters; nor is it at all unlikely, that, at this period, and by these exercises, was sown the first germ of a predilection (strengthening as time rolled on) for that profession, which, for forty years, has been my happy lot in life. One characteristical circumstance, however, that grew out of this histrionic mania, must have its place in these "Recollections" of my early days. A short time after my introduction to the drama, the usual summons to our dinner, wont to be obeyed with the utmost promptitude, did not bring me to the table till after the commencement of the meal - "Where have you "been, Richard?" said my father. I was mute." Why is your jacket so closely buttoned "this hot day?"— My colour changed; but still I spoke not. "What's the matter with the "boy? Why don't you answer me? Open your "coat immediately, child." - The tone of the command forbade all delay. I "blushed celes"tial rosy red"-unloosed the garment-and down dropped a naked carving knife, with which I had been enacting the heroic character of Macduff; and inflicting on an empty barrel, the vengeance justly due to the foul murderer of the "gentle Duncan." It may be violating the order of strict chronology, perhaps, but at the same time it will preserve the unity of subject, if I mention now, instead of further on, a trifling incident, to which, though it occurred before I was six years old, I cannot cast a retrospective eye, without a strange and mixed emotion of pleasure and of melancholy. My elder sister, whose pure and gentle spirit has, I trust, been long in blessedness; and whose heart to its last beat, throbbed only with kindliness and love; contrived a little plan for the indulgence of my propensity to dramatic recitation, which afforded a delight both to the performers and their audience, as perfect in kind, and as high in degree, as was, perhaps, ever experienced or expressed, in any of the grown-up theatres of ancient or modern times. A short and pleasing dramatic pastoral called Lindamira, of one act; three scenes; and as many characters, personated by my two sisters. and myself; was the piece chosen for this memorable purpose. Pathos, with an utter exclusion of the terrible, characterised the composition; but, as I was to figure on the boards both as a lover and a hero, this double personification amply consoled me for the absence of every thing strictly tragic in the representation. A room in the house to which my father had recently removed his family, suited admirably for the performance of our pastoral, which was entirely got up without the knowledge of any human being save those who composed its dra matis persona. The deep bow-window at the extremity of this parlour, served the double purposes of the green-room and the stage: the curtain that stretched across it (divided as it was in the middle), on being partially undrawn, disclosing "ample room and verge enough" for exhibition; and the undrawn half, concealing another portion of the bow, for attiring, change of dress, the entrances and the exits. No sooner had the tea and its accompaniments disappeared, than, to the surprise of our parents, the performers withdrew behind the curtain; but how did their marvelling swell into astonishment, when on the removal of the half-drapery, they saw and heard the hero Anselmo (enacted by myself), in loud and long soliloquy, pouring forth and gesticulating every impassioned expression of jealousy, rage, and despair! The principal actor was, I conclude, most ably supported, for (let the reader smile if it please him so to do) never did a crowded house on a benefit night, feel or evince more unalloyed pleasure and genuine sympathy, than glowed in the hearts, and glistened in the eyes, of our enchanted father and mother. After a lapse of more than fifty years I took a transient survey of the dwelling, which had been the scene of this, and many other of my early joys. The mansion itself was recollected, from its central situation in one of the streets of Marylebone, and from the pyramidal termination of its front; but I looked in vain for those accompaniments, which had rendered it so interesting to my careless childhod. The memorable bow-window was no where to be found; a flat wall and modern casement occupied its place. The neat little garden into which it opened, at whose further end, was anciently the spot devoted to the exercise of my horticultural skill, appeared to have been covered with unseemly workshops: and the noble meadow immediately behind it (a part of Wellan's farm), where the kite had wont to fly, the cowslip to be gathered, and better than all, the bowl of milk to be quaffed, pure, warm, and foaming from the udder, was covered with a long succession of gigantic streets and gorgeous mansions, in comparison with which, my residence in times of yore, whose front I used fondly to regard as the most comely in the neighbourhood, was a diminutive hovel ! The incident, however, just related, is, as I before remarked, an anticipation, it having occurred (during my holidays) some months after I had been initiated into the mysteries of systematic education; or, in other words, sent to a boarding-school, on the completion of my fifth year. Ill betide the fame of that poet, who could transgress so grossly against common sense and common experience, as to sing, "Happy! thrice happy! is the school-boy's lot! disguising, in a mendacious couplet, some of the sorest miseries of human life. Assuredly he must have been some hapless orphan, to whom the Limen amabile matris et osculum were utterly unknown; or some more miserable varlet, who had endured, at his own wretched dwelling, all the capricious tyranny of an irascible stepmother: for, independently of those "ills to come," which Gray so pathetically enumerates as "awaiting" the school-boy in after life; the present sufferings of a little Tyro, like myself, of only five years' standing in the world, suddenly severed from a home of peace, and a circle of love; from countless tender offices, and well-timed soothing caresses; and thrown among a tumultuary rabble of seventy or eighty stranger-lads (like all other crowds), rude, insolent, and inhuman: - the state of feeling, I repeat, excited in such a tiny exile from home, by so sad a reverse in circumstances, is as unlike a state of happiness, as the condition of the writhing toad, under the sharp teeth of the scarifying harrow. - To experience this miserable contrast, however, an imperious propriety demanded that I should now be called; and on one murky |